The Importance of Being Earnest Essay

Solyncia Powell

The play, "The Importance of Being Earnest", by Oscar Wilde has a main protagonist named Mr. Worthing, who has a relationship with each minor character that reveals their strengths and weaknesses as well as the purpose of Oscar’s work.
Mr. Worthing plays as both Jack and Earnest in the play and his character strengths are revealed through both names. In this era, Mr. Worthing’s wealth, status, and virtue are his strengths. The wealthy characteristic is revealed by Lady Bracknell. When Lady Bracknell interviewed Earnest, she was mainly focused and surprised on Jack's income as well as the amount of land owned by Earnest. Through Lady Bracknell's interview his status seemed just as important. She was shocked to hear that Earnest's father was not "born in...Radical papers...or the...ranks of the aristocracy." This pedigree of Earnest costs him the blessing of Lady Bracknell to be engaged to Gwendolen. To Gwendolen, the name Earnest seems to have high status and virtue in society that causes Gwendolen to fall in love with him because the name "has music of its own" and "produces vibrations."
On the other side, Mr. Worthing's weaknesses are mainly revealed through his character, Jack. In this play, Jack is deceptive and irresponsible. Jack's deceptive trait is revealed through Algernon, Jack’s friend in the city. Algernon became suspicious of Earnest not telling the truth about his life because Earnest's cigarette case said "from little Cecily, with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack." This made Algernon wonder who Cecily and Jack were. This event led to the discovery of Jack’s double life and a ward named Cecily. In addition to Jack having a ward, Jack’s relationship with Rev. Canon Chasuble also hinted at Jack's deceptive trait. After the proposal Jack asked Rev. Chasuble to "christen to the name Earnest" as an attempt to cover up his double life. Also, Jack is quite irresponsible through his relationship with Cecily. Jack did not really want to be fully responsible for Cecily which is why Jack came up with his sick and troublesome little brother named Earnest to come to the city for "pleasure....not business." Then the second event is where Gwendolen met Cecily at Jack's house in London. This

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