In Oscar Wilde’s, The Importance of Being Earnest, the two main characters, Jack and Algernon, have two identities they use to escape their obligations at home. In the first act, Algernon tells Lady Bracknell, “I am afraid, Aunt Augusta, I shall have to give up the pleasure of dining with you tonight after all… my poor friend Bunbury is very ill again. They seem to think I should be with him” (Greenblatt p.830). Here, Algernon is escaping a commitment he made to Lady Bracknell. The dual identity is an alter ego for these two men that allows them to be socially deviant if they want without having to deal with much consequence. Jack escapes the country side by giving the illusion that he must visit his brother “Earnest” who lives in the city, however, upon arriving to the city he takes on the identity of Earnest; Jack does not exist to those who know him (Earnest) in the city. Algernon discovers that his friend Earnest has a dual identity as well and says that he “always suspected [him] of being a confirmed and secret Bunburyist” (Greenblatt p.827). Algernon refers to having another identity as “bunburying”. The term bunburying eludes to a different type of secret some men had in Victorian England. Having a dual identity like Jack and Algernon, wouldn’t have been common enough for Algernon to have always known Jack was secretly a bunburyist too. There was a norm that the author wanted to draw into question; homosexuality. Oscar Wilde kept his homosexuality secret, in fact he had a wife and two sons (History.com.). Unfortunately, his secret got out and he was put to trial because homosexual acts were illegal in England at the time (History.com.).
This wasn’t the only norm Oscar Wilde drew into question; he also questioned the norms women were set to follow. In act one Jack calls Gwendolyn perfect and she responds by saying, “Oh! I hope not that. It would leave no room for development, and I intend to develop in many directions” (Greenblatt p.830). Women of the time were told to strive for perfection, not intentionally set out to “develop in many directions”. Gwendolyn is not following the social norms by saying this, which is surprising because her mother, Lady Bracknell, follows the norms closely. In act one, Lady Bracknell tells Gwendolyn, “An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant, as the case may be” (Greenblatt p.833). The parents had almost all the control in deciding who their daughter could marry because it was all about connections. Each party needed to gain something out of the arrangement and Earnest did not have any social benefit in Lady Bracknell’ s opinion. Lady Bracknell does however, allow Cecily and Algernon to be engaged the instant she discovered Cecily has a lot of wealth. Before the discovery of Cecily’s wealth, Lady Bracknell was finding any polite excuses to deny approval for the engagement to Algernon. I say polite excuses because she never directly said no; she simply was unsatisfied with facts and used opinion to say she finds a publication to be an uncreditable source. Cecily had money, meaning she had something to give from this engagement and Lady Bracknell had something to gain. Appearance was everything to Victorians and Oscar Wilde truly did bring norms of the time to question by proving multiple characters that broke those norms repeatedly.
Work Cited:
Greenblatt, Stephen, and Catherine Robson. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 10th ed., E, W.W. Norton, 2018.
Editors, History.com. “Oscar Wilde Trial.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 7 May 2018, www.history.com/topics/gay-rights/oscar-wilde-trial.