The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People

The last play written by Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, is set in London during the end of the Victorian Era. With Wilde being one of the best representatives of the Aesthetic Movement, it is only natural that his most popular play be full of the wit, humor, and flamboyance that characterizes the works of that time. Rather than being centered around the development of a character, this production can be considered a “farce” in the way that it humorously exploits a situation. The protagonist of the play, Jack Worthing, best conveys Wilde’s contempt for the conventional values of the Victorian Era by creating a double life so as to escape his moral duties and social obligations. His comrade, Algernon, also shares these feelings and joins Jack’s pursuit of an enjoyable, second life. To represent the stiff values of the Victorian women is the character Gwendolen, who is convinced that a man with the name Ernest will share the qualities of his name. Jack falls in love with Gwendolen under his alias, Ernest, and gets tangled up in the lies he has created. A foil to Gwendolen is Cecily, the woman that takes up an interest with Algernon. While both are equally obsessed with the name Ernest (and Cecily is under the impression that this is Algernon’s name), Gwendolen represents an opinionated and strong headed woman who is caught up in appearances, while Cecily is more natural and free spirited. Jack and Algernon are also foils, in the way that Jack denies all claims to his alternate ego in fear that his misdemeanors will come back to haunt him, but Algernon revels in his clever scheme and makes fun out of it. These four main characters magnificently depict Wilde’s satire of Victorian Society, and through the epigrams with which they speak one can easily understand the stabs that Wilde takes to the world he lives in. He makes aestheticism desirable to the audience by showing the fun and excitement of enjoying life without the guilt of escaping ones duties. While the characters may show some undesirable characteristics, they suffer no consequences and everything turns out in their favor in the end. The Importance of Being Earnest not only represents the Aesthetic Movement in the way that it entertains the audience through its situational comedy and inventive plot, but also with its content, which exploits the characteristics that are the true backbone of the movement.