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In Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, the play is set in England in the 1890s. Wilde creates a play that is almost socialist as he questions about gender roles and the strict Victorian class system. The titles of the play suggest a disquisition on the value of solemnity in daily lives of the Victorian society. However, Wilde presents an ironic play that leaves the audience with the opposite lesson. Wilde’s play is mainly social comedy and farce, where he ridicules mentality, marriage, social class and the view on love in the Victorian society. The play incorporates a few themes surrounding the Victorian culture and norms. As the play progresses, the five components of the classical theatre unfold chronically.
The play has many themes, mainly revolving around the dichotomy between true meaning of honesty and honesty defined in the Victorian aristocrat society. It is clear that Wilde’s opinion on honesty is being genuine and sincere to one’s self as he contrasts the view on honesty in Victorian society with sarcasm. The play consists of many themes, such as satire of the upper class, constraints of morality, triviality of marriage and the absence of compassion. In the strict Victorian class system, where etiquette and decorum are highly valued, Wilde shows a society blinded with its own hypocrisy. One might think the upper class have better ability to see the error of their ways and attempt to be more virtuous in morality, but it is the opposite here. The upper class preserves their attitudes as the virtuous high ground and expects the other classes to follow and agree with their way of seeing errors. For example, in Act I, Algernon thinks that ”the lower class have absolutely no sense of moral responsibility” after Lane pre...

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... where it introduces the major characters such as Algernon and John Worthing or Ernest, followed by Gwendolen and Lady Bracknell. It contains two-dimensional character such as Lane, Algernon’s servant who represents the lower class. The rest that are mentioned serve as three-dimensional characters as they grow with the complication and crisis of the story. The protagonist of the play, known as Jack or Ernest first, presents his major conflict on the matter of proposal with Gwendolen. Jack wants to marry Gwendolen but she comes from a strict Aristocratic family and he needs her mother’s approval. Gwendolen, who is so in love with Jack because of his name, Ernest longs to marry him too. The initial complication, which is the disapproval of Gwendolen’s engagement by Lady Bracknell due to Jack’s ugly past will evolve into the next component of the play known as crisis.