The Importance Of Being Earnest Essay

The Victorian era, characterized by a transition in the population’s way of perceiving traditional social conventions. As in Oscar Wilde’s works, the different generations of the English population are divided by their way of perceiving the world in which they live. In Wilde’s comedy The Importance of Being Earnest, the author denunciates the hypocrisy of the Victorian Era’s upper class. The famous writer uses moral paradoxes, his characters’ double-lives and their unconcern for truthfulness to satirize the upper class’ disingenuousness through his work.

Wilde first uses moral paradoxes in his work to critique the second estate’s pious nature. During the Victorian era, social conventions were of the greatest importance and imposed by the

Wilde expresses the upper class’ desire to escape the social conventions. In the case of the Importance of Being Earnest’s characters, the same desire leads to a refusal to conform by their creation of another parallel life. Both Jack and Algernon use a n imaginary identity to escape their responsibilities. Jack has “always pretended to have a younger brother of the name Earnest, who lives in the Albany, and gets into the most dreadful scrapes” (Wilde 18). Jack uses his double identity to escape from his “position of guardian, [where] one has to adopt a very high moral tone of all subjects” (Wilde 18). By inventing himself another identity, Jack attempts at escaping his reality and responsibilities that come with his status, which reveals the hypocrisy of the upper class during the Victorian era. The privileged were only willing to act according to their standards when they felt like it. The same attitude of the higher class is represented in Algernon’s actions, who invented himself a sick friend, Bunbury, in order “to go down into the country whenever [he] choose[s]” (Wilde 19). Algernon, just like Jack, uses his double-life, to get away from his responsibilities. During the Victorian era, the upper class expected high social standards from its own people, but found ways to escape the same responsibilities associated with heir social

Through out The Importance of Being Earnest, the characters express openly their aversion for the truth. Wilde demonstrates his disapproval of such behaviour by exaggerating his characters’ insouciance for the truth. The author creates a taboo around truth that is shared by the characters that view it as a sin. Lady Bracknell even claims that she never undeceived her husband, she even adds that she “would consider it wrong” (Wilde 76). With Lady Bracknell’s extreme discourse, Wilde denunciates the upper class’ tendency to lie to keep events and relations going smoothly. In The Importance of Being Earnest, each character lies and dishonesty is made commonplace to a point where honesty is disvalued. Furthermore, Wilde continues to satirize the elite by using the characters’ perception of knowledge to demonstrate society’s double standards. Per example, Lady Bracknell states that she “does not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone . . . Fortunately in England, at any rate education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes” (Wilde 28). With Lady Bracknell’s statement, Wilde demonstrates the higher classes’ hypocrisy when it comes to the knowledge of truth.