The Importance of Being Earnest: Wilde's Wit in Use Essay Example

In researching the ideas and themes behind Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, I stumbled upon numerous questions and underlying themes which I plan to dissect thoroughly in the following body of this paper treating each question individually and in an abstract manner. The questions I encountered ranged from the incestual tendencies of Lady Bracknell in relation to the gothic genre to Wilde's use of food as a weapon and a means of demonstrating one's power. Before diving into the questions in mind it is crucial to the betterment of one's understanding of the play to understand what each character in the play represents. More than any other character in the play, Jack Worthing represents conventional Victorian values: he wants others to think he adheres to such notions as duty, honor, and respectability, but he hypocritically flaunts those very notions. Indeed, what Wilde was actually satirizing through Jack was the general tolerance for hypocrisy in conventional Victorian morality. Jack uses his alter-ego Ernest to keep his honorable image intact. Ernest enables Jack to escape the boundaries of his real life and act as he wouldn't dare to under his real identity. Ernest provides a convenient excuse and disguise for Jack, and Jack feels no qualms about invoking Ernest whenever necessary. Jack wants to be seen as upright and moral, but he does not care what lies he has to tell his loved ones in order to be able to misbehave. Though Ernest has always been Jack's unsavory alter ego, as the play progresses Jack must aspire to become Ernest, in name if not behavior. (Wilde)
Algernon Moncrieff the plays second hero is a proponent of aestheticism and a stand-in for Wilde himself, as are all Wilde's dandified characters, including Lord Goring in An Ideal Husband, Lord Darlington in Lady Windermere's Fan, Lord Illingworth in A Woman of No Importance, and Lord Henry Wootton in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Unlike these other characters, however, Algernon is