British Literature and Culture

Lau Cheuk Wai

Second Critical Essay
 “No Strings Attached”

Literary works are not just pieces of texts made up by writers without intention or
meanings. Often, they are known as realistic fiction that the text itself represents life
and the social world. In the following, The Importance of Being Earnest, a text
written in the Victorian Period by Wilde will be discussed based on its relation of how
it represents the life and the society realistically.

Using the notion of secret, self-created lives, the play vividly portrays different
elements to reflect Victorian social world holds lots of norms that are repressive,
traditional and people have to abide by them. “Victorian life seemed to incline
naturally towards duality, with public and private spheres making up the separate
halves of existence. For men, life in the public sphere involved duty, service, and
pursuit of a profession” (Reich, 2012). What Reich has suggested is that the
Victorian Society values duties and respectability as priorities.

In The Importance of Being Earnest, both the protagonist Jack and Algernon
create personas to be free in order to express themselves and neglect duties. For
Jack, he goes with the name Ernest in the city as he wants to be himself and not just
bounded by the responsibility of a taking care of Cecily, the name Ernest also allows
him to be respected among the upper class society. This exhibits Victorian society’s
aristocratic concern for propriety. For Algernon, not only has he called himself
Ernest in favor of Cecily, he has also created an imaginary friend, Bunbury. This
self-created life allows Algernon evades responsibilities. For example, When Lady
Bracknell requires him to perform some social duties, like, dining with her, Algernon
always brings up something related to Bunbury that his friend is ill that he has to go.
This scene not only shows that Algernon prefers bunburying to dine with Lady
Bracknell, it also reflects the society has a lot of monotonous and traditional norms
that one is constantly trying to escape from.

Apart from Jack and Algernon’s double lives, the action of Cecily also reflects the
Victorian life and social world in different ways. First, Cecily comes up with different
ways to avoid studying German like distracting Miss Prism with Dr. Chasuble. Since
Miss Prism see learning is of great importance for young people, it implies that one’s
status or position is greatly determined by one’s education level during the Victorian
period. What’s more, Cecily keeps a diary which records both her actual life and her
imaginary life. In one of the scene where Cecily is having a conversation with
Algernon, she mentions the content of her diary.
“Worn out by your entire ignorance of my existence, I determined to end the matter
one way or the other, and after a long struggle with myself I accepted you under this dear
old tree here. The next day I bought this little ring in your name, and this is the little bangle
with the true lover's knot I promised you always to wear.” (Act 2, p.215-216)

The scene suggests Cecily is having an imaginary life as well and she actually
pretended to be engaged to Jack. This implies that she wants to escape from the
traditional social constricts or norms like being forced to study a language she
doesn’t like in order to have an amiable social background in other’s impression, no
matter how writing such fantasies only lasts for a split second. Not only this can
realistically portray the norms of Victorian society as rigid and traditional, it also
implies women are repressed under men as by comparing both Algernon and Jack
with Cecily, although they all have their self-created lives, that of Cecily is actually
fictional but that of Algernon and Jack can be carried out in reality.

While different elements throughout the play can represent life and social world
lively, another element that leads the readers to have a sense that the characters
actually exist is that Wilde himself, actually draw on his own life and history,
especially the names and personalities he had known. Wilde’s biographer Richard
Ellmann speculates that the original for Bracknell may have been Wilde’s maternal
aunt, Emily Warren, who was several years older than Wilde’s mother, married to an
officer in the British army, disapproving her sister’s Irish nationalist activities. (Reich,
2012). This suggests that not only the scenes of the play itself chimes with the idea
of realistic fiction, the style of Wilde‘s writing also plays an important role.

With Wilde’s style of writing along with the idea of self-created secret lives, the
play realistically portrays Victorian life and social world in terms of its conventional
and repressive norms that one has to conform to. Algernon, Jack and Cecily have
created another life in order to escape from the constraints brought by the
traditional value in different ways. They all are unwillingly to act earnestly according
to social convention, their earnestness may not be telling the truth, yet, its
earnestness lies in going after what they want by not as puppets being pulled by the
strings of the rigid Victorian norms.
 Reference

Anthony Reich (2012). The Importance of Being Earnest- A critical Essay

Retrived from: https://ontheroad29.wikispaces.com/Earnest+-+A+Critical+Essay

Christopher Roland (2008). Literary Analysis the Importance of Being Earnest By

Oscar Wilde. Retrived from :
http://www.humanities360.com/index.php/literary-analysis-the-importance-of-being
-earnest-by-oscar-wilde-49883/

Oscar Wilde (1895) The Importance of Being Earnest

Qaisar Iqbal Janjua (2010). Oscar Wilde – A Critical Analysis

Retrived from,
http://zh.scribd.com/doc/24940568/Oscar-Wilde-s-the-Importance-of-Being-Earnest-
A-Critical-Analysis-by-Qaisar-Iqbal-Janjua