The Importance Of Being Earnest Literary Analysis

Clever puns and witty dialectic. That is what you will encounter while reading Oscar Wilde’s play “The Importance of Being Earnest”. But what makes this play so great is not just the characters but the title itself. The title depicts the whole story and foreshadows the main characters’ journey of self-discovery. With a metaphor and some irony Wilde makes the best pun of all, the title itself.
In the play, Ernest deceives Gwendolen, who is the love of his life, into thinking that he has a brother named Jack that lives on the countryside of town. He claims that he is trouble maker and would often go to the country side to “handle Jack” when in actuality Ernest is his alibi because his real name is Jack not Ernest. Jack goes to the countryside because he is Cecily’s guardian, who is an eighteen girl that is Jack’s niece. When Jack is in the countryside he tells Cecily stories about his brother Ernest who lives in London and that is always causing trouble, which is why Jack always has to leave because he needs to aid his brother. But lying to both women causes problems for Jack
Both Cecily and Gwendolen care about having husbands that are named Ernest because they believe that if they are named Ernest they will be earnest. Cecily even told Algernon that “there is something special in that name that seems to inspire absolute confidence. I pity any poor married woman whose husband is not called Ernest” (pg.47/3). With that is mind Algernon and Jack start to make plans to change their name by getting baptize with the name Ernest. The plan would have worked had Cecily and Gwendolen not met because they started talking about their future husbands who happen to be named Ernest. This is where Cecily and Gwendolen connected the dots and realized that their soon to be husbands have not been so earnest. With a confrontation underway, Jack and Algernon confess the