NON – AFRICAN DRAMA
OSCAR WILDE: The Importance of Being Earnest
what impressions of the upper class life do you form from your study of the play?
Explanation
The Importance of Being Earnest, it is quite clear that Wilde draws a picture of the life of two main classes in the society: the lower and upper classes. The likes of Miss Prism arid Lane are in the lower class whereas Lady Bracknell, Gwendolen, Algernon and Jack belong to the upper class.
Presuming to be entitled to the best things of life, the upper class holds itself out as superior to the lower.
From a distance, one is expected to regard Algernon, and Jack and Lady Bracknell as a select group who have wards, servants, governesses and country residences. The outside appearance is glamorous. However, seen at close quarters the upper class is not such a special class in terms of morality and ordinary expectations. From the events of the play one forms the impression that the upper class is basically pretentious and hypocritical.
The conspiracy of Algernon and Lane, Algernon's lie and "bunburyism", Jack's double life and Lady Bracknell, who was a nobody in her single status, all indicate that their being born with a silver spoon in their mouths is a sham.
Various events and incidents exemplify upper-class pretentiousness. Algernon blatantly condones what he should have found reprehensible as he aids Lane to lie and deliberately eats up the cucumber sandwiches he has prepared for his aunt, He sneaks out to the address that he so ignobly procures through his sly eavesdropping on Jack and Owendolen's conversation as a means of escaping London life, which he calls "bunburyism". Jack also creates a notorious brother called Ernest to be able to leave the countryside and walk into London at will.
Both the conversation between Gwendolen and Cecily and Lady Bracknell's list and interview of Jack are instances of the high handed treatment of the lower class by the upper class.
The frivolous, materialistic view of the upper class to marriage is farcical. It smacks of- hypocrisy and impropriety.
From their high horse of apparent self-satisfaction, members of the upper class give the careful observer the impression that they are covering up. To do this, they are fill of pretention.