importance of being earnest
... Running throughout the entire play is the double meaning behind the word earnest, which functions both as a male name and as an adjective describing seriousness. ... In claiming to be Ernest, both Algernon and Jack had, unbeknownst to themselves, been earnest. Yet even as he played with his theme for laughs, Wilde saw earnestness as being a key ideal in Victorian culture. ... In the figure of Lady Bracknell in particular, The Importance of Being Earnest lightly shows the limitations and unhappiness produced by such a way of life. ... With this, The Importance of Being Earnest makes a tentative further claim: that perhaps Algernon, Jack, Cecily, and Gwendolyn have been the earnest ones all along; unwilling to act earnestly according to social status and convention, willing to lie to get what they want, and never completely able to escape their own delusions, they at least act honestly with themselves.