Oscar Wilde wrote The Importance of Being Earnest at the tail-end of the Victorian era, a period remembered for its rigid etiquette and social norms. The Victorian Era also serves as the setting for the play, and Wilde’s characters escape into fictional worlds – by leading double lives, on paper and in real life – in order to withstand the pressures of Victorian society.
This issue of identity is introduced within the first few moments of The Importance of Being Earnest, when Algernon interrogates Jack for more details regarding his activities in the country, and Jack sidesteps his questions until Algernon shatters his facade by producing a cigarette case with an inscription which he left behind. It turns out that Jack lives a double-life for personal pleasure, and Algernon admits to doing the same.
But surprisingly, rather than face the consequences of living a double-life and dragging innocent people into the act, the characters of The Importance of Being Earnest seek to make their fiction a reality. In Act III the motivation to take charge of one's identity is summed up best by Lady Bracknell, after she reveals that she was not born into aristocracy: "I never dreamed for a moment of allowing that to stand in my way" (Wilde 1461). Giving up is not an option for this cast.
As demonstrated by Lady Bracknell, imitation is a tactic proven to work. Thus, the cast of The Importance of Being Earnest all act like good, proper aristocrats who wear the “right” clothes, study the most socially acceptable subjects and indulge in the “right” hobbies – while searching for opportunities to live their truth.
Not all of the characters live a literal double life like Jack, however. In their case, various manuscripts in the story serve as representations of the characters’ truths instead – either as evidence of their hypocrisy or as an illustration of the life they wish they were living. These manuscripts include Dr. Chasuble's sermon, the diaries of Cecily and Gwendolen, and Miss Prism's three-volume novel. The content of each of these manuscripts, and their usage, are symptoms of the characters' epidemic obsession with changing their identity, which in turn is a critique of the culture’s heavy imposition of its values.
When Jack delivers the bad news that his “brother” has died in Paris, it isn't long before Dr. Chasuble offers to prepare a sermon and preach it next Sunday in his honor. This seems a sympathetic act, until Dr. Chasuble shares that his sermon “can be adapted to almost any occasion, joyful, or, as in the present case, distressing” (Wilde 1445). The fact he is giving the same sermon for so many different occasions cheapens its purpose. The content of the sermon and the objective of delivering a message to an expectant audience is not as important to Dr. Chasuble as delivering it as often as he can, doing the bare minimum for his role in the church. His practice does not speak well of his audience, either; no one seems to have called him out for reusing his material yet.
Rather than raising concern over this issue, Jack proceeds to ask about christenings, and the two men discuss the ceremony as if it were a business transaction. Jack, and anybody who attends Dr. Chasuble's services, are more interested in rites of passage as a tool for changing their status (and identity) in society. Wilde is suggesting with this conversation that Victorians prioritize going through the rites without actively practicing their religion in their daily lives -- doing just enough to consider religion part of their identity, which must raise their respectability among their peers. For Jack and Algernon, it is an opportunity to assume the identity of "Ernest." And as long as Dr. Chasuble continues to give that sermon (alongside performing other duties), he can continue to hold this noble profession as a rector while pursuing Miss Prism, his love interest, on the side.
Diaries are essentially written with the intent of recording true events and feelings. Cecily, a creative girl, has invented a relationship with Ernest, Jack's "brother," entirely within the pages of her diary. Because she considers this fictional work a diary, this legitimatizes the relationship. Wilde does not stop to explain how she arrived at this conclusion – the humor relies on this absurdity – but keeping a diary enables Cecily to indulge in the identity of Ernest's wife-to-be. Meanwhile, Gwendolen has also recorded her engagement with an "Ernest" in her diary. In this case, the entry regarding the proposal (which she made Jack perform properly, because she was also interested in a "proper" rite of passage) is accurate. However, the man she is engaged to remains fictitious. Gwendolen prefers her own writing above that of others; she says she never travels without her diary because it is "sensational" writing (Wilde 1453). Cecily is much the same, and also has plans to publish her diary, which illuminates what kind of taste Cecily and Gwendolen – and perhaps all young Victorian woman – really have in reading material.
When Miss Prism points out to Cecily that diaries are unnecessary because one's memory should be sufficient enough, Cecily says "[memory] usually chronicles the things that have never happened, and couldn't possibly have happened. I believe that Memory is responsible for nearly all the three-volume novels that Mudie sends us" (1441). This is not to say that all novels at the time were badly written, but they were lacking something.
Richard Menke writes that novelists had to self-censor their work because publishers and circulating libraries would only sell and purchase their novels, respectively, if they met certain "standards for family reading." Toward the end of the era, Victorian fiction was stagnating as a result of this censorship and suppression of expression, and novelists were feeling stifled. The diaries of Cecily and Gwendolen are not subject to censorship and are therefore more “real” and emotionally sincere. Of course, their treatment of their own work as equal to reality is an exaggeration, but it also parallels Jack and Algernon’s efforts to be baptized.
The three-volume novel and its censorship are representative of Miss Prism's barely stifled personality as a romantic. Miss Prism is a stern governess – a common occupation for unmarried women – in charge of Cecily’s education, and is “the most cultivated of ladies, and the very picture of respectability” (Wilde 1463). Though she and Cecily are at odds with each other over appreciating the three-volume novel as an art form, they both show preference for fiction over reality. The switching of baby Jack and her manuscript is a blatant example of her order of priorities. But her manuscript was likely subjected to the pressure of Victorian morals, and many years after she wrote the novel, Miss Prism still shows signs that she is straining under pressure and wants to escape her reality: she doesn’t do a very good job of hiding her attraction to Dr. Chasuble, and she frequently abandons Cecily to walk and flirt with him. Out of all the characters featured in this play (with the exception of Lady Bracknell), Miss Prism comes the closest to living her truth based on her proximity to Dr. Chasuble. Yet, the consequences she experienced after dreaming of publishing her manuscript discouraged her from pursuing what she wanted in earnest.
Humor in a farce play stems from exaggerated situations. Wilde has taken this concept and turned it on its head, exaggerating the unexpected – which is whatever is not the popular attitude in society at the time. Clifton Snider succinctly describes the play's driving humor as an “inversion of conventional morality.” Therefore, instead of leaving mistaken identities as misunderstandings or attempting to clear them up, the characters pursue new identities because maintaining their current state was never desirable in the first place.
For example, Wilde does not have to use overly religious characters to poke fun at Victorian religious values; instead, he shows characters who only pretend to be pious to maintain their standing in society, such as Dr. Chasuble with his recycled sermon. Cecily and Gwendolen produce books that are exactly what they want to read, containing ideas they wish were reality. Miss Prism's lost manuscript is a symbol of the life she once wished she could lead. Victorian morals are defined and praised by the characters, but as it turns out, it's difficult to follow them perfectly – even for the people living in aristocracy.
“Never speak disrespectfully of Society… Only people who can’t get into it do that,” Lady Bracknell says; though none of the characters directly speak ill of “Society,” their attitude toward it is implied by the pains they take to be overly polite. Thus, The Importance of Being Earnest and the identity struggles therein may show a more accurate reflection of reality than is initially obvious.