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The Importance of Being Earnest
Oscar Wilde (1895) · 80pages · Victorian · 9 AP appearances
Summary
Two young men — Algernon Moncrieff in London and Jack Worthing in the country — both use the fictional alias 'Ernest' to escape social obligations. When both pursue women who have vowed to marry only a man named Ernest, their deceptions collide. A handbag, a missing baby, and a very determined dowager later, Jack discovers he actually was christened Ernest all along — a resolution Wilde makes deliberately absurd, suggesting earnestness matters less than the performance of it.
Why It Matters
The Importance of Being Earnest is considered the finest English-language comedy of manners and one of the most perfectly constructed plays in the language. It was immediately successful in 1895 but was closed after Wilde's arrest. Revived after his death, it became a permanent fixture of the the...
Themes & Motifs
Diction & Style
Register: High surface formality — the characters speak in complete, polished sentences even when being absurd — with a consistent undercurrent of subversion through inversion
Narrator: There is no narrator — this is a play. But Wilde functions as a kind of implicit commentator through the structure of...
Figurative Language: Low on traditional metaphor, very high on rhetorical figures
Historical Context
Late Victorian England (1895) — the last years of Victoria's reign, the height of British imperial confidence and social rigidity: The play is simultaneously a product of its era and an attack on it. Victorian respectability required the exact double-identity management that Jack and Algernon practice; the Criminal Law Amendme...
Key Characters
Talking Points
- The play's title puns on 'earnest' (the Victorian virtue of sincerity) and 'Ernest' (the name both men use as aliases). Explain how the final line 'the vital importance of Being Earnest' works on both levels — and what Wilde is saying about Victorian moral language.
- Algernon invents 'Bunbury' as a term for maintaining a fictional obligation to escape real ones. In what ways is Bunburying still a common practice? Give three modern examples and explain how they serve the same social function.
- Lady Bracknell says: 'To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.' Why is this line funny? What does it reveal about how Victorian aristocracy thought about social identity?
- Both Gwendolen and Cecily say they could only love a man named Ernest. Is Wilde mocking them, sympathizing with them, or doing something more complex? Use specific dialogue to support your reading.
- The inversion epigram is Wilde's signature technique — taking a conventional statement and reversing it. Find three examples in the play and explain what each one reveals about Victorian values when it's flipped.
Notable Quotes
“To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”
“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
“I don't play accurately — anyone can play accurately — but I play with wonderful expression.”
Why Read This
Because it is genuinely, reliably funny — a rare thing in a school curriculum. And because the jokes are all arguments: every epigram contains a critique of Victorian social values that you can unpack in an essay. You can write a paper about a cuc...