Inversion in The Importance of Being Earnest - Essay Example

Inversion in The Importance of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest is heavily themed with hypocrisy. One of the most frequently occurring motifs in the underlying theme of hypocrisy is inversion. Wilde’s use of inversion is so profound that a close reading of the play’s title can retrospectively be inverted to actually mean the importance of NOT being earnest. Wilde takes a number of guarded, serious and reveled Victorian values and inverts them through satire and comedy. By inverting Victorian values in comic fashion, Wilde exposes the hypocrisy of those values through witty and often clipped dialogue. Wilde’s Algernon makes an emphatic observation about the solemnity of Victorian marriages and the hypocrisy of it as a valued institution. He tells Jack: You don’t seem to realize, that in married life three is company and two is none (Wilde, Act 1, 40). Through Algernon, Wilde offers an inverted definition of the matrimonial values in Victorian society and simultaneously comments on the hypocrisy of those conventions. Supposedly, marriage is the solemn union of two people and infidelity is forbidden. However, in reality, Victorian society condemns infidelity but at the same time infidelity is a common feature in Victorian marriages. In other words, Victorian values are more about the appearance of propriety rather than actual conformity with those social values. Algernon’s comment on the state of Victorian marriages engages the reader’s attention to the gap between convention and reality. The gap is closed by pretensions and hypocrisy. In other words, convention dictates that marriage is solemn and command fidelity. However, in practice spouses stray from the matrimonial commitments and mask those infractions so as to only appear to comply with convention. Through the motif of inversion, Algernon’s short statement on marriage subverts the Victorian convention, and points out the reality. Compliance with Victorian values is accomplished through mere appearances. Wilde therefore advances the idea of the significance of being dishonest and therefore draws attention to the irony of the play’s title. Algernon and Jack are both used to demonstrate the hypocrisy of the restrictive and superficial values of Victorian values. The motif of inversion is exemplified by both characters’ adoption of double identities to highlight this hypocrisy and the pretensions it commands. In order to both satisfy the dictates of Victorian social values and to pursue one’s own individual needs and desires, it was necessary to assume dual identities. Jack gives voice to this motif of inversion by stating that: When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring (Wilde Act One, 7) This motif of inversion is more directly promulgated by Jack and Algernon’s actual duplicity. Jack and Algernon create alter egos of Earnest and Banbury, both false identities that allow them to escape their ascribed roles and to pursue their own honest desires. The inversion motif is evidenced by the fact that Jack and Algernon lie to perpetuate the dishonesty of Victorian values. By creating false identities and lying, the characters are being earnest in the sense that they are being true to their own needs and desires. The inversion gives voice to the hypocrisy of Victorian values in convention by demonstrating that the values and conventions are inconsistent with human nature and as such compel deception. In this regard, the duplicity of Jack and Algernon’s lives at once extols the insincerity of Victorian values and the insincerity it commands. The motif of inversion is also demonstrated by the trivializing of solemn and serious Victorian values and the solemnizing of trivial Victorian values. The reader learns through inversion motifs that being rich and idle is by no means an easy task. Algernon comically, yet realistically states: It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don’t mind hard work where there is no definite object of mind (Wilde Act 1, 25). This method of inversion conveys the ironies of the idle rich by conceptualizing that being rich and idle is indeed difficult work when the automatic assumption is that being idle infers that there is no work at all. Yet again, the reader is thrown a curve when Algernon is completely taken aback by the fact that the cucumber sandwiches have disappeared, although he himself ate them. As an inversion motif, Algernon’s scene with the cucumber sandwiches represents not only the idleness of the wealthy, but also the earnestness of human nature. Algernon intended to save the sandwiches for Lady Bracknell, but could not resist them. In other words, Algernon is human, and as such he cannot resist pleasures, at least if he intends to be honest with himself. Victorian social norms required the resistance of human pleasures. Just as Wilde uses the cucumber sandwiches scenes as a means of humorously commenting on the idleness of the wealthy and the hypocrisy of Victorian values and virtues, he uses inversion motifs just as comically to comment on class distinctions. Ultimately, neither of these values can be taken seriously. For example, early on, Algernon criticizes the “lower orders” and comments on their inability to “set us a good example” (Wilde Act 1, 3). He observes via his servant Lane” Lane’s views on marriage seem somewhat lax. Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them? They seem, as a class, to have absolutely no sense of moral responsibility (Wilde Act 1, 3) Arguably, Algernon’s comment on the lower orders is among Wilde’s most effective uses of the motif of inversion in the play. This use of inversion successfully and comically mocks the hypocrisy of Victorian values and conventions, by pointing to an opposite assumption and conclusion. A close reading of Algernon’s comment draws specific attention to the insincerity of class structures by comically and ridiculously suggesting that a man of wealth and social status would look to a lowly servant for moral guidance. A wider construction of Algernon’s comments about the lower classes also draws attention to the fallacy and hypocrisy of aligning the moral character of the individual to his social and economic status in society. Through the use of the inversion motif, Wilde uses Algernon’s comments to demonstrate that the practice and custom of ascribing roles is in fact far from earnest. Inversion is used to exemplify the theme of hypocrisy by extolling the virtues of those who display moral deficiencies. For example, social deviant Earnest, created for that specific purpose is characterized by Gwendolen as the: very soul of honour and truth. Disloyalty would be as impossible to him as deception (Wilde, Act 3, 64). The irony here is that despite the assumption of a role as a means of pursuing deviant needs and desires, the mere pursuit of those desires and means is in fact, being earnest. Blind compliance with superficial values is therefore not earnest as it requires ignoring the sincerity of one’s own feelings. Essentially, the alter ego Ernest, is in fact being earnest in the sense that he is being true to his own needs and desires rather than the needs and desires dictated by Victorian society. The inversion motif is also exemplified through Gwendolen and Cecily who epitomize perfection for the sake of those that pursue them romantically. However, these pretentions are unmasked in the revelation of their inner pettiness which is contrasted by their outer beauty. These ladies reveal a propensity to be coy, forward, conniving and yet gullible. Ultimately their attraction to Ernest demonstrates shallowness with respect to the value attached to love. They attach value to the name rather than the man himself. For example, Gwendolen will only marry a man whose name is Earnest and as the reader knows, Earnest is an invention and does not really exist. Moreover, Victorian ideals of marriage are inconsistent with realistic values that bind a couple. These realistic values are romantic love and mutual respect. In other words, Victorian values and virtues exist in name only and are as much a fiction as the alter egos assumed by both Jack and Algernon. In this regard, Gwendolen and Cecily are not being earnest and merely pursuing that which is accepted and valued by society rather than what should be a natural human choice. In other words, hypocrisy prevails over humanity for those that subscribed to Victorian values and underscores the unpleasant consequences of not being earnest. Lady Bracknell also focuses attention on the fallacy of Victorian values and although she exudes the paragon of the virtuous Victorian lady, she is also used to denounce the hypocrisy of those virtues. Her witty comments offer inversion motifs that symbolize and mock Victorian society as a whole. For instance Lady Bracknell tells Jack who was abandoned in a purse on the Brighton Line: To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness (Wilde Act 1, 14). Here, Wilde is waging an assault on the irrational and illogical standards used to form values and make value judgments. The inversion motif arises in Lady Bracknell’s assertion that the “line is immaterial” (Wilde Act 1, 14). In other words, it doesn’t matter that Jack had been disposed off on the Brighton line, what matters is that Jack has no material background. Ultimately, The Importance of Being Earnest is a satire on the hypocrisy of Victorian values and uses the motif of inversion to bring this theme under comical scrutiny. Cecily’s comment to Algernon puts this theme neatly into focus by inversion when she says: I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy (Wilde Act 1, 32). The inversion motif is obvious in this passage as hypocrisy would seemingly arise in the opposite away. Be that as it may, the use of this kind of inversion is not lost on the reader since it characterizes much of the theme of The Importance of Being Earnest. The social values of Victorian society commanded the donning of social masks and this is poignantly demonstrated throughout the play by the use of inversion, a tactic employed to point out the ironies and hypocrisies of Victorian values in a comic way. Bibliography Wilde, O. The Importance of Being Earnest. Kessinger Publishing, 2004. Read More