Algernon- Well, in the first place men never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don’t think it right.
Jack- Oh, that is nonsense!
Algy is also a little too concerned with clothing to come across as masculine. This can be seen when he assertively criticises Jack by saying that he had never known anyone to put so much effort into dressing and to produce so little effect. Algernon also says in Act two when talking to Cecily that he wouldn’t trust Jack to buy his outfits as he has ‘”no taste in neckties”. There we have another characteristic that opposes Jack: Algy is dandy, making him effeminate in the eyes of the Victorian audience, whilst Jack isn’t much concerned with appearance, which would be a more manly trait.
As far as economic independence goes, Jack appears to have more independence than does Algy. Jack actually has an ‘income’ that is ‘chiefly in investments’. Algy as explained by Lady Bracknell “has nothing but looks everything”. Algy, as hinted in the first act where Lane expresses that Algy doesn’t normally pay “ready money” for anything, therefore is living on credit and isn’t really economically independent as he doesn’t make any income of his own.
Jack, unlike Algy, is naïve, ironically innocent (even though he thinks he is lying about being called Ernest, it turns out to be true and he thinks he is lying about having a brother, that is also true as discovered in the last scene of the play) and pliable. All these characteristics are those of the ingenue of a comedy of manners, who in fact would normally be female. So, Jack is rather effeminate to own all these characteristics.
After examination of Algy and Jack, it can clearly be seen that Wilde has challenged the gender relations of the Victorian era by creating two male characters that by no means come across as masculine. Also, any masculine traits that are present in them are practically eliminated when they, and the audience, are introduced to their future wives.
Gwendolen is assertive, she is like Algy in that she can make Jack do what she likes and will give a confident remark about herself: “I am always smart! Am I not, Mr Worthing?” She is feminine, in that she is concerned with appearance and the proper engagement, but at the same time adopts more masculine characteristics than does Jack. Gwendolen is also active as she defies what her mother instructs her to and she isn’t dependent emotionally on anyone, though Jack appears to be emotionally dependant on her. A good example of Gwendolen being assertive is when Jack is made to propose to her properly. Even though Gwendolen knows exactly what he is going to ask her and she even tells him that she is going to accept him before he proposes, Gwendolen insists on a proper proposal, which is absurd.
Gwendolen is clearly going to be more and more like her mother as she matures. Her mother, Lady Bracknell, is probably the most masculine character in the play. She is very pompous and the most assertive of all the characters. She has the power to stop Jack from marrying Gwendolen and this is key to the plot of the play. Her husband, though he is never seen, seems to be completely oppressed by Lady Bracknell. He is made to dine upstairs for the sake of not “putting her table out” and is “accustomed to do so”. He also is thought to be quite weak as he has bad health. Lady Bracknell’s masculinity is funny because it is almost absurd. She is so emotionally dependent and detached so that she shows no emotion for anyone; she has no sympathy for Bunbury who she believes to have existed when he dies, and even though she thought that Algy was a close friend of his, she doesn’t have any sympathy for him. She gives Jack no condolences when he says that he had “lost” both his parents, instead she says that he was careless, and when he explains that he is a foundling she appears to be outraged. Lady Bracknell has the upper hand over all the main characters in the play. If Gwendolen is going to become like her mother, then one can imagine that in the future world of the play Jack, like Lord Bracknell, is going to be pretty much oppressed and have a feminine role in the marriage with Gwendolen having the upper hand.
The same can be said for Algernon and Cecily. Cecily appears to be innocent and naïve, but actually she isn’t pliable and knows how to get exactly what she wants. Her diary may seem innocent and childish, but it shows that she knows what she wants. Even though it is absurd to have a fictitious fiancé and to write letters from the fictitious fiancé to your self, she actually does get what she wants because Algy plays along with it because Cecily amazes him. She is also defiant and has no intention in learning during her lessons. Algy appears to become less assertive when he meets Cecily and becomes passive, accepting everything she says even though it is absurd. It is also discovered that Cecily is going to be by no means economically dependent when she matures because she is the inheritor of “a hundred and thirty thousand pounds in the Funds.” It can be predicted that Cecily like Gwendolen is going to have the upper hand over Algernon in their marriage.
After examination of the female characters it can be concluded that the female characters are no more typical Victorian women than are Algernon and Jack typical Victorian men. Oscar Wilde has created characters that challenge the Victorian views of gender relations, out of these stems the humour of the comedy of manners. The characters are not what you would expect and the femininity and masculinity of the male and female characters respectively give the characters their wit and it makes the play all the more absurd. “The Importance of Being Earnest” is original in that it is the first play that satirised Victorian society like this and gender roles were a very important part of that society. Oscar Wilde made his contemporary audience laugh at themselves even though they might not have known it.
