Some people actually have multiple personalities as a result of a disorder, while others, for various reasons, create another personality. Bunbury, is an example of such a personality that Algernon Moncrieff, one of the main characters in Oscar Wilde’s play, The Importance of being Earnest, creates as a means of getting away from real life. Of course, Algernon is not the only one with another identity or personality, Jack Worthing, the protagonist of the play, actually living as the persona of ‘Earnest’ when he resides in London. Algernon actually comes up with a name for this act of creating an alter ego to get away from responsibility; he refers to this as ‘Bunburying.’ Although Bunburying is merely a word that Algernon makes and derives the name of his alter ego from it, in this paper I will attempt to examine the meaning of the term Bunburying in the context of the play and the broader context of Wilde’s life.
Dual identities and dual life is the central theme in Oscar Wilde’s play, The Importance of being Earnest, is a central metaphor. This metaphor is a subset of the theme of hypocrisy, which is not only a major theme in Wilde’s play but was also a scathing problem pervading the Victorian society. Wilde explores thoroughly explores the significance of the metaphor of dual identities in the Victorian society, and this metaphor is primarily reflected in the concept of the term “Bunbury” and “Bunburying. Critics have claimed that that Wilde used the word Bunburying to cover for homosexual liaisons, which will be discussed later. However, perhaps the most plausible explanation of Bunburying in the context of the play is that it is a symbol of the deceit or empty promises of the Victorian era. The creation of Bunbury and Earnest, the alter egos of the play’s main characters, is deceitful since they do not really exist.
Algemon defines Bunburying as the practice in which a complex and detailed deception is created so that a person can indulge in misconduct while it will seem that the highest standards of obligation and responsibility are being upheld by the person. Jack creates an imaginary, whimsical brother, Earnest, not only as a means to escape moral and social obligations but to make himself seem far more responsible and virtuous than he really is. Similarly, Algemon creates an imaginary invalid friend by the name of Burnbury, as a means of escaping to the country. This supposedly allows him to seemingly exhibit Christian charity, all the while deceiving the people who do not know him very well, such as Cecily, who he also deceives as well. In the Victorian era, it was an important practice to visit the sick. Thus, having a friend who remains ill gives Algemon an excuse to ‘visit’ his sick friend whenever he pleases.
Although both Algemon and Jack use Bunburying for their own gain, in order to escape their own individual social obligations. However, there is a slight difference in how Jack and Algernon use Bunburying. If it was not for Algernon’s imaginary friend and his extraordinary illness, Algernon would have to fulfill all of those social obligations, but by visiting his sick friend, even though he does not exists, unintentionally depicts him as a courteous and generous person. Jack, on the other hand, actually intentionally begins living as his alter ego; he becomes someone else, so that he himself is seen as completely virtuous. Perhaps this why Algernon calls Jack “one of the most advanced Bunburyists” he knew. The deceptive way in which Jack uses Bunburyism suggests a far more serious and thorough degree of hypocrisy. Thus, the way the characters enact dual identities in the play, Wilde uses Bunburyism to suggest that the Victorian mindset was typically quite hypocritical.
Another more plausible significance of the term Bunburyism in the context of the play is that it serves as a way of getting away from oppressive marriages and not just social obligations. As Algemon says, “A man who marries without knowing Bunbury has a very tedious time of it” (Wilde). Of course, this secrecy was also an aspect of Wilde’s homosexual life, and by the time the play had opened in London, this fact had already unraveled before Victorian audiences. Thus, by revealing Algernon’s flippant attitudes about marrying and inclination to continue Bunburying even after marriage, Wilde is representing his side that did not conform to societal norms and he ended up facing a notorious trial because of it, leading to his downfall. On, one level may seem that Wilde is simply satirizing the Victorian concept of “married bliss,” but on a more serious note, Wilde has used Bunburying to reveal a darker subset of the play.
Although both Algernon and Cecily want to enjoy marital bliss together, Bunburyism is one of the two obstacles that delay this from happening until the end of the play. As far as Cecily is concerned, she says “it had always been a girlish dream of mine to love some one whose name was Ernest [] I pity any poor married woman whose husband is not called Ernest” (Wilde). Her desire to marry someone who is named Ernest and admitting that she cannot love Algernon because she cannot give him her “undivided attention” is also an allusion to Buburyism. In fact, Algernon’s Bunburyism itself is an obstacle to their union. Bunburying is Algernon’s most serious pastime and he says, “Nothing will induce me to part with Bunbury, and if I ever get married, I will be very glad to know Bunbury” (Wilde). Algernon’s inclination to remain a Burburyist after marriage suggests that Victorian husbands were apparently leading dual lives.
Ever since Wilde publicly revealed his sexuality, critics have been looking at Wilde’s play from many different angles. The period in which Wilde grew up, homosexuality was not as openly accepted as it is today. When it comes to the term ‘Bunburying,’ critics like Christopher Craft and Joel Fineman suggest that Wilde devised the word to reflect his desire to have a dual identity he could use as an escape in times of need, just like the characters in his play. Fineman even asserts that the term Bunburying was actually a “British slang for a male brothel” and that it expresses the desire of homosexuals to “bury in the bun” (Fineman). According to Patricia Behrendt, the term Bunburying blatantly conjures the image of Wilde by accused of “posing as a sodomite” by Lord Queensberry. The word Bunbury has also been regarded as a “the term for a homosexual pickup” (Zatlin).
Despite these claims, none of these assertions seem to have any historical ground. Throughout the 1st and 8th editions of A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English by Eric Partridge, there is no reference to the word ‘buns’ meaning ‘buttocks.’ Even in John Farmer's Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present from 1904, the word ‘buns’ has several different meanings, none of which are a reference to homosexual tendencies. Thus, using the word buns as referring to the buttocks is a more modern slang that would have most likely not have been used in this context in Wilde’s time. All this contradicts any claims that Wilde’s play contains homosexual undertones, and the evidence that suggests this is not concrete. If, for argument’s sake, Wilde had intentionally used the word ‘Bunburying’ in his play in terms of the meanings suggested by critics, he would have most likely not have gotten away with it in his time.
In conclusion, Bunburying is a made up word after all, a word that Oscar Wilde made up, and the only plausible way to explain a plausible meaning and significance was to delve into the play itself and analyze it accordingly. Although, as mentioned, critics have tried to give the Bunburying a homosexual meaning and significance, and despite the fact that Wilde himself was a homosexual, there is no concrete evidence that is able to prove this. In fact, as Jeremy Lalonde suggests, “identifying a fully constituted homosexual subject in the play is anachronistic” (Lalonde). Thus, it is quite apparent that the Victorian society was rather hypocritical, the people had reasons to be hypocrites, to create dual identities, and since Wilde wrote The Importance of Being Earnest as a social criticism, he uses the term Bunburying to criticize the Victorian dualism and hypocrisy.
Works Cited
Craft, Christopher. "Alias Bunbury: Desire and Termination in The Importance of Being Earnest." Representations. 31 (1990): 19-46. Print.
Fineman, Joel. "The Significance of Literature: "The Importance of Being Earnest"." October. 15. (1980): 79-90. Print.
Lalonde, Jeremy. "The Importance of Being Earnest as Social Criticism." Modern Drama. 48.4 (2005): 659-676. Print.
Wilde, Oscar. The importance of being earnest and other plays. New York: Random House, Inc., 2003. Print.
Zatlin, Linda Gertner. Aubrey Beardsley and Victorian Sexual Politics (Clarendon Studies in the History of Art). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. Print.
