Wilde Satirizes Marriage

As a fan of the Jane Austen and Bronte sisters, I became intrigued by the play The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. Also, I watched numerous films such as Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights so I was pretty much informed about the values and etiquettes in this regency period. Therefore, I was greatly amused by this play since it hilariously satirizes the society of England around the 1800s. First of all, the play satirizes and mocks the idea of marriage. From the beginning, Algernon confidently states “I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand” (1). Algernon is satirizing marriage through this claim insisting that marriage often spoils the pleasures of life. In the novels of Jane Austen, Austen often depicts marriage as a happy union joined by two people who love each other deeply. Yet, Wilde undermines this whole idea by presenting women as silly and imaginary beings and men as deceitful beings who have a double life. The women who are presented as silly and imaginary beings are Gwendolyn and Cecily. Gwendolyn presents herself as a naive individual when she states to Jack “the moment Algernon first mentioned to me that he had a friend called Ernest, I knew I was destined to love you” (9). She is basically saying that she is only going to marry Jack because of his alleged name, Ernest. The irony is that Jack is living a double life where he is known as Ernest in the city and Jack in the country. Hence, Wilde is attempting to portray this couple as an insincere couple since they are both not truthful to each other. Furthermore, Gwendolyn further plunges into the depth of imagination when she gets excited about Jack’s mysterious past. After learning that her mother disapproves of Jack, she passionately claims “the story of your romantic origin, as related to me by mamma, with unpleasing comments, has naturally stirred the deeper fibres of my nature” (14). Gwendolyn is in love with the idea of Jack and is excited to marry such a mysterious individual. Yet, in reality, Jack is not mysterious but rather a pleasure seeker who has a double life. Next, the couple of Cecily and Algernon also represents an insincere union that has been fabricated by imaginations and lies. The first meeting between Cecily and Algernon indicates their relationship as fake. Algernon impersonates as Earnest who is not even a real person in order to charm Cecily. Cecily, who has already been intrigued by the bad rumors circulating around Earnest, is immediately attracted to Algernon because he is a bad boy. Cecily even surprises Algernon by revealing that she has been creating this imaginary ideal of their love from a long time ago. She even wrote in her diary “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” which didn’t even happen in real life(28). Overall, Wilde is hoping to mock both women and men’s unrealistic ideal toward marriage.