Honesty Is The Best Policy

Dear Readers,

As for The importance of Being Earnest there is quite a bit of dishonesty and in many ways. First of all with all of the epigrams, by the definition of epigrams they are a paradox which in itself is not the truth. An epigram in this book is when Cecily says that happy endings make her terribly depressed when at the end of the book she has a happy ending with Algernon and is not depressed at all. Dishonesty in marriage was a main theme in this book. Just one example is when Lady Bracknell say that she never undeceives her husband with matters that are unimportant to him. This symbolized that there was a lot of lies in their marriage and in many marriages of that time period. The main plot of this play is that Jack and Algernon were being dishonest with their names, which is ironic because the definition of earnest is to be truthful. In this book the pursuit of happiness has to be built on a lie just to get out of responsibility. Each character has their own lie for their pursuit of pleasure, for instance, Cecily has her fake engagement in her diary and Jack has Ernest.

I think that Wilde was trying to say that when people are not aware that the lies that they tell will effect them drastically in the long run. He shows this aspect by having the characters do very self centered things that would benefit themselves the most. But this goes right along with the pursuit of happiness because if you want to be really happy you must do whatever is best for yourself. Wilde is conveying that if you just go along with what others say and never find your own happiness that you will not succeed. He is also saying that if you go to far with your lies even if they are for the pursuit of happiness they could come back and bite you in the butt.


Love, Amaya