Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest -- Drama as Literature (EL 250)
Jack: Your vanity is ridiculous, your conduct an outrage, and your presence utterly absurd. How you have got to catch the four-five, and I hope you will have a pleasant journey back to town. This Bunbury as you call it, has not been a great success for you.
I chose this passage because it shows the two main male characters at their best. Jack’s true colors came out and he makes it very clear how upset he is at Algeron for coming into his house and intruding in his life. I wonder if Jack would have felt the same way if he did not just finish telling his people that his brother was dead. Algeron’s quick thinking is best shown in this passage. It now explains why Algeron wanted to know Jack’s address and it showed how sly he was in order to get his address.
Algeron’s willingness to lie and manipulate people in order to get what he wants it part of his character that you would not have seen if Algeron did not behave this way to Jack. Algeron’s character would have been extremely different. He betrayed his friendship with Jack because he wanted to finally meet Cecily. But it also created problems for him later on because of the confusion between Cecily and Gwendolen. He also seems to have no acknowledgement to Jack’s feelings. He does not show remorse that he has lied and cheated and messed up Jack’s plans just for his own.
It seems that both characters created complete confusion and havoc. I do not know why the women agree to stay engaged to the men after they had found out that they had both lied right to their faces by pretending to be someone else by the name of Earnest.
The story had many twists and it appeared that each character was out for himself. But I like how Katie summed up the story by saying: “They learn lessons on moral character, which is something they repeatedly reference in the work. In all actually, they learn the importance of being earnest.” It is the truth. In the end, each character saw what they did and tried to give their reasons as to why they behaved the way that they did.
I wonder why Jack did not make Algeron leave when he told him too. I wonder why he let him kill time and allow him to propose to Cecily. And I just wanted to note that I like how this author wrote this play because I hated all the male characters, but like always I forgave them in the end. Their intentions were well, I guess.