The Importance of Being Earnest, a play by Oscar Wilde, is often considered a classic, and ahead of its time in terms of social commentary. The play, a comedy of errors in which people put on fictitious personalities to get what they want, touches on the triviality of Victorian culture and the institution of marriage, among other things. Wilde's work delights in its ravaging of the continental lifestyle that many rich people in the Victorian era experienced, the play does not reach to the point of moralizing, or providing solutions or lessons to be learned from the work. Instead, the play is far from a superficial comedy, poking fun at these conventions while not strictly providing a social message to accompany it. Instead, the play itself is merely meant to be funny for comedy's sake, but as a treatise on the evils of high society. Throughout The Importance of Being Earnest, morality, marriage, Victorian prurience and respectability are thoroughly lampooned, as its protagonists repeatedly violate the conventions of good taste in order to meet their own ends.
Romance is but one of Oscar Wilde's targets for humor in The Importance of Being Earnest. In particular, Wilde seeks to make fun of those people who are overly romantic about their lives and about relationships (Ellmann 74). Cecily, for example, as an impressionable, naive and romantic young girl, makes up a handsome suitor for herself - Ernest - and writes letters from him addressed to her. Cecily romanticizes this fictional relationship to the point where, when she finally gets engaged to the man pretending to be Ernest, she pretends that they have been engaged for three months prior to that. In both her and Gwendolyn's diaries, they talk about their lives not for their own edification, but in the hopes that they will be published (and therefore famous). By doing this, they elevate their lives beyond what they really are for the sake of fame. Oscar Wilde shows us all of these attempts at exacerbating and exaggerating one's lives and romances for attention or drama, but does not wish to prevent it from happening (Bloom 45). To Wilde's mind, this phenomenon is silly and worthy of ridicule, and it is presented as a systemic problem that needs to be addressed in a serious manner. These notices are trivialities, negligible in the grand scheme of things, and Wilde jokes about them in order to point out how frivolous these societal conventions can be.
Wilde's treatment of romance, in particular, carries with it an incredible amount of parody regarding the courtly attributes given to love in Victorian Society. In one scene, Cecily recounts the typical Victorian ideal of a star-crossed romance by reading off her "diary" the tale of how she was engaged to Ernest, reads love letters from him (that she wrote herself), then retells the way they broke off their engagement, and then got re-engaged. She treats the drama with little fanfare, accepting it (even embracing it) as the way things are with Victorian romances: "Today I broke off my engagement with Ernest. The weather still continues charming" (Wilde). Here, we see Wilde showcasing just how silly the idea of love at first sight is; his characters are so desperate to fulfill these societal roles and expectations that they resort to making it up to make it count. This cognitive dissonance even happens when Gwendolen, the personification of ideal Victorian love, which is taken from "the more expensive monthly magazines," promises Jack that "although [Bracknell] may prevent us from becoming man and wife, and I may marry someone else, and marry often, nothing can alter my eternal devotion to you" (Wilde). This level of devotion is revealed to be nonsensical and dubious in its sincerity, especially as she goes through the motions of courtly love while acknowledging that other plans will likely be made.
A much broader and socially relevant topic covered by Oscar Wilde in the play is the subject of marriage. At the time, marriage was essentially a business transaction, meant for mutual convenience and advantage for both families involved. There is no passion in marriages in the play, as there were not in Victorian times; in fact, marriage for personal relationships is openly joked about in the play. “I am not in favour of long engagements. They give people the opportunity to find out one’s character before marriage, which is never advisable" (Wilde 70). Even Lady Bracknell describes the precarious divide between business and love in the forming of a marriage when she says, "An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant, as the case may be" (Wilde 17). Here, Wilde uses his characters to describe marriage as just another expected and necessary part of Victorian society, the institution coming with its own set of expectations and problems that are not fixed, merely accepted. Marriage, much like many other things in Victorian society at the time, is used as a barometer to gauge social worth, class and income, as well as determine the virtue of the suitor in question. By showing just how ridiculous this premise is, Wilde's use of satire mines these societal expectations for many moments of comedy throughout the play.
The whole play actually talks about the idea of whether or not marriage is "pleasant or unpleasant," with Lane stating that it is, even though his own marriage came about as a misunderstanding. Algernon is also very cynical about marriage, only coming around when he meets and falls for Cecily. The difference between "niceness" and honesty in a marriage is summed up fairly well with Jack, who says that the truth “isn’t quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl" (Wilde 23). Gwendolyn is equally distrustful of marriage, even as she forgives Jack for his deceptions, because she believes that he will change into a more honest person. When Wilde depicts the emptiness of these unions, he is condemning them for their superficiality, and the cynicism by which Victorian couples viewed this institution - which leads to unhappy marriages and a broken society in the first place. This is yet another example of the broken, hypocritical nature of Victorian life that is the subject of Wilde's ire, as marriage is perverted for both economic gain and mistaken notions of what love really is.
Wilde also addresses the issue of education in the rich and upper class citizens of the Victorian Era. As the rich often placed a great emphasis on education and academics, they may have also forgotten social graces or decorum. Wilde satirizes this with characters like Lady Bracknell, who is perpetually crass and rude with her questions and inquiries (Bloom 66). She always asks impertinent queries including the person's age and their level of income. While she is academically smart, she does not have social education, making Lady Bracknell an abrasive but endearing figure. Wilde, in his portrayal of this character, meant to use this character to create laughs and generate hilarious moments, instead of portraying the character as a tragic figure plagued by the lack of social education she was allotted. There is little to no consequence to her flaws, but for her simple awkwardness and the generation of humor for the audience. To that end, Wilde wanted to show a character with no social graces who relied too much on her academic education to support herself as an independently intelligent woman.
Widle's treatment of morality itself throughout the play is further evidence of his predilection towards irreverence - embraces the silliness of the way society at the time behaved in order to point out what needed to be changed. Algernon, for example, believes that it is up to the lower classes to set the standards of behavior and morality for the upper crust. "More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read," he says, making his ignorance even more transparent and making a blanket statement on Victorian culture as a whole. Because of all of the caveats and restrictions that take place in Victorian society, it is easy to see that Wilde wants these ideas to change. The strict adherence to Victorian morality is the target of Wilde's prose; the author feels as though there shouldn't be as big an emphasis on strict rules and creating rigid codes for "being a good person" (Ellmann 53). Jack and Algernon's looser ethical framework, by which they take on their alternate identities, is shown to be at least preferable to the stiff, uncompromising and morally bankrupt Victorian society of the time.
The title itself is a play on Wilde's perspective on morality - satirizing the idea that it is "important" to be "earnest," Wilde believes instead that people should lighten up and be more irreverent. So many characters in the play take themselves far too seriously - Jack, Miss Prism, Dr. Chasuble and Gwendolyn - and are mocked by the play for it through the hardships they have to endure by keeping up their various charades (Bloom 9). To that end, Wilde is not advocating a serious social message; to do so would be to become one of the subjects he is satirizing. Instead, he wishes for people to note how silly they are being, and not take their morality and activities too seriously.
Many characters, virtuous and charismatic in their own right, resort to deceit and hypocrisy to get what they want. However, this is often viewed as inventiveness, as Wilde simply wishes to show the foolish upper class characters get their comeuppance. When Jack pretends that his brother Ernest has died, he makes his loved ones believe that this fictional person has died as well. While this is shown as being somewhat unscrupulous, Algernon does the same thing by inventing his own life in order to elevate it. In this way, he is inventive instead of hypocritical, just the kind of man Wilde would appreciate. However, Wilde saying that we should be aware of our hypocrisies and understand what it is about us that causes them (Raby et al. 87).
According to Wilde, it is impossible to be self-consciously moral; the most virtuous people in the play are those who accept that they are wicked and engage in trivial matters. Acknowledging that triviality is an important part of growth of the characters of the play, and Wilde demonstrates that accordingly. This is in no way a means of enacting social change; the attitudes that force or advocate social change are often the ones being satirized. By taking life and manners too seriously, these characters become miserable or pathetic. Wilde wants the characters (and the audience) to lighten up and have some fun with life.
This message Wilde wishes to present is reflected in the play's title: the play is, otensibly, about the "importance" of being "earnest," or at least asks the question, "is it important to be earnest?" Whether in love or in society, the seriousness of Victorian society is Wilde's primary source of satire. Should Victorian-era Englishmen and women take their lives so seriously, or commit so wholeheartedly to a potentially false, but ideal notion of wealth and love? The true answer lies in Algernon's lecture he gives to Jack:
"Well, one must be serious about something, if one wants to have any amusement in life. I happen to be serious about Bunburying. What on earth you are serious about I haven't got the remotest idea. About everything, I should fancy. You have an absolutely trivial nature" (Wilde).
Bunburying, in the play, refers to the act of making up a new identity, which both Algernon and Jack are guilty of in the play. However, Algernon states here that the act of deception is itself an act of earnestness - he is utterly serious and committed to the notion of lying to help himself or others. In other words, he is deathly serious about not being deathly serious, which is the overall message Wilde wishes to impart. Through the act of pretending to be other people, Algernon and Jack are merely being honest with themselves, using Bunburying to achieve their own ends in accordance with what they want. It is a convenient and fun way to skirt Victorian conventions of obligation, responsibility and devotion, which have been foisted upon them without much say in the matter. Given the choice between stiffly accepting the restrictions of their culture, and working between the lines to get what they want, Bunburying becomes the most "earnest" thing anyone does in the play.
In conclusion, Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest is a tale of upending Victorian conventions of duty, marriage, romance and class by both showing just how false the existing conventions of society were, while offering an intellectually honest alternative to get what one wants (Bunburying). Jack and Algernon, in their mischief, find a way to make themselves happy in a culture that merely pretends that what should make them happy (romantic love at first sight, being rich, etc.) does. Romance is shown to be impractical and easily manufactured, quick marriage for the purposes of wealth and status is an unreasonable expectation to have, and what is thought to be pleasant is shown by Wilde to not necessarily match these assumptions. Victorian society is depicted by Wilde as a widely hypocritical society that is constrained by antiquated notions of morality, instead of freeing up people to have fun and earnestly follow their own life paths. Jack and Algernon's rebellion, therefore, takes on a new level of significance, as through this morally grey act of deception, they are being truer to themselves than anyone else in the play.
Works Cited
Bloom, Harold (2008). Oscar Wilde. Bloom's Literary Criticism. New York: Infobase.
Ellmann, Richard. Oscar Wilde. New York: Vintage Books.1988. Print.
Raby, Peter. Oscar Wilde. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, 1988. Print.
Raby, Peter, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde. London: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Print.
Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest. 1895. Print.
