The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest
By Oscar Wilde 1895
Plot
Algernon, an aristocratic young Londoner, pretends to have a friend named Bunbury who lives in the country and is frequently in ill health. Whenever Algernon wants to avoid an unwelcome social obligation, or just get away for the weekend, he makes an ostensible visit to his "sick friend." In this way he can feign piety and dedication, while having the perfect excuse to get out of town, avoiding his responsibilities. He calls this practice "Bunburying."
Algernon's real-life best friend lives in the country but makes frequent visits to London. This friend's name is Ernest Worthing...or so Algernon thinks. But when Ernest leaves his silver cigarette case in Algernon's rooms, Algernon finds an inscription in it: "From little Cecily, with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack".


The original production of The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895 with Allan Aynesworth as Algernon (left) and George Alexander as Jack (right)
This forces Ernest to disclose that his own visits to the city are also examples of "Bunburying," much to Algernon's delight. In the country, "Ernest" goes by the name of Jack (which he understands to be his real name), and pretends that he has a wastrel brother named Ernest, who lives in London. When honest Jack comes to the city, he assumes the name, and behaviour, of the profligate Ernest. In the country Jack assumes a more serious attitude for the benefit of his young ward, the 18-year old heiress Cecily.
Jack himself wishes to marry Gwendolen, who is Algernon's cousin, but runs into a few problems. First, Gwendolen seems to love him only because she believes his name is Ernest, which she thinks is the most beautiful name in the world. Second, Gwendolen's mother is the terrifying Lady Bracknell. Lady Bracknell is horrified when she learns that Jack was adopted as a baby after being discovered in a handbag at a railway station. In her opinion it is absolutely below the standards of her daughter to "marry into a cloakroom and form an alliance with a parcel", as she puts it.
Meanwhile, Jack's description of Cecily has so appealed to Algernon that he resolves to meet her, in spite of Jack's firm opposition. Algernon decides to visit Jack's house in the country, in the guise of the mysterious brother "Ernest." Thus Algernon-as-Ernest is able to meet Jack's ward, Cecily, who has for some time imagined herself in love with Ernest -- Jack's non-existent, scapegrace brother. As such, Cecily is soon swept off her feet by Algernon. In parallel, however, Jack, having decided to give up his Bunburying, has announced the tragic death of his brother Ernest to Cecily's governess Miss Prism, and Prism's secret admirer the Reverend Chasuble. Thus, by the time the two "brothers" meet, one is dressed in mourning for the other.
New confusion is created by the arrival of Gwendolen, who has fled London and her mother to be with her love. When she and Cecily meet for the first time, each indignantly insists that she is the one engaged to "Ernest". Once Lady Bracknell in turn arrives, in pursuit of her daughter, she and Jack reach stalemate as she still refuses to countenance his marriage to Gwendolen, while he, in retaliation, denies his consent to the marriage of Lady Bracknell's penniless nephew Algernon to his heiress ward Cecily.
The impasse is broken, in deus ex machina fashion, by the reappearance of Miss Prism. As she and Lady Bracknell recognize each other with horror, it is revealed that, when working many years previously as a nursemaid for Lady Bracknell’s sister, Prism had inadvertently lost a baby boy in a handbag. When Jack produces the identical handbag, it becomes clear that he is Lady Bracknell's nephew and Algernon's older brother.
Only one thing now stands in the way of the young couples' happiness, in view of Gwendolen's continued insistence that she can only love a man named Ernest - what is Jack's real first name? Lady Bracknell informs him that he was named after his father, a general, but cannot remember the general's name. Jack looks eagerly in a military reference book and declares that the name is in fact Ernest after all, and he has all along been telling the truth inadvertently.
As the happy couples embrace in turn (including also Prism and Chasuble), Lady Bracknell complains to Ernest, "My nephew, you seem to be displaying signs of triviality." "On the contrary, Aunt Augusta," Ernest replies, "I’ve now realised for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest."
Oscar Wilde’s most successful play, The Importance of Being Earnest became an instant hit when it opened in London, England, in February, 1895, running for eighty-six performances. The play has remained popular with audiences ever since, vying with Wilde’s 1890 novel The Portrait of Dorian Gray as his most recognized work. The play proves vexing to critics, though, for it resists categorization, seeming to some merely a flimsy plot which serves as an excuse for Wilde’s witty epigrams (terse, often paradoxical, sayings or catch-phrases). To others it is a penetratingly humorous and insightful social comedy.
When Earnest opened, Wilde was already familiar to readers for Dorian Gray, as well as for collections of fairy tales, stories, and literary criticism. Theatre-goers knew him for his earlier dramatic works, including three previous successes, Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892), A Women of No Importance (1893), and An Ideal Husband (1895), as well as for his more controversial play, Salome (1896), which was banned in Britain for its racy (by nineteenth century standards) sexual content.
The Importance of Being Earnest has been favorably compared with William Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night and Restoration plays like Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s School for Scandal and Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer. While it is generally acknowledged that Wilde’s play owes a debt to these works, critics have contended that the playwright captures something unique about his era, reworking the late Victorian melodramas and stage romances to present a farcical, highly satiric work — though audiences generally appraise the play as simply great fun.
Tragically, as The Importance of Being Earnest, his fourth and most successful play, received acclaim in London, Wilde himself became embroiled in the legal actions against his homosexuality that would end his career and lead to imprisonment, bankruptcy, divorce, and exile.
The Importance of Being Earnest is a play by Oscar Wilde, a comedy of manners on the seriousness of society in either three or four acts (depending on edition) inspired by W. S. Gilbert's Engaged.[1] It was first performed for the public on February 14, 1895 at the St. James' Theatre in London.
It is set in England during the late Victorian era, and its primary source of humour is based upon the main character Jack's fictitious younger brother Ernest. Jack's surname, Worthing, is taken from the town where Wilde was staying when he wrote the play.
Wilde's plays had reached a pinnacle of success, and anything new from the playwright was eagerly awaited. The press were always hungry for details and would pursue stories about new plots and characters with a vengeance. To combat this Wilde gave the play a working title, Lady Lancing. The use of seaside town names for leading characters, or the locations of their inception, can be recognised in all four of Wilde's society plays.
Characters
• John ("Jack") Worthing (Ernest): In love with Gwendolen. Bachelor. Adopted when very young by Thomas Cardew.
• Algernon Moncrieff (Algy): First cousin of Gwendolen. Bachelor. Nephew of Lady Bracknell.
• Lady (Augusta) Bracknell.
• Hon. Gwendolen Fairfax: daughter of Lady Bracknell.
• Cecily Cardew: granddaughter of Thomas Cardew and ward of Jack Worthing. Lives at Jack's country house in Hertfordshire.
• Miss Prism: governess to Cecily.
• Rev Dr. Frederick Chasuble: a minister who lives near Jack’s country house.
• Lane: butler to Algernon.
• Merriman: butler to Jack.
Algy
See Algernon Moncrieff
Lady Augusta Bracknell
Algernon's aunt and the sister of Jack's mother. She opposes Jack's marriage with her daughter Gwendolen, though relents when she learns that Jack is actually her nephew. More accurately, she wants Algernon to be able to marry the very wealthy Cecily, but that match cannot take place without Jack's permission, which he refuses to give unless Lady Bracknell approves his marriage with Gwendolen. Overall, she is realistic, hard-nosed, and an upholder of convention—though not entirely conventional herself.
Translations
The comedy has been successful even when performed in translation. The title being translatable only to a few languages—it relies on "Ernest" and "earnest" being homophones in English—it is then usually staged under the title Bunbury, referring to deceit in general.
In some languages, the literal title is maintained, but loses its character as a pun. In Norwegian it is staged as Hvem er Ernest?, which means "Who is Ernest?" In Spanish-speaking countries, the title is translated as La importancia de llamarse Ernesto (The Importance of Being Named Ernest).
Several languages—German, Dutch, French, Hungarian, Czech—offer equivalent puns. In Germany the play and the 2002 movie are called Ernst sein ist alles ("Being Earnest is everything"), keeping precisely the original pun (Ernst being both a first name and a German word for earnest). In Dutch it has been translated as Het belang van Ernst, in which the pun is also fully functional. In French, the play is known as De l'importance d'être Constant, Constant being both a mildly uncommon first name and the quality of steadfastness; the pun is preserved but with a slightly different meaning. The Italian L'importanza di essere Franco, or The Importance of Being Frank, similarly preserves punning with a slight twist. The same approach has been used in Hungarian: the title has been translated as Szilárdnak kell lenni ("One Must Be Steadfast"), Szilárd being also an uncommon first name meaning "steadfast". In Czech, the title is translated as Jak je důležité míti Filipa ("The Importance of Having Phillip"), which is an idiom for being clever, and Filip is a quite common name. In Polish, however, the title is 'Brat Marnotrawny'(The Prodigal Brother), an allegory to The Prodigal Son (in Polish- Syn Marnotrawny).
When Wilde handed his final draft of the play over to theatrical impresario George Alexander it was complete in four acts. The actor manager of the St. James' Theatre soon began a reworking of the play. Whether to provide space for a 'warmer' or a musical interlude, as was often the bill, it is not entirely clear. However, Wilde agreed to the cuts and various elements of the second and third acts were combined. The "missing" extra act, coming between the current second and third, was heavily cut. The greatest impact was the loss of the character Mr Gribsby, a solicitor, who turns up from London to arrest the profligate "Ernest" (Jack) for his unpaid dining bills. Algernon - who is going by the name "Ernest" at this point - is about to be led away to Holloway Jail unless he settles his accounts immediately. The four-act version was first played on the radio in a BBC production and is still sometimes performed. The 2002 film includes the Gribsby scene from the missing act.
Rare Book Find
On 19 October, 2007, a rare first edition of the play was discovered in a branch of Oxfam in Nantwich, South Cheshire, UK appropriately in a handbag. Staff at the shop said they had no idea who donated the items. The book has a mark on the inside cover stating that it was numbered 349 out of 1,000 copies and was sold for £650.[1]
Possible in-jokes
Some have implied that Wilde's use of the name Ernest might possibly be an in-joke. John Gambril Nicholson in his poem "Of Boy's Names" (Love in Earnest: Sonnets, Ballades, and Lyrics (1892)) contains the lines: " Though Frank may ring like silver bell, And Cecil softer music claim, They cannot work the miracle, –'Tis Ernest sets my heart a-flame." The poem was promoted by John Addington Symonds and Nicholson and Wilde contributed pieces to the same issue of The Chameleon magazine.[2]. Theo Aronson has suggested that the word "earnest" became a code-word for homosexual, as in: "Is he earnest?", in the same way that "Is he so?" and "Is he musical?" were also employed. [3]
The words bunbury and bunburying, meanwhile, which are used to imply double lives and as excuses for absences are, according to a letter from Aleister Crowley to Sir R. H. Bruce Lockhart, an in-joke conjunction that came about after Wilde boarded a train at Banbury on which he met a schoolboy. They got into conversation and subsequently arranged to meet again at Sunbury. [4]
Contrary to claims of explicit homosexual terminology, the actor Sir Donald Sinden, who had met two of the play's original participants in the 1940s: Irene Vanbrugh, the first Gwendolen; Allan Aynesworth, the first Algy; as well as Wilde's lover Lord Alfred Douglas, wrote to The Times to dispute that the words 'Earnest' or 'bunburying' held any sexual connotations, or that 'Cecily' was a synonym for a rentboy: "Although they had ample opportunity, at no time did any of them even hint that Earnest was a synonym for homosexual, or that Bunburying may have implied homosexual sex. The first time I heard it mentioned was in the 1980s and I immediately consulted Sir John Gielgud whose own performance of Jack Worthing in the same play was legendary and whose knowledge of theatrical lore was encyclopaedic. He replied in his ringing tones: "No-No! Nonsense, absolute nonsense: I would have known."[5] The latter remark gains additional salience from the fact that Gielgud himself was well-known in theatrical circles to be gay.