The Importance Of Being Earnest Identity

identity. The play The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde is a clear example of when individuals find that their identities are being suppressed by society and, therefore, find ways to express who they want to be or who they are in different, more creative ways. Two factors that influence a person’s identity the most are circumstances and society. Circumstances influence a person’s values, morals, and ideals, while societies, specifically strict societies such as the Victorian era, suppress aspects of a person’s identity that would otherwise be shown. While circumstances and strict societies suppress one’s true identity, alternate identities allow for a person to live out their true identity.

As a result of the strict circumstances
People change their identities for many reasons, but people tend to change part of their identity to get out of certain situations, as well as to do activities that never could do on their own as a result of living in a strict society. One of the main characters in the book Algernon uses his alternate identity to get out of all of his aunt dinners using the excuse that his “poor friend Bunbury is very ill…(39)”. Having Bunbury as Algernon’s alternate identity, allowed him to be free of all the duties he would otherwise be required to partake in. Bunbury represented all the things that Algernon didn’t like about the social aspect of a strict society. The other main character Jack used Ernest as an acceptable way to tell others about what he would like to do in his life as part of himself was put into the creation of the man Ernest. While arguing with Algernon about a letter from his niece and his name he states that “When one is placed in the position of guardian, one has to adopt a very high moral tone on all subjects. It's one's duty to do so. And as a high moral tone can hardly be said to conduce very much to either one's health or one's happiness, in order to get up to town I have always pretended to have a younger brother of the name of Ernest, who lives in the Albany, and gets into the most dreadful scrapes. (35)”. Algernon isn’t the only one who wanted to escape from the aspects in modern society that he finds boring, Jack is the same way. He creates this extension of himself so that he can have fun in town and not get in trouble. Jack could have created any alternate identity, but by creating Ernest as part of his identity he allows for another side of him to show that would otherwise be suppressed by the Victorian society. Therefore, both Algernon and Jack change their alternate identities to