Key Facts

• Full Title: The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People
• Original Title: Same title (no alternate title)
• Author: Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
• Prize/Recognition: Considered Wilde’s comic masterpiece; one of the greatest English comedies 
• Source: Satire of Victorian society, morality, and obsession with social status and marriage
• Written Time: 1894
• First Performed: 14 February 1895 at St. James’s Theatre, London
• Publisher: Leonard Smithers (first published 1899)
• Genre: Comedy of Manners / Satire
• Form: Three-act play
• Tone: Satirical, witty, humorous, ironic
• Point of View: Third-person stage directions; dialogue-driven play
• Significance: Critiques Victorian seriousness, hypocrisy, and social pretensions; celebrates humor, wit, and the absurdity of social conventions
• Famous Line: “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”

• Time: Late Victorian England (1890s)
• Place: London and Hertfordshire (country estate) 

• Comedy of Manners: The play mocks the artificial manners of Victorian upper-class society. It satirizes marriage, morality, and obsession with appearances.
• Earnestness and Triviality: Wilde plays with the idea of being “earnest” (serious and moral) versus being Ernest (a fashionable name). The pun drives the humor and satire.
• Marriage and Social Status: Almost every character is obsessed with marriage, wealth, and family background. Wilde mocks the shallow reasons behind Victorian marriages.
• Wit and Epigrams: The play is filled with Wilde’s witty sayings and paradoxes, such as “All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy.”
• Double Life/Identity: Characters like Jack and Algernon lead double lives (“Bunburying”). This reflects hypocrisy and the absurd rules of society.
• Satire of Hypocrisy: Wilde ridicules social conventions, seriousness about trivial matters, and moral pretension.