Earnestness In The Importance Of Being Earnest

Throughout the late nineteenth century, Oscar Wilde wrote plays such as Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest- his most famous play. Earnest is a comedic work that focuses on a pair of wealthy men. They have been leading double lives so that they can go off for periods of time and enjoy living without responsibility while still maintaining their aristocratic reputation. Because of Wilde’s invlovement in the aesthetic movement, it is not uncommon (or unfair) to believe that his work, Earnest included, is nothing more than fluff. That being said, it is also fair to argue that this particular play does have meaning in it. Wilde wrote The Importance of Being Earnest as a commentary on the hypocrisy of the ideal Victorian character. Earnestness is sincerity- which most Victorians believed themselves to be- and so Wilde uses the word ironically. In his eyes, people who considered themselves sincere were actually smug, self-righteous, and pompous. He expresses these opinions clearly through the play’s over-the-top and frustrating characters.

Wilde’s first strike against the Victorian character comes from Jack and Algernon’s

It is ridiculous, but entertaining and it is completely reasonable to believe that that’s all it was meant to be- from a surface level, that is. If one looks deeper, it becomes clear that Wilde had inserted commentary within the absurdity. Earnest provides a closer examination of hypocritical Victorian ideals through its characters, who are caricatures of the types of people one would see everywhere in society. To use the idea of being earnest (or “Ernest”) ironically as a key part of his play, Wilde could fully explore his points against the world he lived in. Wilde is claiming that in the Victorian age, sincerity is next to impossible, honesty is accidental, and acting moral is more important than actually being