The Importance of Being Earnest is Oscar Wilde’s satirical comedy that makes a comment on the constraints, conventions and hypocrisy of Victorian high society. Written, set and initially performed in Victorian times, it holds up many aspects of the convention of the time for ridicule. One of the key themes that the play exploits is the overwhelming manner in which the beliefs upheld by one’s respective social strata contribute towards the individual’s character. Such values and codes of behaviour and their profound effect on individuals is induced by the precedence that they uphold, and emphasis is placed on them to the point of extremity. Wilde portrays this contention through; the succinct nature of epigrammatic statements made on matters of the greatest importance and subjectivity, the literary device of personification, contextual symbolism, and the entire play being representative of superficiality.
Wilde shows that society serves as such an enforcement on the individual by creating characters that are the blatant personification of abstract qualities shown by the masses of one social strata. This contention can be best testified by the character of Lady Bracknell, and the way in which she epitomises a sense of ignorance shown by many of her time and social standing. To provide context to the significance of her characteristics, it should be noted that the Victorian era was a time of great scientific change. Revelations were made regarding the prominence of the mind in health, and psychology took form as the scientifically prominent study that it is today. It was due to these progressions that controversy and hysteria in misunderstanding was incited, and works of gothic literature such as The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Stevenson, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein provided what was at the time a near-plausible extrapolation of the scope of modern science’s potential. Lady Bracknell’s comments on health, and confusion over what states of being can be a result of conscious intention signify the overall ignorance of those loosely affected by the progression of science. The zenith of the absurdity that Lady Bracknell epitomises is most apparent when in conversation she broaches the subject of health, or more specifically, the health of others. Algernon informing his aunt of his ‘invalid’ friend Bunbury undergoing a sudden relapse in his illness results in Lady Bracknell responding with not only a lack of sympathy but a complete misunderstanding of what it means to be unwell. “I think it is high time that Mr Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or die… Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others.” The quotation demonstrates a point of view that lacks understanding, both scientifically and emotionally. The sheer conviction of her statements show that there is no sense of misprision or gulf between what she says and what her actual opinion is; it conveys nothing but genuine ignorance, an aspect of human character that she later reiterates and upholds with the statement "Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone." Lady Bracknell's choice of simile indicates that she sees ignorance as natural as well as a thing of beauty. This further proves the extreme way in which individuals become a mere representation of a society's collective beliefs.
Victorian society upheld such a sense of decorum in issues of great importance and complexity that it became possible to reduce topics such as marriage, religion and education to one succinct statement. The presence of this absolute assertion is reciprocated in the inversive nature of Wilde’s epigrams, where the playwright creates comedy in statements that should portray contradiction to the defined aspects of society. He makes epigrammatic statements on matters that are usually regarded as ethically complex or subjective to the individual, which, though chiefly shown in the lines of Algernon. “Divorces are made in heaven” is one example of Wilde’s technique of inversion on the accepted or clichéd statement on marriage, and its succinct nature shows disregard for any grey area or point of subjectivity. It should also be reasoned that the comical factor of these witticisms is ultimately achieved by the level of truth they sustain. In many ways this blasé nature of statement holds a mirror up to society and the way in which it defines a certain viewpoint as if it were objective.
“Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that it must be changed every six months.” Though not quoted from The Importance of Being Earnest, this is another comment made by Oscar Wilde on the topic of fashion and its seasonal manner of changing. In the Victorian Era, clothing was a symbol of the oppression brought about by the need to keep up appearances, misprision, and the concealment of oneself. Garments such as the corset forced women to conform to a certain image, and the overall modesty of outfits for both genders symbolised the concealment of oneself around others. Trends and the individual’s duty to keep up with them bears such a significance that it is expected to dictate even the most trivial of decisions that should technically be down to themselves. Wilde demonstrates and ridicules this contention through comments made by Gwendolen. Upon being asked by Cecily if she takes sugar in her tea, Gwendolen declines, and justifies doing so with the statement “Sugar is not fashionable any more.” She adopts a similar disposition when given the choice of cake or bread and butter with the explanation, “Cake is rarely seen at the best houses nowadays.” Wilde knowingly portrays a character lacking individuality in her decisions to the point of extremity and absurdity. He does so in an attempt to highlight to his audience that the overbearing effect of fashionable convention is a point of great risibility.
Not only do the themes of the play highlight superficiality and its precedence in society, but the medium of a performed play is representative of it too. As the audience we are forced to make deductions on characters in The Importance of Being Earnest purely from dialogue and other ways in which they interact with others. The play is void of monologues, and naturally as a play it does not pertain to the feature of a narrative voice. The medium of theatre heightens the effect of comic devices such as pun and dramatic irony, which relies on the audience's misprision for its efficacy. Wilde's use of pun is exemplified in the eponymous theme of being earnest. The name Ernest and its auditory confusion with 'earnest' is Wilde's subtle allusion to society's belief that as long as it sounds right when said aloud (which somewhat abstractly represents the qualities of publicity), it does not matter how it is written, or indeed what it truly is when looked into further. It is a fundamental display of irony as, in reference to the title, the importance of being earnest in society ultimately goes as deep as the outward declaration that a person is so.
As a playwright Wilde successfully reflects society in a myriad of ways, all of which vary in the level of subtlety with which they do so. It is often an impetuously accepted contention in literature that all writers ultimately use the devices of comedy, drama and literary features as a vehicle for conveying a greater message, as if the theme recognised by the reader (or in this case audience) was their main point of impetus in the creative process. However, an acknowledgement of this play’s context and indeed the individual who wrote the script is required. Oscar Wilde was a confirmed believer in the ideals of aestheticism; a man who lived and worked by the standpoint that art should exist for the sake of art. He most probably made use of the messages of social hypocrisy - a point of potential ridicule as well as great relevance to himself and the audience - as a means of creating a work of theatre both lavish and pleasing to the aesthetics. In the true fashion of his inversion of the accepted, and evasion of the grey areas that intellectual honesty reveal, it can be stated with absolute confidence in its objectivity that Oscar Wilde was a playwright who did not create The Importance of Being Earnest as a means of thematic conveyance, but in fact utilised the social hypocrisies of his time as the muse for designing a work of theatre that would tend to the meretricious desires of an aestheticist.
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