‘You talk exactly as if you were a dentist. It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn’t a dentist.’ Later on in the scene he says
‘From motives of respect that you could not possibly appreciate.’ And this proves that he views himself as superior to Algenon. Also in this scene university students are spoken of quite highly. Algernon, when speaking of literature says to Jack to leave it to people
‘…who haven’t been at a University’ as they do it so well in the papers so the upper class must respect people who attend university more than those who haven’t.
The characters in The Importance Of Being Earnest are greatly infatuated by the size of ones income. Lady Bracknell, for example, often judges people by firstly how much money they have and secondly where it is from. I.e. earned or inherited. The first character to do this is Algernon in act one. His Aunt Augusta has a liking of cucumber sandwiches, so Algernon ensures that Lane, the butler, has brought some from the market. There weren’t any even for cash so he has to explain to his aunt, Lady Bracknell why there weren’t. He says
‘I am greatly distressed, Aunt Augusta, about there being no cucumbers, not even for ready money.’ So here you can see that these aristocratic men live off unearned incomes.
When Lady Bracknell is questioning Jack in the first act, one of the first things she asks him is about how much money he has. She says
‘What is your income?’ to which he answers ‘Between seven and eight thousand a year’ then when he says mostly from investments, Lady Bracknell comments, ‘That is satisfactory’. Happy with his answer, she continues her questioning. Later on in the play, in act three, she questions Cecily to see whether she is suitable to marry Algernon. She doesn’t seem to want her nephew to marry Cecily and announces that she and Gwendolen must depart without
‘a moment to lose.’ Then as soon as she hears that Cecily has a hundred and thirty thousand pounds in the funds she sits back down, interested all of a sudden. After examining Cecily and her profile she goes on to describe her marriage with Lord Bracknell. She says,
‘When I married Lord Bracknell I had no fortune of any kind.’ So she believes that as long as you have some way of becoming rich, via marriage in this case, then it is alright to not have much money.
Appearance seems to be a major factor that the characters in The Importance Of Being Earnest take into account when judging one another. Wilde presents almost a set of rules which the upper class people of society abided by where the most ordinary things were made superficial. These are false, or superficial values and there are many examples of these. The first instance where appearance is important is the first act in which Algernon is expecting his aunt to arrive. He can tell that it is his aunt who has rung the bell by the way in which it is rung. He says,
‘Ah! That must be Aunt Augusta. Only relatives, or creditors, ever ring in that Wagnerian manner.’ This shows that there is even a certain way you must ring the doorbell. Algernon invents a friend called Bunbury whom he visits to get out of boring situations such as dining with his aunt. He tells her that he has received a telegram to inform him that this Bunbury is terribly ill so he won’t be able to dine with her and her only response to this is,
‘I hope not…it would put my table completely out. Your uncle would have to dine upstairs. Fortunately he is accustomed to that.’ She isn’t really bothered by the fact that her nephew won’t be there, just that her seating arrangement of boy-girl-boy-girl will be ruined.
Cecily and Gwendolen, the girls who both happen to be engaged to Ernest, both want to marry this character purely because of the name. Gwendolen felt that her ideal has
‘always been to marry someone of the name Ernest. There is something in that name that inspires absolute confidence…I knew I was destined to love you.’ And when Jack asks if she would love him if he had another name, such as Jack, she says that she pities any woman married to a man of that name. This is an example of a false value, as the name of someone is irrelevant, it is the personality that matters. Cecily too felt that she could only marry a man called Ernest, and in the second act she states that she has always has
‘a girlish dream to love some one whose name was Ernest. There is something in that name that seems to inspire absolute confidence’ and she pities any woman married to a man by any other name. This is almost exactly what Gwendolen says. When Algernon asks her if she could love him if he was called something else she says she might respect and admire him but would not be able to give him her undivided attention. Again, these are false values.
Lady Bracknell is very put off when she hears that Mr. Worthing lives at number one hundred and forty nine as it is the
‘unfashionable side’ of the street. But she decides that that small problem can be easily altered. When Jack tells her that he was ‘found’ and in a handbag Lady Bracknell is quite horrified. The most famous line of the play is where she says
‘A handbag?’ and you imagine it to be said in complete disgust. She asks Jack all these questions to discover if he is a suitable man to marry her daughter, Gwendolen and in her final conclusion on the matter she says
‘You can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter-a girl brought up with the utmost care- to marry into a cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel.’ Before she says good bye and leaves. There is irony as in the end, she finds out that Jack is actually the son of her late sister which makes her Jack’s aunt, and Algernon’s brother. It turns out that his name is actually Ernest which again is irony.
In the last act when Lady Bracknell is deciding whether or not Cecily is fit to marry Algernon the second factor that she looks at are looks, after money. As soon as she hears that Cecily is rather wealthy, she recognises that actually, she is a very
‘attractive young lady.’ She announces that
‘few girls of the present day have any really solid qualities…we live, I regret to say, in an age of surfaces.’ This is a complete contradiction as both she and her daughter are always looking at the height of fashion and judge people by how they look rather than who they are. She says that Cecily’s dress is
‘sadly simple’ and her hair almost
‘as nature might have left it’ but soon says that she is able to alter that. Then she commands Cecily to present her profile and Lady Bracknell seems generally impressed, though ‘the chin’ should have been worn ‘a little higher’.
In the second act Gwendolen visits Cecily and at first the two are the bestest of friends, but then they discover that they are both engaged to the same person. Then they begin to have a verbal fight and when Cecily asks Gwendolen how she takes her tea, more false values are underlined. Cecily asks if she has sugar, and her reply is
‘No, thank you. Sugar is not fashionable any more.’ In spite of Gwendolen’s snobbery she puts four lumps of sugar in her cup. When Gwendolen is offered bread and butter or cake, she affected a bored manner and said
‘Bread and butter, please. Cake is rarely seen at the best houses nowadays.’ Which again proves how fanatical the upper class were with what was fashionable and what was not. Again, Cecily deliberately gives Gwendolen the opposite of what she asks for.
Wilde emphasises the lack of sincerity in the upper class of his time through the characters in the play. Cecily, in act two asks Algernon if his hair is naturally curly. His reply is
‘Yes, darling, with a little help from others.’ In other words, no, it doesn’t. This is an example of not being sincere as if his hair was naturally curly, then he wouldn’t need any help from people.
At the start of the third act Gwendolen declares that in matters of grave importance, ‘style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.’ Which is ridiculous because in matters of grave importance, sincerity is far more important than style. This is another case of the upper class having superficial or false values.
A classic example of false values comes from Lady Bracknell on her opinion of Algernon. She describes him to ‘have nothing, but looks everything’ which is another example of appearance mattering more than character. A while later, when everything is falling into place and Jack finds out who he really is, he rushes upstairs to fetch the handbag he was found in. He tells Gwendolen to wait for her downstairs to which she replies,
‘If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.’ Which is a contradiction as well as showing a lack of sincerity.
Lady Bracknell is often insincere and this is brought to light in the first act after she hears the news that Mr. Worthing has lost both his parents. She claims that
‘To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.’ Which is very untrue as nobody chooses to lose a parent. Then when he shows how devoted he is to her daughter she advises him on how to win her hand in marriage. She recommends Jack to acquire some relations ‘as soon as possible’ and to make an effort to produce a parent of either sex before the season is over. This is an impossible thing to do, but there is irony as in the end, he does find out who his parents are, and though he cannot produce them in front of Lady Bracknell, she knows who they are- her sister and brother-in-law in fact. This is another time when the characters show signs of not being sincere.
In The Importance Of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde manages to put forward the social snobbery, superficial values, money and appearance matters that the upper class of society had and as he seems to be against all this, he is biased.
