Act I
Jack Worthing, under the assumed name of Earnest Worthing, has arrived in London in order to propose to Gwendolen Fairfax. He visits his friend, Algernon Moncrieff, who lives in a luxurious Mayfair flat. But the discovery by Algy of Jack's cigarette case, left in his apartment on his last visit, leads Algy to realise that his friend has a double identity: he is Earnest in the city and Jack in the country. Jack explains that, in order to leave his country home whenever he wishes, he has invented a fictitious younger brother called Earnest, who lives in London and gets into so much trouble that Jack often has to come and rescue him. Algy admits that he, too, leads a double life - he has invented a friend called Bunbury who lives in the country and is a permanent invalid. This allows Algy to escape the city whenever he wishes.
Already Wilde has firmly established the mood of innocence, largely through his choice of dialogue. This is what marks out The Importance of Being Earnest primarily as a nonsense play rather than a comedy of manners. The best examples of this latter category - Congreve's The Way of the World (1700) and Sheridan's The School for Scandal (1777) present characters who behave immorally, but do so in such a delightful way that the audience are prevented from passing moral judgement. Evil is present in a comedy of manners, but is rendered harmless- we do not feel that it is real evil, just as in The Importance of Being Earnest. But where Wilde's work differs is that he is not interested in satirising the society of his time. Instead, he seeks to reduce this society to the level of childlike innocence in attempt to escape from evil, and does this mainly by his essentially nonsensical dialogue.
The Importance of Being Earnest is full of nonsensical statements, and Act I begins them early on, for instance in the examination of Jack's cigarette case:
"ALGERNON: (retreating to back of sofa) But why does she call herself little Cecily if she is your aunt and lives at Tunbridge Wells? (Reading) 'From little Cecily with her fondest love'.
JACK: (moving to sofa and kneeling upon it) My dear fellow, what on earth is there in that? Some aunts are tall, some aunts are not tall. That is a matter that surely an aunt may be allowed to decide for herself."
Wilde is here in the vein not of social satire, but of the new nonsense writing exemplified by Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass (1872), and Edward Lear's Book of Nonsense (1846).
Algy accuses his friend of being a confirmed 'Bunburyist' - that is someone who uses another persona in order to indulge in covert pleasurable activity. This could be seen to reflect (and playfully suggest) the lengths needed to go to in order to conduct homosexual affairs. But Jack rejects this accusation -
"JACK: I'm not a Bunburyist at all. If Gwendolen accepts me, I am going to kill my brother, indeed I think I'll kill him in any case."
In the short story "Lord Arthur Saville's Crime", Arthur had to commit a crime before he could marry Sibyl. Jack here also finds himself forced to murder someone as a prelude to marriage. Arthur's murder of Podgers was a real crime, despite Podger's symbolic status, while Jack's brother is entirely a product of his imagination. The 'murder' that Jack commits, then, is a totally harmless parody of Arthur's crime, and, perhaps, of Dorian Gray's murder of Basil Hallward.
This section of the act parodies a similar scene in An Ideal Husband in which Lord Goring finds Mrs Cheveley's snake-bracelet. Her attempts to retrieve it expose her as a thief and defeat her. In The Importance of Being Earnest, the exposure of Jack is shrouded in innocence and does not harm his social position or his chances of marrying Gwendolen. On the contrary, it deepens his friendship with Algy, a fellow 'Bunburyist'.
The doorbell rings and Lady Bracknell and her daughter Gwendolen enter. Though Gwendolen is clearly a child too, Lady Bracknell, though a child pretending to be a British aristocrat, is someone who has learnt the rules of the game well, and refuses to make a mistake. She apologises for the lateness in a typically pompous manner and then continues the vein of inverted logic and nonsensibility:
"LADY BRACKNELL: I was obliged to call on dear Lady Harbury. I hadn't been there since her poor husband's death. I never saw a woman so altered: she looks quite twenty years younger."
Algy had been expecting them, but has eaten all the cucumber sandwiches he prepared for Lady Bracknell. This emphasises Algy's attitude to the world, treating it as if it were a giant playpen, unable to control his urges. At one point he says, "I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them".
While Algy and his aunt briefly leave the room, Jack seizes his chance to confess his passionate love for Gwendolen. His amazement to learn that the feeling is mutual is nothing to that which he feels when Gwendolen reveals that the main reason for her love is that his name is Earnest. Jack privately decides to christen himself Earnest and then proposes to Gwendolen, who accepts.
Still on his knees, Lady Bracknell re-enters and interrogates him thoroughly about his wealth and social position. His answers are at first satisfactory, but when asked about his parents, Jack admits that he does not know who they are. He explains that he was found in a handbag by Mr Thomas Cardew in a cloakroom at Victoria station, and was given the name Worthing as Mr Cardew happened to have a first class ticket for Worthing at the time. Lady Bracknell is shocked by this and absolutely forbids any engagement between Jack and Gwendolen until he has produced at least one satisfactory parent.
The exchange between Jack and Lady Bracknell is justly famous, largely through its witty, subtle nonsensibility. Jack focuses on unimportant details in his tale: the explanation of the ticket to Worthing may be relevant because of his name, but the geographical placing of Worthing as a seaside resort in Sussex, is not. This mixing of important fact and irrelevant detail confuses and renders the whole statement hilarious and nonsensical. Similarly, the physical appearance of the handbag - "a somewhat large, black, leather handbag, with handles to it - an ordinary handbag in fact" - is obtuse, though rather nicely captures a human tendency to waffle when nervous. He mentions that he was found at Victoria station, which is important, but adds that it was the Brighton line, which merits Lady Bracknell's gently cutting response: "The line is immaterial, Mr Worthing". This could be seen to refer to the story, the train lien itself and the line in the play.
Gwendolen, however, is undeterred by the story, so irresistible does she find the name Earnest. She asks for and notes down Jack's country address. Algy, listening in the background, jots this down on his shirt cuff. The act end with Algy preparing to go on a 'Bunbury' to Jack's country home in order to meet Cecily Cardew, of whose existence he has learnt.
Act II
The act opens in the garden of Jack's country home, where Cecily, his ward, and Miss Prism, her tutor are unsuccessfully conducting their studies. Cecily's inattention immediately demonstrates that she, too, is a child. However, she is the wittiest person in the play, and the only one able to defeat Algy at his game of uttering nonsensical statements. Cecily complains, when asked to return to her German lesson, that German "isn't at all a becoming language. I know perfectly well that I look quite plain after my German lesson". Though her self-awareness is somewhat lacking, she can effectively identify and mock the traits of others. Later in the act, Algy, masquerading as Earnest, says that he is hungry and then declares that he is hungry. Cecily replies: "How thoughtless of me. I should have remembered that when one is going to lead an entirely new life, one requires regular and wholesome meals".
Dr Chasuble appears and Miss Prism goes for a walk with him. He is a reduction to absurdity of John the Baptist as Wilde presented him in Salome, constantly christening people and with a hidden lust, not for Salome, but for Miss Prism. Throughout Salome, the prophet makes statements that have a hidden meaning, and this is paralleled by Dr Chasuble's slips of his tongue in order to hide his lust.
Even Chasuble's name has a double meaning - both an ecclesiastical vestment worn at Mass and, in its pronouncement, 'chase-able', a suggestion that the Rector is capable of being chased very successfully by women. Though John the Baptist was beheaded at the end if Salome, Dr Chasuble simply admits to himself that he is attracted to Miss Prism and embraces her.
Miss Prism is the embodiment of Victorian middle-class codes of morality and duty. She insists that fiction must preach morality - an attitude that especially irritated Wilde. She once wrote a novel in which "the good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means". However, her preoccupation with this means that is reality she lost a baby that she had been entrusted with.
She is also attracted to Dr Chasuble, but, unlike Gwendolen and Cecily, hides her sexual feelings, though this leads her to make parallel slips of the tongue. Suggesting a mature woman for the Rector, she says: "Maturity can always be depended on. Ripeness can be trusted. Young women are green". She means an intellectual ripeness, but her words can be taken to refer to a sexual ripeness, which is how the Rector interprets them. In many ways she is the female counterpart of Dr Chasuble.
The butler Merriman enters to announce the arrival of Mr Earnest Worthington. Actually, the person who has arrived is Algernon, who has assumed the name and identity of Jack's fictitious brother in order to meet Cecily. Having met, they converse for a while, and then enter the house. They share the same attitude to life, cocooned and cushioned, adverse to any work. When Cecily asks him if his hair curls naturally, he replies: "Yes, darling, with a little help from others".
Immediately afterwards, Miss Prism and Dr Chasuble return to the garden. Then Jack enters, clad in black, and sadly announces that his brother has died in Paris the night before. The situation becomes more hilarious when Cecily re-emerges from the house to joyfully announce to Jack that his brother Earnest awaits his in the dining room. Algy appears, Jack is furious with him, and Cecily insists on reconciliation between the two 'brothers'.
Alone with Algy, Jack demands his immediate return to London, but Algy has fallen in love with Cecily. Algy then proposes to Cecily only to discover that he has already been engaged to her for three months. Cecily, it seems, fell in love with him when she learned how wicked he was and moreover has always dreamt of loving someone by the name of Earnest. Algy does not protest, but runs off to see Dr Chasuble about being re-christened Earnest.
Algy's manipulation of reality for his own ends easily, then, finds a match in that of Cecily. She stands reality on its head and inverts truth to return to childhood play through nonsense. When Algy informs Cecily that they must now part for a very short space of time she responds as follows:
"CECILY: It is always very painful to part from people whom one has known for a very brief space of time. The absence of old friends one can endure with equanimity. But even a momentary separation from anyone to whom one has just been introduced is almost unbearable."/p>
The idea, as outlined in The Picture of Dorian Gray and "Lord Arthur Saville's Crime", that no-one has any free will is dissolved into nonsense here as Algy discovers what his life has been like:
"ALGERNON: Darling! And when was the engagement actually settled?
CECILY: On the 14th of February last. Worn out by your entire ignorance of my existence, I determined to end the matter one way or another, and after a long struggle with myself, I accepted you under this dear old tree here. The next day, I bought this little ring in your name, and this is the little bangle with the true lovers' knot I promised you always to wear.
ALGERNON: Did I give you this? It's very pretty isn't it?
CECILY: Yes, you're wonderfully good taste, Earnest."
Cecily is able to recount the events to him in such detail as she always brandishes a copy of here diary. Here, Wilde can parody himself and his literary contemporaries, who, he felt, could only actually commit to paper truths about there own personalities. Cecily says to Algy of her diary: "It is simply a very young girl's record of her own thoughts and impressions, and consequently meant for publication. When it appears in volume form I hope you will order a copy".
Lord Arthur had been spiritually reborn after facing and defeating an evil streak within himself, and had put the seal on his rebirth by christening himself in the bathtub. Jack and Algy's attempts to rechisten themselves reduce to absurdity Lord Arthur's situation. The motives behind their actions render absurd and treat playfully the entire idea of spiritual rebirth. In the paradise of innocence that Algy and Jack inhabit, there is no need for any spiritual development whatsoever. There is no need for them to purge themselves of evil because evil is not a real thing.
Merriman enters to announce the presence of Miss Gwendolen Fairfax, who has come to see Mr Worthing on very important business. Cecily receives her and through the course of their conversation, they discover that they are both engaged to Mr Earnest Worthing. However, the return of Jack and Algy exposes the truth - Cecily reveals Jack's real identity and Gwendolen unmasks Algy.
As characters, Jack and Algy's situation reduces to nonsense the serious and dangerous double life that Dorian Gray led. In the country, Jack is Mr Jack Worthing, Cecily's guardian, and so forced to adopt a high moral tone on all subjects. Cecily observes that her Uncle is so serious that she thinks he cannot be quite well, while the morally pompous Miss Prism says that Jack's "gravity of demeanour is especially to be recommended in one so comparatively young as he is. I know none who has a higher sense of duty and responsibility". But this identity is a mask, and while in London, he assumes the name of Earnest and lives entirely for pleasure. His real personality, like Dorian, is the wicked one. But in this work, wickedness is a very harmless, innocent thing. Had Dorian been exposed in his lifetime, he would have been rejected by society and disgraced forever. Jack and Algy are exposed, but are quickly forgiven by all. By extension, therefore, if Dorian's double life is reduced to nonsense, then his situation too is reduced to the level of innocence and playfulness.
The girls, who had been at each other's throats a moment before, cling together for comfort and retreat scornfully into the house, while the men remain in the garden, arguing. The act closes with Jack and Algy nonsensically quarrelling over which of them is to eat a dish of muffins the girls had left behind. Here, Algy's tremendous appetite reduces to innocence the sin-tainted feast in Salome, which culminated in her 'feasting' on the severed head of a prophet. Algy's appetite, however, does not lead him to do anything worse than eating Lady Bracknell's cucumber sandwiches and Jack's muffins. Unlike Salome's bloodthirsty sexual appetite, Algy's is funny and harmless.
Act III
Cecily and Gwendolen sit in the drawing room of Jack's country house, longing for reconciliation with their respective partners. This is easily achieved when Jack and Algy enter soon after. The final obstacle is removed when they both announce that they are to be re-christened Earnest that afternoon. But then Lady Bracknell unexpectedly enters, absolutely refuses to allow Gwendolen to marry Jack and then starts to subject him to a severe questioning about Algy's fiancée. When it emerges that Cecily has about £130,000 in the funds, her attitude changes dramatically and she gives her consent to the marriage of Algy and Cecily. Jack, however, in his capacity as Cecily's guardian, forbids the marriage unless Lady Bracknell allows him to marry Gwendolen. This she refuses, and the situation seems hopeless until the arrival of Dr Chasuble.
Lady Bracknell's attempts to keep Jack and Gwendolen apart render her monstrous and a parody of Lord Henry Wotton in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Here, Lord Henry functioned as Dorian's private Satan, leading him ultimately to death and destruction. Jack says of Lady Bracknell earlier in the play: "Never met such a Gorgon…I don't really know what a Gorgon is like, but I am quite sure that Lady Bracknell is one. In any case, she is a monster, without being a myth, which is rather unfair". But she is a harmless monster, for in this world, an unhappy ending is quite out of the question, and Lady Bracknell can emerge as a harmless, nonsensical Gorgon.
He mentions Miss Prism's name, which excites Lady Bracknell, and she insists on meeting her. This is also another opportunity to emphasise Lady Bracknell's snobbishness - she inquires if Miss Prism is "a female of repellent aspect, remotely connected with education". Dr Chasuble's indignant reply is that, "she is the most cultivate of ladies, and the very picture of respectability". Lady Bracknell quickly retorts that it is "obviously the same person".
It turns out that twenty years earlier Miss Prism had been the governess of Lady Bracknell's sister, and had been entrusted with a baby, which she had lost. Miss Prism confesses that she had accidentally placed the baby in a black leather handbag, which she had left in the cloakroom at Victoria Station. Jack produces the handbag in which he had been found and Miss Prism recognises it as the one she had mislaid.
She does so in a manner typical of the shocking nonsensibility of the play, not enquiring after the child she mislaid, but concentrating on the bag. "I am delighted to have it so unexpectedly restored to me," she says. "It has been a great inconvenience being without it all these years".
Thus, Jack's parentage is discovered - he turns out to be Algy's elder brother, the son of Lady Bracknell's sister and General Earnest John Moncrieff. It also emerges that his name is really Earnest, after all. All obstacles to marriage have now been overcome, and the play closes with Jack embracing Gwendolen and Algy embracing Cecily. Dr Chasuble also rejects his former views on celibacy and embraces Miss Prism.