The Dishonesty of Being Earnest

     Throughout The Importance of Being Earnest, all of the characters, Jack and Algernon in particular, lie in the pursuit of pleasure or simply whenever is convenient, with no apparent regard for the sanctity of the truth. Humor, mostly from the perspective of the audience, anyway, is one of the most common reasons for this. The Importance of Being Earnest is a comedy, after all, and the antics of the characters are certainly entertaining. At the same time. Many of the epigrams, particularly Algernon's in regard to Bunburying, are demonstrative of this. Lying is viewed as a sort of pastime. On a more serious note, Wilde does use this lying to skewer the social institutions of the time. Marriage, for example, is not quite the holy matrimony it is viewed as traditionally. Rather, the upper classes see it as a possible business opportunity that must be managed with care. Even the title of the play is a joke upon this. While Earnest means "truthful", Ernest, the false name adopted by both Jack and Algernon at various times, is anything but. And this particular untruth is used in the pursuit of pleasure, the common goal of all the lies. The characters are not lying to help the common good; they are in it for themselves. Their dishonest world is also a rather lonely one.

     Wilde seems to be telling two different messages about lies, if one wishes to read something deeper into his play which entertains on the surface. On one hand, the characters are not apparently punished by their lies. By the end of the play, all of the characters are married off, a butler, or Lady Bracknell, the nominal villain of the piece. However, Jack and Algernon, whose lies are the greatest of the lot, and Miss Prism, who has her own secrets, do not achieve their goals until each has come clean about their untruths. Wilde might be interpreted as saying that lying, while not a deadly sin, is still an obstacle in the way of true communication.