The Inside Doesn't Really Count in Victorian Society

          Victorian society is often distinguished by its strict rules regarding morality, propriety, and sex… all of which are satirized by Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. The play centers on Algernon and Jack – two young bachelors who engage in the practice of “bunburying.” As defined by Algernon, Bunburying is the practice of creating an elaborate deception that allows one to misbehave while seeming to uphold the very highest standards of duty and responsibility. In other words, it is the practice of leading a double life in order to escape responsibility, while maintaining your street cred as a prim and proper component of Victorian era society. Just as a child may create an imaginary friend, Jack and Algernon create imaginary loved ones: a brother named Earnest and a chronically-sick friend named Bunbury. While a little kid’s imaginary friend may serve as the child’s trusty companion and secret-keeper, Earnest and Bunbury’s existences are manifestations of Jack and Algernon’s secret deceit.

In The Importance of Being Earnest Wilde utilizes the pseudo-moralic – and highly deceptive – actions of Jack and Algernon to satirize the importance of public image in Victorian era society. For example, it was quite fashionable for people belonging to the upper-middle classes to do their “public duty” by visiting the poor and the sick. By telling people that he is tending to his loosey goosey brother named Earnest, Jack projects an image of moral responsibility for others that is completely fabricated. And when Algernon tells others that he must leave the city in order to care for his invalid friend, Bunbury, he displays a sense of Christian charity. In this way, Jack and Algernon are able to mask their personal impurities with airs of benevolent duty to the public good.  By showcasing characters who exploit values of unselfish morality to the benefit of their public image, Wilde provides a definitive contrast between public appearance and personal identity (this is comparable to both the “seems vs. is” motif in Hamlet and the “public vs. personal identity” motif in The Age of Innocence!).  

            Moreover, the role of food in Wilde’s play is symbolic of the discord between personal identity and social protocol. Judging from the two Acts that we’ve read in class, food seems to be a source of tension between Algernon and Jack. This is highly atypical in the upper class society of the Victorian era, seeing as eating was a common scenario in which people were expected to act courteous and proper. Instead, Algernon consumes food frequently and exaggeratedly, in a highly unsophisticated manner.To make matters even stranger, Algernon seems to do this more when the food belongs to someone else (i.e. the cucumber sandwiches that were intended for Lady Bracknell). This could be an indication of the gender role reversal that pervades Wilde’s play. Men of Algernon’s social class were expected to be the hospitable providers for their guests and the women in their lives. Algernon, on the other hand, is always receiving food from the women in his life, rather than providing for them. It is possible that Algernon’s unruliness in his highly gendered social sphere mirrors Wilde’s personal defiance of traditional gender roles.