The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde is a timeless comedy of manners in which two light-hearted young men pretend their name is "Ernest" in order to to impress their love interests. , both of whom believe that the name Ernest bestows magical qualities on its possessor. Throughout the play, Wilde uses a mixture of social drama, melodrama, and farce to please the audience. Through his gentle use of parody, Wilde is able to ridicule his contemporaries and attack the values ​​and attitudes of Victorian society, such as: wealth, hierarchy, respectability, morality and self-interest. Through satirical dialogue and dramatic irony, Wilde is able to reveal the moral hypocrisy at the heart of the Victorian era. The title "The Importance of Being Serious" gives ironic importance to a plot about men leading "double lives", lying to their family and friends about their private lives, so that they can go on trips and do the things they really want to do. Both Jack and Algernon lead double lives, lives separated from their family and friends; Jack uses his imaginary brother "Ernest" to escape his country life. While Algernon uses his imaginary friend "Bunbury" to escape social gatherings, suggesting that both men find the stresses of society and their lives extremely restrictive, and that to escape the constraints of society they must lie or deceive. In his play, Wilde argues that the majority of Victorian society wears a sort of social mask. Many critics have argued that each character depicted in the play is an extension of Wilde himself and that the "double lives" of Algernon and Jack represent Wilde's own alter ego who hid his homosexuality and many of his illicit liaisons to a society that disapproved of homosexual acts. . Through his p...... middle of paper ......being Earnest and other pieces page 325http://www.shmoop.com/importance-of-being-earnest/writing-style.htmlOscar Wilde l the importance of being serious and other pieces page 304http://www.thefreedictionary.com/earnesthttp://www.sparknotes.com/lit/earnest/themes.htmlDonohue and Berggren 1995, p.281http://www.indiastudychannel .com/resources/111841-The-Title-The-Importance-Being-Earnest.aspx Kumaraditya SarkarYork notes the importance of being earnest, p. 6The Importance of Being Serious and Other Plays /02/27/the-importance-of-being-earnest-a-comedy-of-manners-and-culture-revealing-double-lives-and-universal-truths / 04/6/2012 http://dreamhawk.com /interior-life/the-importance-of-being-serious/ 6/04/2012