TIOBE (quotes) name and identity Flashcards
ACT 1, PART 1
algernon asking for the cigarette case
ALGERNON: *“bring me that cigarette case.”
“…now that I look at the inscription inside, I find the thing isn’t yours after all.”
meaning
the cigarette case is symbolic of Jack’s duplicitious identities. Algernon mocks and prompts Jack to elicit a reaction or to obtain the full truth. This is comedic to the audience as we are revealed to the theme of disguise and deception. it foreshadows the chaos yet to come.
ACT 1, PART 1
algernon mocking jack’s alter identity and repeatedly calling him ‘ernest’
ALGERNON: “I have introduced you to everyone as Ernest. You answer to the name of Ernest. You look as if your name was Ernest. You are the most earnest looking person I ever saw in my life. It is perfectly absurd your saying that your name isn’t Ernest.”
meaning
Jack reveals to Algernon that he goes by the name of Ernest in the city, and the name of Jack in the country. In this quote, Algernon relies heavily on the homophones of “Ernest,” the name, and “earnest,” the adjective connoting one who is honest and sincere to a fault, to tease Jack about his two identities of Ernest and Jack. Jack is older than Algernon and often acts as if he is more responsible, so Algernon is gleeful to find his friend caught in a lie, particularly one in which he pretends to be someone whose name sounds the same as a word that means “honest.” The extent of this glee can be discerned by the number of times that Algernon repeats the name, digging deeper into Jack’s feelings of shame. Wilde uses the wordplay of Ernest/earnest throughout the play to question the role of true sincerity in Victorian England, a society that prided itself on a strict code of conduct, stringent morals, and a “stiff upper lip.”
ACT 1, PART 1
jack revealing his dual identities
JACK: “Well my name is Ernest in town and Jack in the country”
ACT 1, PART 1
algernon about bunburying
ALGERNON: “You have created a very useful younger brother called Ernest, in order that you may be able to come up to town as often as you like. I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose.”
ACT 1, PART 2
gwendolen’s idealisation of love being with the name ‘ernest’ rather than jack himself
GWENDOLEN: “Even before I met you I was far from indifferent to you…my ideal has always been to love some one of the name of Ernest. There is something in that name that inspires absolute confidence.”
ACT 3, PART 2
jack realising the importance of being ‘earnest’
JACK: “I’ve now realized for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.”
It is only in the very last line of the play that the title of the work is spoken. Wilde’s characteristic wit and wordplay, particularly on the interplay between the name “Ernest” and the word “earnest,” endures until the very end of the drama. Though the word is written out as “Earnest,” to an audience member watching the production, it is not clear whether Jack is saying “Ernest” the name or “earnest” the word, which means to be sincere and truthful.
Jack’s own wit as a character likely means that he, too, is intending to make this pun, showing that he now understands the importance of being Ernest—his true Christian name and the name of his birth father—and earnest—being honest and confessing the truth to Gwendolen, meaning that he now knows who his family is.
In Wilde’s play, which provides a scathing critique of Victorian society and romance through painfully polite yet daringly clever dialogue, all the lovers end up together, and in class-affirming unions as well. Of course, in Wilde’s experience, this rarely ever happens—usually unions for love were scorned in favor of arranged marriages. Thus, if the happy engagements between Algernon/Cecily and Gwendolen/Jack feel too good to be true, that is because for Wilde (and the rest of Victorian society who first saw the play), they are—marriages for both love and class were rarely made at the time. But, as Miss Prism declared must be the case in fiction, the “good ended happily”—once Jack and Algernon tell the truth, they are rewarded with their loves.
