Ernest and Ernest

A look through The Importance of Being Ernest!

Hello! Welcome back to my blog! I hope everything is going well for you all during the quarantine. I’ve been keeping myself busy with online schoolwork and hanging out with my siblings. During this quarantine, I was assigned to read, “The Importance of Being Ernest” by Oscar Wilde. This play was really fun to read, I enjoyed all of the self-aware uses of humor and the twist ending. Which I will not be spoiling! You will have to read it and be surprised by yourself. This play was made for an audience during the Victorian era, and honestly, I have always been interested in the rules and social etiquette that they had to follow. So I was very surprised by how this play makes use of those rules to make people laugh. I recommend reading it, watching the stage play or the movie!

This play is about a man that is named Jack, as he is going to visit another man by the name of Algernon. In this visit, we learn of how both men have a fake person that they are and refer to. To either get them out of situations or just to play as someone new, For example, Jack uses a name, Ernest. However something happened, when he was going to give up this fake persona he proposes to a woman by the name of Gwendolen. But Gwendolen likes the name Ernest and that is what helped her decide to marry him, as that was the name she always dreamt of marrying. Flash forward, Jack decided to clear up this false name by pretending they had died however Algernon spoils that as he decides to drop by and play as the part of Ernest, where he and Cecily plan to get married. But then the lies are revealed as neither of them are named Ernest, but both women wanted to marry the name, Ernest. What are they going to do? Well, that is for you to find out when you read the play.

My two favorite scenes are the muffin scene and the diary scene with the two beautiful ladies. The first scene which is the muffin scene is when Algernon and Jacks’s lies are revealed and it is very tense but Algernon starts munching down on all the muffins because he is stressed, “At the present moment I am eating muffins because I am unhappy” (Wilde 838). This scene was just so funny to me, especially since it was such a serious moment that it just brought the tension down. When you watch the stage play you can hear them laugh of relief when this happened. Everyone was just so anxious when their lies were revealed which is why this scene was one of my favorites as it had a purpose. The next one was the diary scene with Cecily and Gwendolen, both of these girls carry diaries and its just a sweet innocent moment between two girls in love. They both love and Ernest so there was some tension between them, but they bonded over their diaries and it made me smile, “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train.” (Wilde 655). If you have read or watched this play please leave a comment below telling me your favorite scenes. (554)