Thinking Activity Importance of Being Earnest

Importance of Being Earnest

Hello Readers, I am writing down answers to some questions in this blog. Which is given by Dr. Dilip Barad sir, Department of English Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University.

The Importance of Being Earnest is a play by Oscar Wilde, first performed in 1895. The play tells the story of two men, Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, who both assume the identity of a fictional man named Ernest, leading them both to fall in love and find an assortment of problems along the way. The full title of the work is The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People. The title of the comedy is a play on words, with the two men deceiving those around them by using the name Ernest, while the word ''earnest'' means both serious and sincere. The play is anything but serious, and the characters are anything but sincere in their names. Multiple characters bring this comedy to life. Among them are Jack Worthing, Cecily Cardew, Algernon Moncrieff, Gwendolen Fairfax, Lady Bracknell, Miss Prism, and Dr. Chasuble.

The character of Jack Worthing

Jack Worthing, the play’s protagonist, was discovered as an infant by the late Mr. Thomas Cardew in a handbag in the cloakroom of a railway station in London. Jack has grown up to be a seemingly responsible and respectable young man, a major landowner and Justice of the Peace in Hertfordshire, where he has a country estate. In Hertfordshire, where he is known by what he imagines to be his real name, Jack, he is a pillar of the community. He is the guardian to Mr. Cardew’s granddaughter, Cecily, and has other duties and people who depend on him, including servants, tenants, farmers, and the local clergyman. For years, he has also pretended to have an irresponsible younger brother named Ernest, whom he is always having to bail out of some mischief. In fact, he himself is the reprobate brother Ernest. Ernest is the name Jack goes by in London, where he really goes on these occasions. The fictional brother is Jack’s alibi, his excuse for disappearing from Hertfordshire and going off to London to escape his responsibilities and indulge in exactly the sort of behavior he pretends to disapprove of in his brother.

More than any other character in the play, Jack Worthing represents conventional Victorian values: he wants others to think he adheres to such notions as duty, honor, and respectability, but he hypocritically flouts those very notions. Indeed, what Wilde was actually satirizing through Jack was the general tolerance for hypocrisy in conventional Victorian morality. Jack uses his alter-ego, Ernest, to keep his honorable image intact. Ernest enables Jack to escape the boundaries of his real life and act as he wouldn’t dare to under his real identity. Ernest provides a convenient excuse and disguises for Jack, and Jack feels no qualms about invoking Ernest whenever necessary. Jack wants to be seen as upright and moral, but he doesn’t care what lies he has to tell his loved ones in order to be able to misbehave. Though Ernest has always been Jack’s unsavory alter ego, as the play progressesJack must aspire to become Ernest, in name if not behavior. Until he seeks to marry Gwendolen, Jack has used Ernest as an escape from real life, but Gwendolen’s fixation on the name Ernest obligates Jack to embrace his deception in order to pursue the real life he desires. Jack has always managed to get what he wants by using Ernest as his fallback, and his lie eventually threatens to undo him. Though Jack never really gets his comeuppance, he must scramble to reconcile his two worlds in order to get what he ultimately desires and to fully understand who he is.

Jack as Older Brother

Even before he knows he’s an older brother, Jack acts like an older brother. As a guardian to Cecily, he’s used to set down rules, even guiding curriculum, as we see in the tutoring scene with Miss Prism. Jack is bossy. In the first scene, he liberally dispenses "shoulds" to Algernon. Jack has no problem giving out one piece of advice after another: one shouldn’t read a private cigarette case, shouldn’t discuss modern culture, shouldn’t talk like a dentist, etc.

Jack isn't any less dishonest than Algernon, but he is more serious about keeping up his air of respectability. When he finally comes out with the truth about Cecily, "who addresses me as her uncle from motives of respect that [Algernon] could not possibly appreciate," he takes pains to separate himself from Algernon, who is "hardly serious enough"

Jack also has a bit of that older sibling control thing, enhanced by a tendency to get in bad moods when things don’t go his way. Wilde describes Jack's reaction as "irritable" three times in the play: when Algernon rushes him when Lady Bracknell quizzes him on Cecily’s background, and when the same lady can’t remember his father’s first name. Jack is as willing as Algernon to humiliate himself to get what he wants—the entrance with him dressed all in mourning is priceless—but he’s less amused when things turn out badly:

Jack: This ghastly state of things is what you call Bunburying, I suppose?

Algernon: Yes, and a perfectly wonderful Bunbury it is. The most wonderful Bunbury I have ever had in my life.

Algernon enjoys the social game, while Jack wants results.

Jack on the Social Ladder

The men are also distinct from each other in terms of their taste in women. Jack is attracted to Gwendolen, a "sensible, intellectual girl". Gwendolen is a sophisticated city woman, and her style and education make her desirable to Jack. So does her good name—a department in which Jack, socially speaking at least, could stand to improve. Even before Jack discovers his true origins, he has a lot to gain from marriage into the Bracknell family (though he’ll have to deal with Lady Bracknell on a continual basis).

Analyze the play Importance of Being Earnest as a social critique.

Jack also represents the upper class but he is much better than Algernon in certain respects. He is a responsible guardian and a serious type of young man. While Algernon is too light-hearted, Jack is too serious-minded. His very solemnity is made to look ridiculous. Cecily opines that her Uncle Jack sometimes looks so serious as to give the impression that he is unwell. His over-seriousness may be found in his refusal to go either to the theatre, to the club, or to the empire.

The portrayal of Lady Bracknell is perhaps the most satirical of all. Through her portrayal, the playwright exposes and ridicules the foibles, absurdities, and vanity of the upper-class ladies of his time. Lady Bracknell claims to have a taste for music but she would like her nephew to make the selection of the numbers to be played at her party. Her principal absurdities are her snobbery, class consciousness, her mercenary outlook on life, suspicious nature, and her domineering temperament.

The next two characters outside the aristocracy are Dr. Chasuble, the elergyman, and Miss Prism, the governess. Dr. Chasuble instead of inspiring respect is subject to ridicule for his pompous manner of speaking, his hypocrisy, his lack of real scholarship, and his materialistic attitude to life. Thus The Importance of Being Earnest satirizes vividly the mannerisms, vices, and follies of the England society of the time.

Why “Importance of Being Earnest” is a social satire?

Some poets, writers, and dramatists consider their responsibility to satirize society through their work. Thus, the first reason is that Oscar Wilde, like other dramatists, considered that it is his responsibility to aware people of their snobbish attitude. In doing so, he tries to correct the absurd behavior of people. The second reason is that Victorian Society used to flee away from its responsibilities. It used to focus only on appearances. Showing off was their prime purpose. Not only Oscar Wilde but also many other writers tried their best to speak against it. In a usual manner, “Importance of Being Earnest” is a direct attack on Victorian Society. To exemplify, Earnest flees from his house and enjoys the luxuries of life. Similarly, a person can have children besides wedlock and no one is going to question him if his apparent image is maintained. Thus, that society was far away from morality. These reasons force Oscar Wilde to do social satire in form of “Importance of Being Earnest”.

How “Importance of Being Earnest” is a Social satire?

There are a lot of examples in the play which prove that the play is a mockery of Victorian Society. Lady Bracknell’s character is important in this context. She being representative of upper class/Victorian Society performs a negative role. She is a greedy and fashion-conscious lady. In that age, when people become wise, Lady Bracknell has become foolish. However, she knows the importance of money. She has prepared a list of people, who are wealthy and is going to interview them to select a rich husband for Gwendoline. She rejects Jack because his parentage is unknown. In her eyes, if her daughter solemnizes marriage to Jack, it would disrespect her. She is a narrow-minded, conservative, and ruthless woman.

It seems that Oscar Wilde presented her in the play to create humor but it is also true that her primary purpose is to tell people about the foolishness of Victorian Society.

Religious Satire as Part of Social Satire in “Importance of Being Earnest”:

Canon Chasuble maybe is the minor character of this play but his role is important. He belongs to the religious class and is supposed to be a serious person but he surprises us through his dialogue. Indeed, his dialogues directly come from the mouth of Oscar Wilde and he has deliberately written them to prove that not only the elite class is corrupt but also the religious class. Religious people like Dr. Chasuble also take part in corrupting society. Both moral and physical corruption have been shown in the play. Remarks of Canon Chasuble about Miss Prism are full of sexuality. He always praises her physical body. Somewhere he talks about her lips and somewhere about her hair. For instance, in a dialogue, he says: “Were I fortunate enough to be Miss Prism’s pupil, I would hang upon her lips.” Although he, in the next dialogue, tries to cover his wish by declaring his statement as a metaphor yet the audience knows that he is morally and physically corrupt.

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