Wilde as Parodist: A Second Look at the Importance of Being Earnest

Author(s): Richard Foster

Source: College English, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Oct., 1956), pp. 18-23
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/372764
Accessed: 05-01-2018 17:27 UTC

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18 COLLEGE ENGLISH

lives, one respectable, one frivolous, escaped the

the mortifying
mortifying seriousness
seriousness of
of con-
con-
neither earnest. Bunburyism, as Algernon vention, but
but it
it takes
takes them
them three
three acts
acts and
and
confesses in the opening of the play, isthe movement
movement from
from town
town toto country-the
country-the
the application of science to life, to themovement
movement hashas symbolic
symbolic relevance
relevance asas aa re-
re-
exclusion of sentiment. Sentiment prop-turn to "naturalness"-to
"naturalness"-to regain
regain their
their
erly belongs to art. The science is the balance and become earnest, that is,
science of having a good time. These are neither conventionally nor frivolously hy-
obviously false distinctions, and all that pocritical. At the end of the play the re-
can be said for Bunburyism as a way of spectable (though amorous) Miss Prism
life is that it offers relief from a social (her name suggests "prim prison") has
round where, in Lady Bracknell's words,been unmasked, the four young people are
good behavior and well being "rarely go romantically engaged, Jack has discovered
together," and where, according to Jack, his Bunburying identity to be his true self,
"a high moral tone can hardly be said to and Lady Bracknell must recognize the
conduce very much to either one's health contemptible orphan of Act I, "born, or at
or one's happiness." Bunburyism marks any rate, bred in a handbag," as her own
one of the extreme points in the swing of sister's son. The plot, as it were, makes a
the pendulum, Victorianism the other. fool of respectability and proves the two
Neither of the two Bunburyists is eitherBunburyists "right" in their escapade. But
earnest or Ernest-before the very end.lit also repudiates Bunburyism. Algernon,
It is only then that they become, and in who as a Bunburyist spoke cynically about
more than a single sense, themselves. proposals and matrimony in Act I, is
When the action begins they have already happily proposing marriage to Cecily in
Act II, and at the end his initial fals,e
1It is the one flaw in a superbly constructed
dichotomies between life and art, science
play that Algernon remains Algernon at the end
and thus ineligible as a husband for Cecily. To and sentiment, have been resolved in ro-
say that she does not seem to mind at that point mance. The radical remedy of Bunbury-
or that Dr. Chasuble is quite ready for the ing has effected a cure, the pendulum rests
christening cannot conceal the flaw. It staggers in the perpendicular, and we share Jack's
the imagination to try to think of any way in
final conviction of "the vital Importance
which Wilde could have turned Algernon into a
second Ernest, but, given the plot, he ought to of Being Earnest." The two adjectives
have done so. have not been chosen lightly.

Wilde as Parodist: A Second Look at

The Importance of Being Earnest
RICHARD FOSTER

The
The Importance
Importanceof
ofBeing
BeingEarnest
Earnestis is
apt
apt
Wilde. Those few, on the other hand, who
to be
be aa stumbling
stumblingblock
blockboth
bothtoto
the
the
de-see in the whole of Wilde's work the same
de-
tractors and admirers of Oscar Wilde as revolutionary quest for new means and
a man of letters. Those who want to dis- materials of literary expression which
miss him as the greatest ass of aestheti-characterized the poetic innovators of
cism may be troubled to find themselves,nineteenth-century France sometimes find
in this play, laughing with rather than atit hard to laugh at all. Meanwhile, the play

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 WILDE AS PARODIST 19

continues to flourish as onejungles

of the of world's
earlier comedy; Cecily and
most robust stage classics. Gwendolen
Part of are the
their quarry; Lady Brack-
critics' difficulty-an inadequacy fre- nell's is the dowager role, though she is
quently experienced by critics, never by more dominant and more shrewdly finan-
audiences-is that they cannot accurately cial than her shrill, physical Restoration
name its type. The terms "farce" and forebears; but perhaps Miss Prism's mid-
"comedy of manners," the labels most fre- dle-aged sexuality, only just contained by
quently applied to Earnest, are neither of the strictures of Victorian propriety,
them adequate designations of the espe- makes her, after all, a more direct de-
cially subtle and complicated artistic "be- scendant of Lady Wishfort.
ing" that the play has. But Earnest, in spite of these qualities,
Farce, first of all, depends for its effects is not a true comedy of manners either. It
upon extremely simplified characters is not even nearly one. A comedy of man-
tangling themselves up in incongruous ners is fundamentally realistic: it requires
situations, and upon a knowing audience the audience to accept the world presented
gleefully anticipating their falling victim, on the stage as a real world, a possible
in their ignorance, to some enormous but world; and its human foibles, even if
harmless confusion of fact or identity. We heightened and exaggerated in the play's
think of The Comedy of Errors, of She satirical exposure of them, are neverthe-
Stoops to Conquer, of Uncle Toby about less laughed at as representations of real
to show "the very place" to the breathless excesses. A clear sign of the realism of
Widow Wadman. Wilde's characters are manners comedy is the fact that there are
certainly uncomplicated, and he makes characters in it that can always recognize
use of some farce situations, such as a fool. The laughter that the witty young
Jack's mourning scene and his recognition bucks of the older comedy share with the
scene at the end of the play. But the audience at the expense of a fool or fop
comedy of Earnest subsists, for the most unites the "real" world and the world of
part, not in action or situation but in dia- the play by showing that the same criteria
logue. The dialogue, furthermore, is for reason and unreason are valid in both.
everywhere an exercise of wit-a subtler But Jack and Algernon are strangely re-
comic effect than farce can comfortably spectful of Prism and Chasuble-two clear
take very much time for. This is only fools-because fools must be taken seri-
a tentative claim, to be expanded on ously in the extra-rational world of
later, that the play is a very intellectual Wilde's play. When we recognize this
kind of comedy, too intellectual, certainly,extra-rational quality of Wilde's play,
to be described simply as a farce. we begin to see that its satirical effects are
The Importance of Being Earnest is less close to The Way of the World and
more often, and perhaps somewhat more The Rivals than to "The Rape of the
accurately, regarded as a comedy of man- Lock" and Patience. Where Congreve and
ners. Ridicule and exposure of the vani- Sheridan created a pretty close, if height-
ties, the hypocrisies, and the idleness of ened, imitation of that world, Wilde and
the upper classes is, to be sure, the main Gilbert and Pope performed an alchemic
function of its verbal wit. Moreover, the reductio ad absurdum of it. Folly is repre-
stock patterns of Restoration and eight- sented in the comedy of manners, essen-
eenth-century manners comedy are evi- tialized in Pope's mock epic, Gilbert's
dent in various characters: Jack and Al- operettas, and Wilde's play.
gernon, though in quest of love rather Wilde accomplishes this essentialization
than riches or intrigue, are unmistakably of folly by creating an "as if" world in
brothers to the opportunistic young wits which "real" values are inverted, reason
that hunted in pairs through the social and unreason interchanged, and the prob-

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20 COLLEGE ENGLISH

able defined by improbability. incongruous

Thejuxtaposition
struc-of values, is
reminiscent of Pope's satiric method in
ture and materials of this "as if" world be-
come especially interesting when we re- "The Rape of the Lock," where the deaths
member that the English theater was, at of lap-dogs and of husbands are of equal
this time, just beginning to get over a consequence: "Today I broke off my en-
century-long siege of melodrama and sen- gagement with Ernest. I feel it is better
timentalism. Gwendolen's observation, for to do so. The weather still continues
example, that "in matters of grave impor- charming." Gwendolen's love for Jack is
tance, style, not sincerity, is the vital sympathy itself; it is the old romantic idea
thing" has the effect of ridiculing the of spiritual love based on simplicity and
"poetic" manner of contemporary melo-Platonic sensibility: "The story of your
drama, which Robertson and Jones had romantic origin, as related to me by
already rebelled against. Early in Act I, mamma, with unpleasing comments, has
just after Jack has confessed "the whole naturally stirred the deeper fibers of my
truth pure and simple" about Cecily and nature. Your Christian name has an irre-
his fictional brother Ernest, Algernon de- sistible fascination. The simplicity of your
livers an even more direct and sweeping character makes you exquisitely incom-
critical dictum: "The truth," says Algy, prehensible to me." In a more sacred con-
"is rarely pure and never simple. Moderntext, Desdemona, who saw her lover's
life would be very tedious if it were either, visage "in his mind" just as Gwendolen
and modern literature a complete impossi- sees Jack's in his name, fell in love with
bility." From this point on, Wilde's play Othello for somewhat similar reasons.
is to be a satiric demonstration of how "My story being done," says Othello, "she
art can lie romantically about human be- gave me for my pains a world of sighs./
ings and distort the simple laws of real She swore, in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas
life with melodramatic complications and passing strange,/'Twas pitiful, 'twas won-
improbably easy escapes from them. Wilde drous pitiful." Othello sums up the nature
has accomplished this by purloining from of her love, and of Gwendolen's, when he
the hallowed edifice of romantic literature says, "She loved me for the dangers I had
certain standard characters, themes, and passed...."
plot situations in order to build out of Wilde reinforces his parody of the beau-
them a comedy that fuses contemporary tiful innocence of love at first sight and
social satire with a straight-faced taking- the spiritual impregnability of Platonic
off of the usages of the popular fiction andlove by short-circuiting what our expec-
drama of Wilde's time, and, inevitably, of tations would be if this were either the
other times as well. usual romantic melodrama or a real
comedy of manners. Lady Bracknell's
II cupidity has arisen suddenly as an impedi-
Wilde's first technique is to spoof the ment to both marriages. But while the two
timeless romantic fictions of love's incep- young men-who ought to bounce away
tion. The myth of love at first sight under-with a witticism or else do something
goes a kind of superparody in the scene dashing-are prostrate with devotion, the
where Cecily does Algernon's punctual two young ladies are already making other
love-making one better by recounting from plans. Gwendolen, the exponent of ideals
her "diary" the story of their engagement, and ideal love culled from "the more ex-
his love letters (which she has written), pensive monthly magazines," promises
the breaking of their engagement accord- Jack, with superbly hardheaded double
ing to the demands of romantic love ritual, vision, that "although [Lady Bracknell]
and their re-engagement. Cecily's notation may prevent us from becoming man and
of the broken engagement, in its casually wife, and I may marry someone else, and

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 WILDE AS PARODIST 21

marry often, nothing can feeling alter girl

my reared in isolation from the
eternal
devotion to you." And though Algernon, "world," preferably in the country. Alger-
the true voice of cynicism, is preposter- non's cynicism is obvious enough in his
ously ready to wait seventeen years until nastily witty observations on life, and in
his beloved legally comes of age at thirty- his boredom with all amusements. The
five, Cecily, the unspoiled country lass, sign of his dissoluteness, one of Wilde's
belies her simple kind by declining his most brilliant comic strokes, is his constant
devotion: "I couldn't wait all that time. hunger, his entire inability to resist stuff-
I hate waiting even five minutes for ing any-himself at every opportunity. By this
body. It makes me rather cross." means Wilde has reduced the roue figure
A standard complication of the litera- to a man of straw-or muffins. And he
ture of love that is parodied here is the thrusts him through in the bit of dialogue
love breach or "misunderstanding"-the where Algernon-as-Ernest learns from
lie, the secret sin out of the past, the error Cecily that Jack is going to banish him,
in judgment, the buried flaw of character and that he will have to choose between
that rises unbidden to the surface-which Australia and "the next world." Cecily
threatens to destroy love's ideality. But as questions whether he is good enough even
the cases of Red Crosse and Una, Tom for "this world," and Algy admits that he
Jones and Sophia, Elizabeth and Darcy,isn't: "... I want you to reform me. You
and dozens of others have demonstrated, might make that your mission, if you
the breach can usually be healed if the of- don't mind." "I'm afraid I haven't time,
fending party undergoes some penance this afternoon," Cecily responds unfeel-
or performs some act of selfless generosity ingly. In a line or two it turns out, pre-
or courage, whether psychological or ma- dictably, that Algernon is hungry. "How
terial, in order to prove himself. In Earn- thoughtless of me," says Cecily. "I should
est the love breach occurs when Gwendo- have remembered that when one is going
len and Cecily discover that their Ernests to lead an entirely new life, one requires
are impostors named, respectively, Jack regular and wholesome meals."
and Algernon; and the restoration of love The point of Wilde's satire is found in
is made possible when Jack and Algernon the nature of Algernon's reformation. Be-
declare themselves ready to face the hor- fore his first interview with Cecily is over,
rors of a christening. The situation at this Algernon is engaged to be married and
point is so patently ludicrous, and the reconciled to getting christened. But he
sentiments expressed by the two girls are had already been exploded in his very first
at once so absurdly didactic and so re- exchange with Cecily, when his supposedly
sounding with the bathos of melodramatic irretrievable sophistication is bested by the
reconciliation that we can hardly miss, supposedly artless and sheltered country
amid the satire of manners, Wilde's strong girl's supersophistication: "I hope you
undercurrent of literary satire. have not been leading a double life, pre-
But perhaps the most impressive evi- tending to be wicked and being really good
dence that Wilde's play is, in part at least, all the time. That would be hypocrisy."
an elaborate literary lampoon, lies in the With this the wit has passed from Alger-
circumstances of the two pairs of lovers. non to Cecily, and he never regains it at
The relationship of Algernon to Cecily, any time when she is on the scene. The
first of all, is essentially that of Rochester moral of Wilde's parody: the rake is a
to Jane Eyre, of Mr. B. to Pamela. It is fake, girlish innocence is the bait of a
the situation of the jaded, world-weary, monstrous mantrap, the wages of sin is
cynical, and preferably dissolute male be- matrimony.
ing reformed, regenerated, and resenti- Jack's troubled pursuit of Gwendolen
mentalized by the fresh, innocent, and embodies still another stock situation of

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22 COLLEGE ENGLISH

romantic love fiction. As classic as The the satire of a comedy of manners; its plot
Winter's Tale, as old-fashioned as Caste, should seem to grow more directly out of
and as modern as last night's television the follies of its characters, mirroring the
play or last week's movie, it is the prob-irrationality of an absurd society of human
beings responsible for their own predica-
lem situation of two lovers separated by a
ments rather than the irresponsible tricks of
barrier of class difference. Sometimes it is
a contemptibly frivolous destiny. (p. 138)
a matter of money, sometimes of blood.
But in the majority of cases true love isMr. Roditi, a critic who takes Wilde very
saved by some last minute miracle, usually seriously, has mistaken his most celebrated
a surprising revelation of someone's realwork for an inchoate comedy of manners
identity. The most impressive exercise ofand has therefore drawn the unfortunately
this kind is probably in The Conscious academic conclusion that it is formally
Lovers, where Steele relieves the long- imperfect and artistically trivial. The
suffering young Bevil by allowing his in- play's "flaws"-the contrivances of plot,
digent sweetheart to prove to be the the convenience of its coincidences, and
long lost daughter of Mr. Sealand, the the neatness of its resolution-are, of
fabulously wealthy parent of the girl Bevil course, its whole point. The subtlety of
had been unhappily scheduled to couple Wilde's art is such that it is easy to mis-
with in a purely business marriage. The take Earnest for something it isn't, or
enormity of Steele's resolution is only a else to dismiss it as a charming but incon-
little less notable than Wilde's parody of sequential frill. But if intelligent laugh-
the type. After herding all his characters ter is better than mere laughter, it is worth
down to Shropshire to witness the mar- understanding what kind of comedy Wilde
vels of his deus ex machina, Wilde parades has achieved by wedding social satire with
before their eyes an extraordinary suc- literary burlesque.
cession of coincidental revelations culmi- Nothing in the play, first of all, is quite
nating in Jack's discovery not only that what it seems. The characters seem to
he is Algernon's brother but that his name wear badges of their natures; yet their
really is Ernest. sentiments and actions continually revoke
Wilde delicately frames his recognition and deny them. Jack and Algernon, tagged
scene as a theatrical take-off by making as clever young worldlings, are really sen-
Lady Bracknell say, with lofty aesthetic timentalists and fussbudgets at heart. Al-
dread, "In families of high position gernon, it has already been pointed out, is
strange coincidences are not supposed to quite fully exposed early in Act II. And
occur. It is hardly considered the thing." Jack, though he waves once or twice the
Gwendolen, however, is having a splendid flag of cynical wit or clever pretense, wor-
time: "The suspense is terrible. I hope it ries and perspires through most of the
will last." play, muttering pettishly against Alger-
III non's "nonsense" and appetite. He is a
In Edouard Roditi's book Oscar Wilde fuddled incompetent from the moment,
(1947) we read this astonishing statementearly in Act I, when Algernon first chal-
about The Importance of Being Earnest lenges him on the matter of Cecily; and
and its stupendous finale: Gwendolen's wooing, only a little later,
very nearly shatters him.
... its plot is at times too heavily contrived,
This same phenomenon in reverse is
especially in the last act: the sudden revela-
tion of Miss Prism's past solves too con- true of the two girls. Both of them bear
veniently the problems of the hero's origin, the marks of the romantic Female. Both
and too many of the embarrassing lies of the are pleased, first of all, to represent them-
play are too neatly resolved into truth. Such selves as "better" than their world: Cecily
reliance on the whimsies of chance weakens because she has been preserved, unspoiled,

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 WILDE AS PARODIST 23

in
incountrified
countrified
isolation, isolation, Oscar Gwendolen
and Gwendolen and Wilde." But Wilde's specialty, the
because
because she is,she
in Jack's
is, phrase,
in Jack's
"a sensible squinting"a
phrase, epigram that is at once murder-
sensible
intellectual
intellectualgirl" whose
girl"nature
whose ous and suicidal,
has beennature has beenis perfectly at home in
enriched
enrichedby heavy
byreading
heavy and reading Earnest.
brave think- and It is thethink-
brave verbal function of that
ing.
ing.ButBut
both also
bothdeportalso
themselves
deport as queer double consciousness
themselves as that permeates
proper
proper young young
ladies wholadies
appear towhosub- the whole play
appear toand transforms it into a
sub-
mit to the wishes of their parents and kind of parody. It is quite right that
guardians when the plot requires them Cecily, who maneuvers under the aegis of
to; this is because the true romantic Fe- wide-eyed innocence, should say of her
male is never a stickler for rebellion. Yet own journal of unspoiled reactions, "It is
these rarefied and genteel girls are the simply a very young girl's record of her
worldliest of schemers. They manipulateown thoughts and impressions, and con-
their lovers like men on a chess board, sequently meant for publication." Here
and one cannot escape the feeling, further- burlesque of the Miranda character fuses
more, that even Lady Bracknell prevails with exposure of a grotesque type of
ultimately because they permit her to. litterateuse. A similar satiric fusion takes
The dramatic effect of the comedy, then,place when Cecily discovers that her
innocent "nanny," Miss Prism, is, sur-
is not of foolish but real people flaunting
the real world's laws of reason, but of prisingly, one of the three-volume ladies
archetypal roles being gravely travestied.of Richardsonian sentiment and sensation.
The characters know they are in a play, Cecily hopes that her novel did not end
and they know what kind of play it is. happily. "The good," answers prim Miss
Cecily and Gwendolen "do" parodies of Prism, with shrewd business prowess,
themselves as they assist their lovers in "ended happily, and the bad unhappily.
their own self-ridiculing transformation That is what fiction means."
from cynical wits to true men of feeling. Such passages, deftly worked into the
The same is true of Prism and Chasuble, total fabric of the comedy, hold the key
even of Lane, who knows perfectly well to Wilde's methods and purposes. By ex-
that he is the type of the wry butler-confi-posing and burlesquing the vacuities of
dant who is smarter than his employer. a moribund literature Wilde satirizes, too,
Lady Bracknell is the only exception: her the society that sustains and produces it;
mind's eye, steadily on the funds, sees he has given us an oblique perspective on
other matters-love, literature, virtue- a society's shallowness through direct ridi-
exactly for what they are. She is a kind cule of the shallow art in which it sees its
of choric ballast that weights the satire's reflection. It is this subtle merging of
indirection with direct scorn. matter and form that helps to make The
Wilde's society dramas, which try to Importance of Being Earnest an intellec-
come to grips realistically with real prob- tual tour de force of the first order as well
lems, are very nearly ruined by the fact as one of the great comic masterpieces of
that so many of the characters "talk like the theater.

A Short Primer of Educationese

SHELDON P. ZITNER

In their
their war
war against
against the
theEnglish
Englishlanguage,
language, that
that they
theyhave
havetried
tried
with
with
thethe
public
public
at large
at large
the professors
professors of
of Education
Educationhave employed the tactic of Hannibal-elephants. Any-
haveemployed
the delays of Fabius in the grade schools. thing stepped on by an elephant is likely to
But I do not believe it has been pointed out bear traces of the experience. So it is with

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