The Importance of Being Earnest

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 wickedne

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1, part 1, Algernon disparages marriage, and when Jack arrives and tells him he is in love with Gwendolen, who is expected for tea with her mother, Algernon tells him he must first clear up the matter with Cecily - Algernon has found a cigarette case with the inscription, "From little Cecily, with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack," so Jack has to explain his use of the name Ernest in London and Jack in Hertfordshire (Wilde). Algernon now says he has proof that what he had suspected was true - Jack was Bunburying. Jack also has to explain his relationship to Cecily. In Act 1, part 2, Jack asks Gwendolen if she would marry him if his name was not Ernest: she says no, and he proposes to her as Ernest and she accepts (Wilde). However, after her mother hears his story she denies him permission to marry Gwendolen. Algernon announces he will go Bunburying next day, but Jack warns him that Bunbury will only get him in trouble. In Act 11, part 1, more confusion arises when Algernon enters Jack's country house, and on meeting Cecily, tells her he is Jack's brother and his name is Ernest (Wilde). Jack then walks in, dressed in mourning, saying his brother died the previous night in Paris, and Cecily chides him for disowning h

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