The Importance of Being Earnest, by
Oscar Wilde, presents the theme of living a double life as a way to allow the main
characters, Algernon and Jack, to free themselves from the social, financial, and civil
expectations placed on young, upper-class men in Victorian society. Wilde seems to send
a subliminal message: Men can only be truly happy when they are free to do whatever they
want.
However, the complications that may arise from a
libertine lifestyle are plenty. First, we find out at the beginning of the play on Act
I, Scene one, that neither Algernon nor Jack were aware of each other's double lives.
Algernon only found out about Ernest being "Jack in the country" when he read the
inscription on Ernest's lost cigarette case. This would have complicated their
friendship because it is clear that they were not honest with each
other.
Second, the freedom that Algernon and Jack felt when
they led their double lives made them feel invincible: Jack ran huge restaurant bills
posing as Ernest in the city, and Algernon continuously ran away to the country to
escape his responsibilities under the pretense that he was going to visit his invalid
friend, Bunbury. Both Jack and Algernon felt that none of their lies would catch up with
them, and none of them thought of the people they would affect by escaping whenever they
felt like it.
Hence, Algernon and Jack were rather selfish
in their choices when they did as they wished. Eventually, everything did catch up with
them when the ladies they loved, Cecily and Gwendolen, found them
out.
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