The Importance of Being Earnest

Algernon: “The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If I ever get married, I’ll certainly try to forget the fact.”

Jack: “I have no doubt about that, dear Algy. The Divorce Court was specially invented for people whose memories are so curiously constituted.” 

Algernon’s own lax views on marriage are now on display. He is dedicated to the chase but uninterested in a lasting relationship. Jack’s retort shows that he considers his friend too unreliable to make a good husband.

Algernon: “More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read.”

Algernon skewers Victorians’ conspicuous displays of morality and the sordid reality beneath them. People may say that they disapprove of certain book; but they read them anyway; the difficulty in getting them only whets readers’ appetites. Wilde’s own trial and imprisonment heightens the impact of this line. The public celebrated Wilde’s writing so long as they could pretend to ignore the degree to which it was influenced by his illegal sexual orientation. His style and subject matter were profoundly influenced by his living as he “shouldn’t.”

Algernon: “The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one’s clean linen in public.” 

Algernon finds married women flirting with their own husbands distasteful because it fails to entertain him. He loves gossip and wants to see people’s dirty linen.

Algernon: “You don’t seem to realize, that in married life, three is company and two is none.”

Jack: (sententiously) “That, my dear young friend, is the theory that the corrupt French Drama has been propounding for the last fifty years.”

Algernon: “Yes; and that the happy English home has proved in half the time.” 

Wilde skewers the British sense of propriety in this exchange. Jack’s claim that the French stage has encouraged people to have affairs is countered by Algernon’s implication that the British are even less faithful to their spouses; they just do not acknowledge the fact in their plays. It also implies that British marriages are less happy than French ones.

Lady Bracknell: “I’m sorry if we are a little late, Algernon, but I was obliged to call on dear Lady Harbury. I hadn’t been there since her poor husband’s death. I never saw a woman so altered; she looks quite twenty years younger.” 

Lady Bracknell is the only character in the play that is actually married, and she does not portray it as a happy state for her or for anyone else. If Lady Harbury’s response to becoming a widow is rejuvenation instead of grief, then it must have been an unhappy marriage. The play’s couples work to overcome obstacles to getting married, but Wilde implies that what awaits them may not be worth the struggle.

Lady Bracknell: “Well I must say, Algernon, that I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. This shilly-shallying with the question is absurd. Nor do I in any way approve of the modern sympathy with invalids. I consider it morbid. Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others. Health is the primary duty of life. I am always telling that to your poor uncle, but he never seems to take much notice…as far as any improvement in his ailments goes.” 

Lady Bracknell believes that the world should be ordered to meet her needs and expectations in every way, and her high position means that it often is. Personal inconvenience is intolerable to her, and she does not seem to understand that illness cannot simply be ordered to go away. She reflects a popular attitude of the time that people’s health and wealth was a direct result of their moral worth. If one is more moral, then one’s wellbeing will improve. Anyone who is ill or failing can be blamed for their condition, and it would be perverse for the wealthy to help them.

Gwendolen: “We live, as I hope you know, Mr. Worthing, in an age of ideals. The fact constantly mentioned in the more expensive monthly magazines, and has reached the provincial pulpits I am told: and my ideal has always been to love someone of the name Ernest.” 

Gwendolen gives no personal reason to believe that they live in “an age of ideals” but feels she must aspire to do so. She does not understand what “ideals” means in this context; however, so that instead of committing to a political or religious ideology or to a method of self-improvement, she has simply decided to marry a man whose name can be understood as an ideal. She mistakes the superficiality of a name for something with true substance.

Lady Bracknell: “I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.” 

Through Lady Bracknell’s persistent degradation of education and improvement of any kind, Wilde, himself a highly educated intellectual, lampoons both the upper classes’ general lack of curiosity as well as the education which they do receive. Her statement that education would lead to violence against the upper classes almost certainly reflects Wilde’s own personal views: the British class system was wholly unjustifiable and would not survive if people understood it.

Lady Bracknell: “…land has ceased to be either a profit or a pleasure. It gives one position, and prevents one from keeping it up. That’s all that can be said about land.” 

Lady Bracknell explains the paradox of the landed aristocracy: they are upper class and expected to live in such a manner, but their source of income is insufficient for it. Her concern to keep up appearances while all the while falling deeper into debt explains her flexibility in accepting Cecily and Jack as in-laws since their fortunes will now also help support Lady Bracknell’s family.

Lady Bracknell: “…What are your politics?”

Jack: “Well, I am afraid I really have none. I am a Liberal Unionist.”

Lady Bracknell: “Oh, they count as Tories. They dine with us. Or come in the evening, at any rate.” 

The Liberal Unionists were a short-lived political party. They split from the dominant Liberal Party in opposing Irish Home Rule (whether Ireland should have its own parliament to govern its internal affairs). They were allied with the Conservative Party, hence Lady Bracknell’s statement that they count as Tories. It makes sense that Jack, who shifts between two identities, belongs to a party which straddles two political ideologies. Wilde was from Ireland and by 1895 had affirmed his support for Irish Home Rule, so he may also be making fun of the Liberal Unionists lack of firm ideological commitments by associating them with Jack. 

Algernon: “All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.”

Jack: “Is that clever?”

Algernon: “It is perfectly phrased! And quite as true as any observation in civilized life should be.” 

Algernon’s statement seems to be profound at first but appears baseless when examined more closely. Is it true that no men become their fathers? Is it a tragedy if they do not? It does not matter to Algernon. He is far more concerned with impressing other with his wit rather than any real philosophical observations.

Cecily:(coming over very slowly) “But I don’t like German. It isn’t at all a becoming language. I know perfectly well that I look quite plain after my German lesson.”

Cecily’s attitude towards education is similar to Lady Bracknell’s. She does not wish to destroy the “bloom” of her ignorance and become less attractive. The differences in mode of living and source of wealth between Cecily and Lady Bracknell are not reflected in their attitudes towards education.

Miss Prism: “I am not in favour of this modern mania for turning bad people into good people at a moment’s notice.” 

Miss Prism is telling Cecily that she does not believe that Jack’s wicked brother “Ernest” should be redeemed. Her assertion that bad people cannot be turned into good people in an instant is contradicted by the ending of the play. The play is resolved, of course, in exactly this way. Jack’s wicked brother is made good by finding out that he is the same person as Jack, and Jack’s unacceptable status as an orphan is transformed by the revelation of his parentage. 

Miss Prism: “The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.” 

Miss Prism’s definition of fiction is both facile and profound. She has just told Cecily that she once wrote a three-volume novel which established her lack of literary sophistication, and her definition of fiction is superficial. However, if the logic of her statement is applied to nonfiction, then Miss Prism is saying that, in real life, the wicked are rarely punished and the good are not guaranteed a happy ending.

Jack: “I mean of course, you are continually christening, aren’t you?”

Miss Prism: “It is, I regret to say, one of the Rector’s most constant duties in this parish. I have often spoken to the poorer classes on the subject. But they don’t seem to know what thrift is.”

The British middle classes strongly believed that the lower classes could overcome their poverty by adopting middle-class values, thrift in particular. Here, Wilde lambasts this attitude by having Prism assume that poorer people have more children simply because they do not understand thrift rather than lack of access to contraception.

Chasuble: “Your brother was, I believe, unmarried, was he not?”

Jack: “Oh yes.”

Miss Prism: (bitterly) “People who live entirely for pleasure usually are.” 

The irony of Miss Prism’s resentful remark is that Dr. Chasuble is not unmarried because he lives a life of pleasure but, rather, because he is a clergyman. Moreover, the implication that married people never live entirely for pleasure is absurd. The entire issue of Jack and Algernon changing their names to make themselves marriageable is a parody of the idea the state of marriage effects some fundamental change in a persona’s character.

Algernon: “It is not at all a bad name. In fact, it is rather an aristocratic name. Half of the chaps who get into the Bankruptcy Court are called Algernon.” 

Algernon, like his aunt, refers to how the landed aristocracy is cash poor. Despite his appearance of ease and unconcern, Algernon acknowledges that his background will not protect him from the ruinous effects of bankruptcy. 

Gwendolen: (satirically) “I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.” 

Gwendolen and Cecily are sniping at each other over tea with Cecily implying that city people are vulgar and Gwendolen implying that country people are backwards. This insult, however, touches on not just the difference in their rural and urban backgrounds but also on class. No woman of their class would be expected to have performed manual labor with a spade, so Gwendolen is insinuating that Cecily is her social inferior.

Jack: (slowly and hesitatingly) “Gwendolen–and Cecily–it is very painful for me to be forced to speak the truth. It is the first time in my life that I have ever been reduced to such a painful position, and I am really quite inexperienced in doing anything of the kind.” 

Jack is forced to confess that he has no brother Ernest and that he has been using the name in London as an alias. Jack’s frequent disapproval of Algernon’s carelessness with the truth is shown to be hypocritical. He is at least as dishonest as Algernon—even more so since he pretends not to be.

Lady Bracknell: “Her unhappy father is, I am glad to say, under the impression that she is attending a more than usually lengthy lecture by the University of Extension Scheme on the Influence of a permanent income on Thought. I do not intend to undeceive him.”

The absurd name of Lady Bracknell’s phony class implies that Gwendolen has never has to worry about money or its limits. Lady Bracknell’s statement that she will not undeceive her husband can be read two ways. The more literal way is that she will not tell her husband that Gwendolen has run away from London to see Jack, but it could also mean that the family’s finances are less secure than either Gwendolen or her father think.

Lady Bracknell: “Exploded! Was he the victim of some revolutionary outrage? I was not aware that Mr. Bunbury was interested in social legislation. If so, he is well punished for his morbidity.” 

Lady Bracknell once more shows her distaste for curiosity of any kind or any attempt at personal or social improvement. Given that she would be a likely target for “revolutionary outrage,” her hostility to social movements makes sense.

Lady Bracknell: “Until yesterday I had no idea that there were any families or persons whose origin was a Terminus.” 

Once again, Lady Bracknell insults Jack for his lack of lineage. As a member of the landed aristocracy whose status is based on pedigree more than wealth, Lady Bracknell is keen to assert her social superiority to Jack by punning on the word Terminus. A terminus is the end of a train line, which is where Jack was discovered, and Jack’s family tree is just a single dead end or terminus. 

Lady Bracknell: Miss Cardew seems to me a most attractive young lady, now that I look at her. Few girls of the present day have any really solid qualities, any of the qualities that last, and improve with time. We live, I regret to say, in an age of surfaces. 

Upon discovering that Cecily is a fabulously wealthy heiress, Lady Bracknell’s objection to her marrying Algernon immediately disappears. There is great irony in her accusing young women of lacking solid qualities given her own sudden change in attitude. Also, the solid qualities she is referring to are simply money, and her claim to Cecily’s qualities improving with age is a reference to the interest and appreciation that Cecily’s holdings are likely to acquire.