THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

THEMES

Lies and DeceitLies and Deceit

MarriageMarriage

Respect and ReputationRespect and Reputation

Society and ClassSociety and Class

GenderGender

Versions of Reality: RomanceVersions of Reality: Romance

LoveLove

Foolishness and FollyFoolishness and Folly

LIES AND DECEITThe most prevalent reason characters in The

Importance of Being Earnestlie is to get out of social or familial duties and do something more enjoyable.

Not surprisingly, few characters hold honesty in high regard. However, we see how hard it is for them to set things straight once they’ve lied about them. As the situation gets increasingly complicated, characters must weave more complex lies to get out of the tangles of their previous lies. Eventually they reach the point where lies will no longer work and the truth is revealed. Perhaps the most striking thing is that none of the characters ever shows true remorse or guilt about lying.

MARRIAGEThe big question The Importance of Being Earnest raises is

whether marriage is pleasurable... or a restrictive social duty.In general, the older generation thinks of marriage as a means to an end, a way of maintaining or bettering your social position. If you want to get married, you submit to an interrogation: "State your name, rank, and serial number." The number that matters in this case, however, is your income; you'd better have bank.

You also need to have an acceptable title, along with the parents to prove it. The hot-blooded youngsters think they are interested in love. One of the huge ironies in the play—and what makes it a satire of Victorian society—is that, in the end, nobody really breaks the rules. They color within the lines, and marry exactly the type of person their society expects them to.

RESPECT AND REPUTATION

In The Importance of Being Earnest, the upper classes care about being respectable—so much so that they do a lot of lying about it.

In general, Victorian upper-class society holds slightly different expectations of men and women. Men need to be upstanding, rich, and from a good family. Women need to be upstanding, rich, from a good family, and chaste. Any deviation from the rules (being born poor, or being found in a handbag, in Jack's case) may prevent a young person from making a good match, and continuing his noble line.

SOCIETY AND CLASS

The Importance of Being Earnest reveals the differences between the behavior of the upper class and that of the lower class. Members of the upper class display a great deal of pride and pretense, feeling that they are inherently entitled to their wealth and higher social position. They are so preoccupied with maintaining the status quo that they quickly squash any signs of rebellion.

In this play, Wilde satirizes the arrogance and hypocrisy of the aristocracy. The lower classes in Earnest are less pretentious and more humble... but equally good at making jokes.

GENDERIn The Importance of Being Earnest, the question of

each gender’s role in society often centers on power. In the Victorian world of this play, men have greater influence than women. Men make the political decisions for their families, while women work around the house, quietly taking care of the children.

Men are valued for their intellect and judgment, while women are attractive to men for their beauty and chastity. However, Wilde raises interesting questions about gender roles in The Importance of Being Earnest by putting women (like Lady Bracknell) in positions of power and by showing that men (i.e., Jack and Algernon) can be irresponsible and bad at decision-making.

VESIONS OF REALITY: ROMANCE

In The Importance of Being Earnest, pampered young women have a skewed sense of reality, inspired by romantic novels. When real life gets too boring, these women decide to take matters into their own hands by recording their fantasies in diaries.

Potential lovers enter the picture and provide an opportunity to act out the fantasies, but the women’s expectations of courtship often prove too whimsical and idealistic for reality. There’s no tragic disillusionment here, though. Just marriages, and lots of them. Earnest is a comedy, after all.

LOVE

In The Importance of Being Earnest, it is often hard to distinguish Wilde’s notion of romance from that of real love. Readers must settle for a decidedly un-modern definition of love. For example, in Earnest physical beauty—both female and male—can initiate and sustain a love affair.

Forgiveness is an ingredient of love as well. Both women forgive the men for their earlier deceptions when they discover the good intentions behind their crimes. It seems that the definition of love in this play is not so much an unconditional and self-sacrificing love, but a general attitude of good intentions, admiration, and honest affection.

FOOLISHNESS AND FOLLYIn The Importance of Being Earnest, the characters’

foolishness is the core of the comedy. Often, we don’t know whether a character says something contradictory or random in a serious way, or if the character is just joking. This ambiguity in tone makes readers both slightly uncomfortable and prone to laughter.

Wilde shows his characters’ folly in a number of ways: spinning something that is out of human control as if it were a simple matter of mundane choice, inverting aphorisms so that they mean the opposite of what common sense dictates, and simply juxtaposing random things so that they create an absurd situation.