The play The Importance Of being Earnest is a bout two guys that get wrapped up in a web of lies due to bunburying. Bunburying is a term used throughout the play to describe lying about where you will be and what you will be doing there. Jack Worthing is a pretty important character in the play, and he bunburies under the name “Well, my name is Ernest in town and Jack in the country, and the cigarette case was given to me in the country,” says Jack as he tries to get Algernon, the other main character who termed the word bunburying, to return his cigarette case to him (Wilde). By bunburying has his made up little brother Ernest, Jack can do whatever he wants in the town without destroying his reputation. Each of the men fall in love while pretending to be Ernest. Algernon falls in love with Cecily Cardew, Jack’s ward. Jack falls in love with Gwendolen. Unfortunately for the guys, both girls have fallen in love with the name Ernest. “Jack?… No, there is very little music in the name Jack, if any at all, indeed. It does not thrill. It produces absolutely no vibrations… I have known several Jacks, and they all, without exception, were more than usually plain. Besides, Jack is a notorious domesticity for John! And I pity any woman who is married to a man called John. She would probably never be allowed to know the entrancing pleasure of a single moment’s solitude. The only really safe name is Ernest,” Gwendolen tells Jack after he asked if the name Ernest was the only name she could love him by (Wilde). There is a big scene where all the lies being told, by both men, are made open, and then some surprising truths are found out. It turns out Jack’s real Christian name is indeed Ernest. Throughout the story Jack is very deceitful with his actions.
Jack pretends to be Ernest. He tells people in the country, where he is Jack, that Ernest is his very troublesome little brother. He must pretend to be someone else so he will not be looked down on acting indecently. Mr. Worthing is very much respected in the country. “Your guardian enjoys the best of health, and his gravity of demeanor is especially to be commended in one so comparatively young as he is. I know no one who has a higher sense of duty and responsibility,” states Mrs. Prism, Cecily’s helper, about Jack (Wilde). People also think Jack is too serious. Cecily says this about Jack, “Dear Uncle Jack is so very serious! Sometimes he is so serious that I think he cannot be quite well.” (Wilde). While being Ernest, Jack can do whatever he wants with no consequence. Throughout the story Jack is very deceitful with what he does.
Jack Worthing is looked down on because of where he comes from. Jack was found in a handbag a train station by Thomas Cardew. “The late Mr. Thomas Cardew, an old gentleman of a very charitable and kindly disposition, found me, and gave me the name of Worthing, because he happened to have a first-class ticket for Worthing in his pocket at the time. Worthing is a place in Sussex. It is a seaside resort,” Jack explains to Lady Bracknell, trying to satisfy her so he can have permission to marry Gwendolen (Wilde). Then he tells Lady Bracknell that Thomas Cardew actually found him in a hand bag. She had some words to say about his origins and how he was found, “The line is immaterial. Mr. Worthing, I confess I feel somewhat bewildered by what you have just told me. To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution. And I presume you know what that unfortunate movement led to? As for the particular locality in which the hand-bag was found, a cloak-room at a railway station might serve to conceal a social indiscretion – has probably, indeed, been used for that purpose before now-but it could hardly be regarded as an assured basis for a recognized position in good society.” (Wilde). Towards the end of the play Lady Bracknell reveals that Algernon and Jack are brothers. This makes Jack very happy because he had always told people he had had a brother, and after looking through the army listings, Jack finds out that his real name is Ernest. Mr. Worthing is a little flustered at first, with realizing he had been telling the truth his whole life. “Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth,” Jack said after finding out (Wilde). Being found in a handbag at a train station still didn’t stop Jack from being very well liked and respected in the story, but still Jack was very deceitful throughout the whole story.
Throughout the story Jack is deceitful by pretending to be Ernest and lying about his origins. Bunburying all the time lets Jack have fun while he is doing it, but he almost lost the love of his life by to trying to be Ernest. He wasn’t the only one bunburying though, he learned the term from Algernon, who also eventually bunburies as Ernest, and this almost cost him his love too. Jack is somewhat embarrassed about where he comes from. He was found in a train station inside a ordinary handbag. He was raised by Thomas Cardew, but his actual Dad’s name was Ernest. Even though Jack was being deceitful throughout the story, he was actual telling nothing but the truth.
Reference:
- Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Ernest. New York, NY: Harpercollins.
