The Importance of Being Earnest

Because Victorian norms were so repressive and suffocating, Wilde creates episodes in which his characters live secret lives or create false impressions to express who they really are. Jack and Algernon both create personas to be free. These other lives allow them to neglect their duties in Algernon's case, or to leave their duties and pursue pleasure, which happens to be in Jack's case. Various characters in the play allude to passion, sex and moral …

…The aristocratic Victorians valued duty and respectability above all else. Earnestness, a determined and serious desire to do the correct thing was at the top of the code of conduct. Appearance was everything, and style was much more important than substance. Wilde's most concrete critique in the play is of the manipulative desires revolving around marriage. Gwendolen and Ceicily desires to marry someone named "Ernest" demonstrate how their romantic dreams hinge upon titles, not character.