The Importance of Being Earnest: A Foreshadowing of Oscar Wilde's Final Days

The Importance of Being Earnest: A Foreshadowing of Oscar Wilde's Final Days

Dave A. Thomas / Post-graduate essay

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In The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde not only makes use of autobiographical elements from his past, but his tone alludes to actualized events of his future. Certainly, many authors of drama or otherwise often imbrue their life experiences into their plots. Although Earnest is not as autobiographical as other plays, like Eugene O'Neill's A Long Day's Journey into Night, Wilde's characters do express thoughts based on experiences from their author's past. However, what makes this play unusual is how its wordplay gives a glimpse or prediction of how the author, Oscar Wilde, will live out the rest of his life.

First presented in 1895, The Importance of Being Earnest is traditionally thought of as Oscar Wilde's masterpiece of the comedic genre (Abrams 1761). The primary plot of the play concerns the trivial problem of Jack Worthing, who wants to marry Lady Bracknell's daughter, but she will not marry anyone unless his name is Earnest. This, Wilde's final play, was greeted by the British press with “almost unanimous praise” (Knox 93). Along with A Woman of No Importance, Wilde had two hits running at the same time (Knox 93). However, this theatrical high was juxtaposed with Wilde's ongoing personal battles (Knox 93).

Before Oscar Wilde was imprisoned for a two-year sentence on homosexual charges (Hyde 293), his earlier life, including his childhood and marriage, can be seen reflected in the witticisms of The Importance of Being Earnest. Oscar Wilde had an extremely strained relationship with his brother, Willie (Belford 17). One particular incident that showed the schism was in their childhood. Willie barely escaped tragedy when his nightshirt went up in flames as Oscar “clapped his hands with delight” (Belford 17). In their nursery, these “dark furies” created a “hothouse atmosphere” that permeated later into The Importance of Being Earnest (Belford 17). Years after, when Willie married for the second time, to Sophia Lily Lees, Oscar's mother, Speranza, scolded Oscar for being absent from the wedding (Belford 231). Wilde's feelings for his brother were penned in Earnest with Gwendolen's line to Cecily: “Now that I come to think of it, I have never heard any man mention his brother. The subject seems distasteful to most men” (Act II, sc i).

Speranza was the self-given pseudonym of Jane Elgee, who was to become William Wilde's wife after knowing each other for only a brief period of time (Belford 7). Oscar's familiarity with short marital engagement is echoed by Lady Bracknell in Earnest, who says she is “not in favor of long engagements,” because “they give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage, which I think is never advisable” (Act III, sc i). Oscar Wilde's own proposal for marriage to Constance Lloyd in 1884 seemed likely to be off-the-cuff as well, and probably resembled Jack's proposal to Gwendolen (Belford 128). Jack asks, “may I propose to you now,” and Gwendolin replies, “I think it would be an admirable opportunity. And to spare you any possible disappointment, Mr. Worthing, I think it only fair to tell you quite frankly beforehand that I am fully determined to accept you” (Act I, sc i).

Characteristics of the man Oscar Wilde can be found in several of his characters in The Importance of Being Earnest. As a notorious smoker, Wilde shares one of his favorite vices with Jack Worthing. Wilde's sentiments for smoking are found in several of his works, including Earnest. When Jack Worthing admits to Lady Bracknell that he smokes, she replies, “I am glad to hear it. A man should always have an occupation of some kind” (Act I, sc i). Another interesting similarity regards Jack's sole proof of birth being a “black handbad” found “at Victoria Station” (Act I, sc i). Wilde's own family included “three illegitimate half siblings” (Belford 232). However, a contrary argument for who might best represent Wilde exists in his women characters. Wilde's dandie side is reflected in Lady Bracknell, who chats “away on fashion and behavior” (Belford 232). Perhaps it is in the balance that we define Wilde. Barbara Belford asserts that “Wilde was most comfortable in the liminal zone between masculinity and femininity” (232).

On opening night of The Importance of Being Earnest, only fellow Irishman and playwright, George Bernard Shaw, met the play with discord, saying it left him “with a sense of having wasted my evening” (Pearson 228). Perhaps Shaw was voicing some jealousy over Earnest's smashing success, but he could not have envied Wilde's upcoming legal dealing over his personal life. Wilde married Constance with the intention of spending his life with her; he did not imagine how his life would be complicated by Robert “Robbie” Baldwin Ross (Belford 138). When Lady Bracknell asks Jack if he knows “everything or nothing,” Jack responds, “I know nothing” (Act I, sc i). Lady Bracknell replies, “I am pleased to hear it. I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance” (Act I, sc i). In his personal life, Wilde's claim of not knowing would be applied to his “not guilty” defense of sodomy. Perhaps Wilde was also saying that if people did not “tamper” in his personal affairs, they would remain naturally “ignorant” of his lifestyle. Although she was not speaking of “sexual confusion” (Belford 138) in the play, perhaps subconsciously Wilde was writing advice to himself to speak of nothing on the subject in order to keep others ignorant.

Troubles on the opening night of The Importance of Being Earnest were narrowly avoided, but not overcome. Lord Queensberry's son, Lord Alfred Douglas (“Bosie”), was threatened to be disowned by his father unless he discontinued his association with Wilde, but Douglas refused (Hyde 195). On opening night, word had spread that Queensberry was planning to “harangue” the audience and was therefore denied entrance to the St. James Theatre over fear of him creating a public scene (Hyde 195). Not to be dismissed, four days later Queensberry left his card at Wilde's club accusing him of “posing as a sodomite” (Hyde 196). Swearing his innocence to a solicitor, Wilde applied for a warrant for Queensberry's arrest on the grounds of criminal libel (Hyde 197). Queensberry was eventually found to be not guilty, and is so doing proved that his remarks of Wilde were indeed true (Hyde 222). The first of two trials were held against Wilde. Because the jury could not agree (Hyde 266), Wilde was released on bail, free for only three weeks, until a second trial was scheduled (Hyde 269). The tables had turned. Alfred Taylor and Oscar Wilde were tried on homosexual charges, found to be guilty, and imprisoned to two years with hard labor (Hyde 293).

Oscar, like his punning character, Jack, was learning “for the first time in” his “life the vital importance of being Earnest” (Act III, sc i). While the title and this last line suggest to the public that life is a joke, for Wilde it was a personal and prophetic warning (Knox 95). It was not until this play that Wilde realized that he could not “go on living without avoiding a catastrophe” (Knox 95). The idea of matrimony is both rejected and accepted by the upper class British gentlemen in this final play (Knox 95). With the use of paradox, Wilde disguised the “trivial as serious and vice versa” (Knox 99). Wilde had this to say about the theme of the play: “We should treat all trivial things of life very seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality” (Knox 99). Wilde announces or predicts that he is about to live not just different, but “illicitly different,” and hints about living “openly as a homosexual” (Knox 99).

Wilde had conquered the British theatrical world with The Importance of Being Earnest, so the question must be asked, why did he jeopardize his position of prominence by challenging Queensberry's accusations of homosexuality? Wilde had already contracted syphilis during the writing of Earnest, and he was certainly aware of his weakening state (Knox 96). When Queensberry left his card at Wilde's club accusing him of “posing as a sodomite,” Wilde decided to sue Queensberry for criminal libel (Hyde 196). This had two inevitable effects. First, with Lord Queensberry involved, his son, and Oscar Wilde, this would be a front-page news story, thrusting questions about social injustice and homosexuality into the limelight. Second, an end to Queesberry's assaults would be reached, one way or the other. If Wilde won the case, he and Bosie may have been finally free to live out their last years without the constant harassment from Queensberry. If Wilde lost the case, Wilde would be forced into a trial and an admittance of his lifestyle. This admittance, in some aspect, a self-acceptance, would also clear his conscious and waylay further speculative persecution. Despite a jail sentence with the second outcome, if Wilde could outlive it, there was a hope that he could then live as himself.

By avoiding “shrill morality” in the “uninterrupted laughter” of Earnest, we see Wilde's ensuing acceptance of himself (Knox 95). Behind this laughter is veiled Wilde's preparation of his demise (Knox 95). Wilde relaxes, free to laugh, because he understands the “inevitability of his fate” (Knox 95). Through laughter, Wilde was able to free himself from his “anguish” (Knox 95). Lady Bracknell says, “Never speak disrespectfully of society, Algernon. Only people who can't get into it do that” (Act III, sc i). However, with Wilde's insightful and popular writing, he had managed to do both. He had become known in British society, and at the same time been able to make his witty criticism (Knox 96). Perhaps knowing that he would soon admit to the world his love for Bosie, he had no fear of walking on thin moral ice in The Importance of Being Earnest. In this research, one must admit that several statements that have been made are a reach in logic, at best. Some of the guesses at Wilde's personal motives are made from a modern perspective, versus the Victorian mindset. However, the initial idea seemed worth the investigation, even if the discoveries exist in the world of the “perhaps” or “possible,” but not probable.


Author's note: Since writing this first essay, I have come into contact with Richard Ellmann's authoritative biography. A revision of this essay would include support from this monumental work. Additionally, there have been new works in the past years that might lend support for or against these statements: Irish Peacock and Scarlett Marquess: The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde by John Mortimer and The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde, by literary biographer Joseph Pearce.

Works cited

Abrams, M. H., ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. seventh edition, volume 2. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2000.

Belford, Barbara. Oscar Wilde: A Certain Genius. New York: Random House, Inc., 2000.

Hyde, H. Montgomery. Oscar Wilde: A Biography. New York: Harford Productions, Inc., 1975.

Knox, Melissa. Oscar Wilde: A Long and Lovely Suicide. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.

Pearson, Hesketh. Oscar Wilde: His Life and Wit. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1946.

Wilde, Oscar. “The Importance of Being Earnest.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. seventh edition, volume 2. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2000.