Is it possible to feel any sympathy for the character Jack Worthing in The Importance of Being Earnest?
by
amyj96 (student)
Whilst Jack seems to have encountered many difficulties throughout life, owing to the awkward nature of his background, is it possible to feel any sympathy for the character?
Whilst Jack does seem to have encountered many difficulties in his life I believe that it is quite hard to feel sympathy for the character for the majority of the play. The appearance of sympathy for the character of Jack is most apparent during Lady Bracknell’s interrogation of him in Act 1. We sympathise with him because Jack genuinely seems to want to marry Gwendolen because he loves her and Lady Bracknell is completely ignoring that fact by pressing into personal details of himself and of his history and background. This is ignited by the fact that Jack seemed to start off quite well by Lady Bracknell’s standards, being lulled into a false sense of security by Wilde, answering questions such as ‘do you smoke?’ and ‘what is your income…in land or investments?’ with answers that Lady Bracknell find satisfactory. Yet disaster seems to strike with the issue of housing being discussed, ultimately ending with the handbag scenario which I believe is the pinpointed time where the audience of the play will at all feel any sympathy for Jack. Lady Bracknell has just interrogated him about his personal life and has given him a reprimand because of his loss of the both of his parents and also implies that because of this loss or absence of his parents that he will not get very far in the upper class society of that time at all. I suppose to not have both parents could be seen as a very bad thing in this upper class society because the aristocracy and nobility of the family may come into question. This furthermore seems to be the actual point of Lady Bracknell most definitely making her mind up as to him not marrying Gwendolen. Lady Bracknell not only does this, but also seems to carry on questioning Jack to seemingly amuse herself which also furthers to embarrass him as he ends up revealing the true nature of his origin, that he was found in a handbag. Wilde has construed the text in this way to be able to pay on the audience’s emotions, whilst finding the scenario laughable, when faced with watching somebody being embarrassed and humiliated many people also tend to feel these emotions for that person. By presenting Jack in a situation of humiliation, Wilde is subconsciously playing on the emotions of the audience and letting the sympathy out in full flow, yet I don’t think that the upper class at the time of the play would have recognised and acknowledged the sympathy and would just play it off with laughter.
