In Oscar Wilde's play, The
Importance of Being Earnest, Jack Worthing lives a double life; in
Hertfordshire, he is Jack; while in London, he is Ernest. Jack endures a
physical journey throughout the play, going from Hertfordshire to London
whenever he pleases. This journey contributes to the author’s ridicule of the
Victorian time period. Jack’s jumping around from town to town made it
difficult to keep his identities in check with the relationships he had made in
either town. Jack’s alias, Ernest, holds a great amount of irony and symbolizes
how hypocritical the Victorian time period was. Jack and Algernon are anything
but earnest in the play, as they lie and take absolutely nothing seriously.
During the time period of the setting, the main importance of their society was
manners and politeness.
Because Jack and Algernon both use the name Ernest as an alias,
the women that they had courted had eventually caught on to their lie. These
women had only desired the two “Ernests” solely for their name. These girls only
care about appearances and titles, or things that cannot be controlled or even
matter. For instance, Gwendolen’s mother, Lady Bracknell, dislikes Jack because
of his background of being found in a handbag before he was adopted. Her
forbiddance of him to see Gwendolen demonstrates the ignorance and
ridiculousness of Victorian customs. None of these preposterous demonstrations
of Victorian attitudes in this era would have happened if it weren’t for Jack’s
physical journeys between Hertfordshire and London. His physical journeys
created these problems for him in his interactions as well as from an emotional
standpoint because it caused him difficulty in finding a spouse.
