Importance Of Being Earnest Wealth And Class

Our concepts of class and wealth are usually coupled together—if a person is wealthy, we generally we generally view him/her as also being upper class, and vice-versa. This notion, however, is not present in The Importance of Being Earnest. In this play, wealth and class are rather different, yet they are so in ways that are not too surprising. If a character is wealthy, then they have a relatively large amount of money or land, whereas an upper class person simply acts a certain way. Algernon has both wealth and class. The play opens with Algernon playing a piano and his butler, Lane, setting up afternoon tea. Immediately, it can be determined that Algernon is wealthy because he has a butler. Algernon shows he is upper class when he says it is "customary in good society to take some slight refreshment at five o’clock" (4). I find this attitude to be characteristic of someone who is upper class because of how rigid it is. Taking a refreshment at five o'clock every day is similar to tea time—something done predominately by the upper class.
Ernest sounds like an upper class name, at least opposed to Jack, yet I do not find any other reason to classify Ernest/Jack as upper class. His dialogue in Act I do not reflect that of an upper class person, especially when talking to Gwendolen. His statements "Personally, darling, to speak quite candidly, I don’t much care about the name of Ernest . . . I don’t think the name suits me at all" and "Well . . . may I propose to you now?" lack a pompous tone that is present when other upper class characters speak