The Importance of Being Earnest // Oscar Wilde
‘A Trivial Comedy for Serious People’
Of all the well-known witticisms and epigrams in literature, Oscar Wilde’s are often the most heralded. What I loved about studying this play were the absurd statements offered by Wilde’s characters. One of my favourite phrases was, “in matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing”; not because I agreed with it, but because it gave a telling insight into Victorian attitudes – ultimately, social appearance was superior to intelligence. Amongst such hyperbolic truths, there’s classism and sexism in abundance – annoying, perhaps, for socialists and egalitarians, but for an English Literature student, it’s a goldmine where coursework is concerned. My particular essay required me to assess whether Wilde ‘recognises social order in The Importance of Being Earnest but also subverts it for comic purposes’.
After studying the play, it’s evident that Wilde relies heavily on the mockery of societal structure to produce comedic effect. The character of Lady Bracknell is instrumental in achieving this; she personifies the discriminative social snobbery of his era, which Wilde then parodies by equipping her with exaggerated lines and flamboyant retorts. Eventually, it all makes her look a bit foolish in the eyes of the audience. It was interesting to write her character, and about how Wilde gave unexpected manipulative control to the female characters in the play, especially in marriage.
This aspect of the play was enjoyable to analyse, as we could glean from it an underlying social commentary on Wilde’s part. Contextually, it’s reflective of his personal life. Wilde’s work often echoed his own resentment of the judicial system, caused by his ongoing struggle to conceal his homosexual double-life. The concept of dual identity is arguably the most prominent theme in this play, and this is surely a subtle reference to Wilde’s own troubled existence within a repressive society.
I really love how Oscar Wilde punctuates his moralistic stories with the casual flippancy that is so characteristic of his writing style. Though it seems clichéd, Wilde concludes that indeed it is important to be earnest – deception can only lead to a complicated web of lies, and that’s when life would become really Wildean.
Words by Zia Larty-Healy