Discussion Questions for Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
Wilde's play has two settings—the city of London and the country. How does he create differences between the two settings? Is there a real opposition between them? How do these setting represent the double-lives being led by the characters? Why do Jack and Algernon need Ernest and Bunbury, respectively?
The play's story—marriage, its manners and obstacles—is actually quite a common one in fiction (literature and best-sellers) and especially comedies. The characters' views of marriage are both a source of laughter and an issue for serious discussion. What does each character in the play (i.e. Jack, Algernon, Gwendolen, Lady Bracknell, and Lane) think about love, engagement, and marriage? In particular, consider Gwendolen’s "ideals" together with Lady Bracknell’s requirements for her suitor.
Jack, Algernon, Gwendolen and Lady Bracknell are all from the upper class. What are their value standards? In other words, what are the things they think are important, or "serious"? (Pay particular attention to Lady Bracknell's inquiries of Jack.) How does Wilde comment on the differences between the social classes in England as represented by the upper-class characters and the servants in both settings?
How does Wilde portray food as both a weapon and a means of demonstrating one's power? Look for specific examples from the play to demonstrate how Wilde uses food.
Consider the account Jack gives of his birth. What is significant about his having been discovered in an ordinary handbag lost in the cloakroom of a railroad car?
Is everything a commodity in this play? What might Wilde be suggesting about Victorian values?
In this play Wilde is concerned with the difference between conventional and actual manners and morality. How does the play develop this theme?
In The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde suggests that his Victorian contemporaries should treat trivial matters with greater respect and pay less attention to what society then regarded as serious. As you read, look for ways that Wilde expresses this philosophy in relation to the following: death, politics, money, property, food, marriage.
What is it to "be Earnest," and what is the importance of doing so? Now that we know Jack was always Ernest, what are we supposed to think as we walk out of the playhouse?
Miss Prism's Law of Fiction is that the good should end happily, and the bad unhappily. Can one apply Prism's Law to Wilde’s play as a whole?
