The Importance Of Being Earnest Double Life Essay

Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest play explores the life and mind of two aristocratic characters who both create imaginary people that they use as an excuse to dodge situations, circumstances, and social interactions that they deem unpleasant. The strict Victorian ideology regarding social interactions and responsibilities of specifically the upper class in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest has led characters wanting to escape their duties, to lead double lives.

Dining with relatives during the Victorian era was a very common social ritual which were rather long and tiresome. Algernon Moncrieff, a clever “Bunburyist” has created an imaginary person named “Bunbury” to avoid social interactions with his relatives. He tells his mate Jack in a jokingly but serious manner, “If it wasn’t for Bunbury’s extraordinary bad health, for instance, I wouldn’t be able to dine with you at Willis’s to-night...”(Oscar Wilde). It is important to note that Jack had not even asked Algernon to dine with him anywhere. In this conversation that they were having, Algernon mentions that he had met with his aunt Augusta for

The only difference between Jack and Algernon were the reasons why they created an imaginary individual. Jack’s reason was to avoid his responsibilities and to fulfill his own happiness by coming into town whenever he liked. One of his duties were being a guardian to Cecily. During a conversation with Algernon, Jack said that “when one is placed in the position of guardian, one has to adopt a very high moral tone on all subjects” (Wilde). Cecily’s governess Miss Prism is more of a guardian to her than Jack. “A governess provided companionship and supervision for girls and adolescents”(Mitchell). Jack admits that having a high moral tone drains his happiness and health. To solve that, he created “Earnest” whose health was as bad as Bunbury’s. He comes to town to entertain