How are Victorian attitudes to marriage and respectability satirised in ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’?
Oscar Wilde uses the play ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ to mock and ridicule the attitudes and popular conceptions towards marriage and respectability of the upper class in his own time which he believed to be purely superficial. Through the use of controversial satirical caricatures- in particular Lady Bracknell - Wilde often exaggerates behaviour and language when addressing the topic of marriage to instigate humour. The comedy which is thus generated by Wilde’s epigrams, stereotypes and heavy irony invites the audience to laugh at the ridiculousness of their own attitudes in order to teach them a moral lesson. Marriage has always been subject to the whims of fashion, but in Wilde’s era the problem as he saw it, was that marriage appeared to have lost any connection with love. The societal rules and rituals which had to be followed for the arrangement of a marriage were necessary to sustain or improve an individual’s social position; eligibility was determined by a thorough interrogation of an individual’s name, wealth, family background and rank. However it could be argued that far from pushing the boundaries in making the audience understand their shallow values in relation to marriage and respectability one of the huge structural ironies of the comedy is that all characters marry their social equals- whether this is because Wilde thinks that they deserve each other or whether his challenge to conformity is rather half hearted is part of the puzzle as the curtain falls.
It is evident from the very opening of the play that Wilde- through satire- is addressing the paradox of marriage in the Victorian era being little more than ‘business’ when in fact it should be recognised as a union of two compatible individuals celebrating their love for one another.