The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wild, explores the depth of dual identity in Victorian society (Classical-Themes; Wilde). This trait is most apparent in Algernon and Jack in their episodes of "Bunburying," which Algernon defines as the practice of creating an elaborate deception so that one can misbehave while at the same time appearing to live up to the highest standard of duty and responsibility (SparkNotes). Algernon is a charming, idle bachelor, a nephew of Lady Bracknell, cousin to Gwendolen Fairfax, and best friend of Jack Worthing, known to him as Ernest. Algernon is brilliant, witty, selfish, and amoral, and "given to making delightful, paradoxical, and epigrammatic pronouncements." He has invented a fictional invalid friend, Bunbury, who has frequent relapses which give Algernon an excuse to flee to the country and escape his social obligations.
Jack (Ernest), is an apparently respectable and responsible young man, a justice of the peace, who also leads a double life (SparkNotes; Wilde). In Hertfordshire on his country estate he is known as Jack, but in London he is known as Ernest. Jack was abandoned in a cloakroom in Victoria station as an infant, and found by an old man, who adopted him, and later made him guardian of his granddaughter, Cecily Cardew. Jack is in love with Algernon's cousin, Gwendolen Fairfax.
Cecily Cardew is obsessed with the name Ernest and is in love with Jack's "brother," Ernest, but is more intrigued with his wickedness than his name (SparkNotes; Wilde). It is all in her imagination and she has invented an elaborate romance and courtship between them. Gwendoline Fairfax, Lady Bricknell's daughter, is in love with Jack, whom she only knows as Ernest. She, too is fixated on the name Ernest and swears she will only marry a man who bears that name. The double lives which are central to this play are those of Jack, Algernon, and Cecily.
Jack's imaginary and wayward brot...