Being Ernest

Oscar Wilde’s play, The Importance of Being Earnest, is an entertaining romantic comedy to say the least. Upon first reading the play, one may simply laugh at the silliness and absurdities throughout the piece. Between the mis-identification amongst lovers and the subsequent hijinks that ensues because of it, the amusement of this play never ceases throughout the course of its three acts. However, after deeply examining this text through Richard Hornsby’s approach of isolating the script, treating it as a space-time complex, and analyzing it in detail, I found it to be very clever, insightful and complex. This play is filled with thought-provoking truths about people, society, and the overall functions of the world around us. The lines of this

He reveals in the first act that his "name is Ernest in town and Jack in the country..." (Wilde 11). Thus, his associates in town, such as Algernon Moncrieff and girlfriend Gwendolen Fairfax know him as Mr. Ernest Worthing, while his ward Cecily and servants in his country home know him as Jack Worthing. To cover up his “Ernest” persona while in the country, he tells Cecily and his servants that Ernest Worthing is his troubled younger brother. While this use of two names does cause prove to be challenging, Jack’s underlying struggle is that he does not know his family background. He explains to Lady Bracknell, Gwendolen’s mother, that he was found in a handbag, and the old Mr. Cardew raised him and left his will to him. Therefore, he does not know the truth about where he comes from, as Mr. Cardew just gave him the name “Jack Worthing” (Wilde

His beloved Gwendolen has a certain affection for the name Ernest and reveals that it one of the factors that makes her inclined to marry him. Jack decides he will have to be re-baptized with the name Ernest in order to solve this problem. However, not knowing the truth of where he comes from becomes critical to Jack’s goals because Lady Bracknell, Gwendolen’s mother, refuses to let him marry her daughter until she knows that he descends from a commendable background. In the first act of the show, Lady Bracknell explains to Jack her concern, "As for the particular locality in which the hand-bag was found, a cloak-room at a railway station might serve to conceal a social indiscretion-- has probably, indeed, been used for that purpose before now--- but it could hardly be regarded as an assured basis for a recognized position in good society" (Wilde 27). She must know Jack’s true background before she will allow the young lovers to marry, which poses a great challenge for Jack, as he has literally no clue where he comes