The Importance of Being Earnest

English 212 Drama
17/04/2006

The Importance of Being Earnest – Oscar Wilde
The Importance of Trivia and Fiction in the Real World

Wilde’s play is often a parody on the melodramatic sentimentality of popular 19th century literature. It could be argued that with the current facination for all manner of soap operas, from 7de Laan to Bold and the Beautiful, Wilde’s play does well even today, to draw us to reflect on the absurdity of our conventions.

In The Importance of Being Earnest Wilde makes many references to ‘truth’. This is done both directly and implicitly. And it is interesting that in the very last line, Wilde concludes with Algernon stating: “I’ve now realized for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.”

Stepford Wives

Wilde is an expert at using the satirical device. He employs it by contrasting the appearance of things, of his characters, with reality. Gwendolen points out that “In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity is the vital thing.”
While we might find some of Wilde’s material humorous, like all good satire, it has an interesting edge of seriousness to it.
18 year old Cecily also refers to the “shallow mask of manners”. She thinks of Ernest as a dangerous, fascinating hero. It is these fanciful notions and conventions that young well to do daughters and good housewives (like the Stepford wives) hold sacred, and yet are essentially meaningless. Not in terms of their value for society, but intrinsically, in terms of actual sense and sensibility.

Virtual Worlds

The scenes in the play alternate between the urban and rural environments of London and Hertfordshire. Ernest is wayward, and beautiful Cecily has an imaginary relationship with him. Yes, it’s true. Ernest is entirely fictional – or at least fictional in terms of fact, but quite real in the imaginings, in the self propelling fantasies of their instigators.
Wilde likes to make use of patterns and there is a sustained paralellism in Earnest. Creating parallel tracks, creates a sense of tension, a need for resolution, which Wilde finally, generously produces, in an intelligent flourish at the end, when Cecily suddenly becomes a very suitable partner (based on her wealth) and the deadlock is finally broken through the discovery of Jack’s orginins. It ends with the harmonic pairing of lovers.

Juxtaposing

Algernon though, complicates the action by turning up, often in the guise of various identities. There is an ironic juxtaposing of Algernon’s appearance as Ernest and Jack’s appearance. Jack kills Ernest off, to disentangle the muddle. And so, in all these details we become aware that everything serious is treated in a trivial way.
Cecily and Gwendolen need flattery to restore their egos. This despite the fact that Gwendolen is sophisticated in some ways. But we soon learn that she is more pretentious, fashionable and short sighted than she is intellectually complicated – that is, having inner depths that she actually uses. Cecily calls a spade a spade and Gwendolen responds: “Well, I’ve never even seen a spade.” And, she says, she does not eat cake with tea as it is not fashionable. Gwendolen makes sweeping statements and then totally defies the logic she has just espoused: ‘I like you more than I can ever say/From the moment I saw you aI distrusted you’. Cecily is less pretentious than Gwendolen, but more frivolous. Their both being engaged to fictional Ernest gives one a sense of just how absurd they are, and how ridiculous life can be for those who are this shallow.

Playing with light and the appearance of things

There are a number of logical inversions in the play. These are the absurdities that make us laugh, or at least smile inwardly. The double life is revealed especially through Prism. She has mislaid a child – in theory an unimaginable disaster.

Fastidious

The characters have a fastidious sense of their own interests. They are precious and over refined. There is plenty of class prejudice. Victorian marriages had to be very class conscious. Lady Bracknell objects to Jack forming an alliance with her daughter Cecily. These contrivances underscore the artificiality of the world, where appearance is more valuable and meaningful than actual value, actual meaning.

Who is Earnest?

Ernest, we’re told, is sincere. But the men is this play are not earnest (in more ways than one!). Bunbury, like Ernest is also fictitious. The whole play revolves around illusions. These are generated in great abundance. So then, what are the implications? What is Wilde trying to communicate to us?

Is it so important what people think of us?

Wilde writes that ‘Life is a play scrutinised by a ring of eyes’. Wilde criticises the absurdity of conventions, but not aggressively. Gently. A few brisk pokes and jibes. He paints a cast who have just a superficial knowledge of each other – just as we see actors in the soaps. And at first glance it appears that it might be enough. Until we see just how absurd their behaviour comes, that actual people – the focus of feelings, affections, attention and action – don’t even exist. Thus, a disconcerting reflection of society is created. Wilde is able, through his comical verbal style, to disconcert us. We see ourselves, and though entertained, we’re somewhat troubled. Our egos, we begin to see, tend to define our reality more than they should. And we find ourselves so often at the mercy of our own self-esteem. Is it important what people think of us? Wilde suggests, I think, that it’s about as important as we make up our minds it is. It’s a subjective, conventional wisdom, and probably, usually, conventional foolishness because we still tend to attach too much meaning to appearances.


What is reality?

All of us, at one time or another, have placed more value in our illusions than in reality. Cecily represents this in terms of her fixation on someone that doesn’t exist. But many of us love people not for who they are, but for who they seem. Who they appear to us to be. Is that so different? Wilde is poking fun at this tendency, our avoidance of harsh reality.

Limited Truth

Virginia Woolf wrote that nothing exists until it has been written down. There is some truth in that, but it’s a limited truth. On the other hand, to say: ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ is ridiculous. One has to start somewhere, and what better place to start than by looking at the cover, reading the title. Appearance provides vital and essential information about a thing, and especially people. It’s been said that over 70% of what we communicate, when we’re talking, is nonverbal.* The characters in Earnest talk a lot of nonsense and don’t seem to do anything real, anything that matters.

What are conventions for?

Conventions serve to modulate society. To guide behaviour. To promote harmony and wellbeing, both for the individual and the community. How often do conventions shut out elements of the community who don’t look a certain way or fit in with our perceptions. Conventions are manners for the masses, but in many cases have been used to define patterns of exclusivity, of class consciousness, to be exclusive rather than inclusive. When conventions are slavishly followed, they become ridiculous. Conventional wisdom is suddenly anything but.

Self Fulfilling Prophesy

Cecily explains that it has always been her dream to marry someone whose name was Ernest. She says the name inspired absolute confidence. How we see the world is important. Our memories influence us. Cecily tells Prism that Memory usually records things that never happened. Our perceptions and paradigms determine how effectively we will operate in the world, both in terms of ourselves and others and the perception others will have of us. The self propogating effects of how beliefs bolster behaviour is interesting and sometimes disturbing, especially when fantasies become increasingly aberrant Failure to adhere to reality causes catastrophe in individuals, like Hitler – who in the final weeks and days of the war was commanding imaginary armies across a crumbling Germany.

Quixotic?

Gwendolen’s comment on Jack’s attitude, his level of seriousness, explains a great deal about her own approach towards the importance of being serious. How serious should we be? It’s true that some serious things are dull, like duty and responsibility. But when the real reason emerges (why she dislikes German) we see her exposed as really very shallow indeed. She feels German makes her look plain. She is extremely superficial, and one wonders, dull witted?
Algernon is the absolute opposite of what Cervantes’ described in his novel about an earnest, passionate character. He is a hedonist, especially in terms of his stomach, and his attraction to Cecily. At one point Cecily, with the ring, forgives Algernon his ‘wicked life’ on the basis of his good sense of taste. In such a fickle world as hers, what can really matter?

Snobbery

Lady Bracknell is a snob, and unashamed of it. Her ego gratification comes out of her feeling superior to those around her. This is, of course, just another illusion.
People experience the same degree of stimulation from actual experience (reality, life) as they do from memories of it, or imagined reality, or memory. This is why television and movies work with human beings. We’re able to suspend reality long enough to live as voyeurs. Wilde generates numerous sets – numerous characters who connect to the world only on the most shallow level. They live as voyeurs. Commenting on life, criticising others, investing themselves in trivial objects and gestures, but never really doing anything useful or significant.

Trivia

Although Earnest is about the implications of superficiality, it is not in itself trivial material. In the same way, then, that everyday life may be influenced by pretentious drama (televised or acted out by our contemporaries in the workplace or the home or elsewhere) it remains the choice of the individual to be captivated by this nonsense. If we are, we perpetuate it.

The Importance of Making an Appearance

It is not enough to ignore it. Much of the fabric of society is based, is built, on appearances. But not all of it. Thus the choice must be made in maintaining a balance, in choosing what is essential, and what must be discarded.

Weeding out and waking up

For the sanity of a society, and for its health and well being, hallucinations necessarily need to be weeded out. Currently there is a real delusion (?) that Hydrogen presents an alternative to Cheap (no longer) Oil. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross once wrote about our attitudes towards death and following this process:
denial > bargaining > depression > acceptance
Our perceptions of value in society today are warped. Appearance is extremely important today – from the size of breasts (if small, they are enhanced artificially) to lips, from makeup to fingernails. Appearance today is far more important than manners. Manners have some semblance of mentality – some level of thinking and structure. Appearance is mere animalism. We are society today that are obsessed with Britney Spears, cargo pants and the mall, when where our focus really ought to be is real world cataclysm: oil prices that threaten to reverse globalisation and create contracting economies everwhere. A potential flu pandemic that threatens to wipe out millions. But even intelligent newspapers and magazines and TV airwaves dedicate most of their space to pretty presenters introducing even prettier personalities.

Laughter – the best medicene?

Wilde has created a number of characters, who then go on to gratify their own demands by inventing their own inventions. Perhaps the best way to address our illusions is to poke fun at it. In the end, when the world comes crashing down, it is no laughing matter.

The End of the Artifice

Being artificial in life may be profitable for a period. It may get the grand ship grandly out of the harbor. It may quickly win some friends and seem to influence some people. But at what cost? In the end, integrity is its own reward. Integrity, it seems to me, is the opposite of shallowness, of constant artifice. Integrity, after all, means the ability to withstand both the opposite of truth and structural damage from the outside. Integrity is what a ship like Titanic lacked. We ought to laugh and be merry, adapt and flex, but be consistent in holding on to our integrity. To have a teaspoon of seriousness that we carry with us through the great rooms, the great episodes of our lives. Take it all in. Sail far. Life, we know, is like an ocean full of icebergs. They bring us back to reality, from time to time, and when they do, we either sink or swim. Everything artificial helps us to drown. Our connection to the now is how we stay alive, breathing the fresh salty air.

* Language has its place, but even language when it attempts to represent (show again) reality, interprets reality, changes reality). Language is merely a symbol, whether verbalised or written. It is a representation of reality. A further distortion of reality is where language is made to distort reality, sometimes by accident (where sensory perceptions fail or err), and worse, by conscious manipulation. Using words to make us believe in something that isn’t true. Slander. Arguably, religion.
Shakespeare has demonstrated how divorced appearance and reality can result in tragedy. The Titanic is an example of the appearance of the impregnable ship, which proves to be as vulnerable as everything else to the ravages of the world. So too the great powerful beast, King Kong, who, despite the appearance of great strength, loses his heart and then his life to Beauty.