1142 Wilde, Oscar
clearly the huckster. Jack, whose uprightness would
stiffen a board, is contrasted with the contradic-
tory and manipulative Gwendolen. And while each
pairing is set to contrast the protagonists’ relative
innocence and proclaimed experience, Wilde’s play
exposes the experience necessary for innocence and
the innocence inevitable in experience.
At the center of the contest between innocence
and experience is the sounding board of Lady
Augusta Bracknell. Wealthy and influential, she is
the ostensible judge of what is socially correct. Of
course, she is as superficial and caricatured as every-
one else, but Wilde consistently uses her to chal-
lenge the protagonists. When Algy desires to marry
Cecily, Jack sternly objects: “[T]his engagement is
quite out of the question. . . . [T]he fact is that I do
not approve at all of his moral character.” Algy is a
playboy and a spendthrift. He desires to be consid-
ered worldly, but he is irresponsible to the point of
amorality. Lady Bracknell, in Algy’s defense, offers
a pointed rejoinder: “He has nothing, but he looks
everything. What more can one desire?” Algy can
only offer the appearance of substance, but in and
of himself, he is only facade. For all his nonchalance
and “common sense” experience, he is innocent of
any meaningful contribution to the world, and he
remains completely indifferent to this lack.
Jack, however, is hardly any better. He has taken
great pains to become successful in the world.
Though he is eligible, smart, savvy, and wealthy,
when face-to-face with Lady Bracknell, his experi-
ence amounts to nothing, at least to her: “To be born,
or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag . . . seems to me
to display a contempt of the ordinary decencies of a
family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of
the French Revolution,” she says. Thus, a man of his
background can never marry her daughter. Despite
the extent of his effort, maturity, and responsibil-
ity, Jack cannot overcome the basic premise of his
background and the absence of a known lineage. In
the end, fortune comes to his rescue, but his experi-
ence cannot improve his position, no matter how
robust or profound it may be.
Gwendolen is equal parts naive and conspirato-
rial. She arranges to meet Jack, who calls himself
Ernest in the city, in order to achieve her engage-
ment to him. When Lady Bracknell objects, she
sneaks away for a visit to her Ernest in the country,
where she discovers his ruse. Algernon, who at
the time is also posing as Ernest in the country,
remonstrates Jack for his deception: “I can see no
possible defence at all for your deceiving a brilliant,
clever, thoroughly experienced young lady like Miss
Fairfax.” While Gwendolen is certainly clever, she
is not experienced. Putting aside Algy’s innuendo,
she is clearly credulous and apt to rewrite reality to
suit her own desires. The very nature of experience,
which guards a person from error and deceit, is
openly denied by Gwendolen. After asking why Jack
deceived her (and feeding him the correct answer),
she reminds Cecily, “In matters of grave importance,
style, not sincerity is the vital thing.” Jack is always
excusable because Gwendolen can breeze through
experience and remain entirely innocent of learn-
ing from it. It is, in fact, a conscious act. “I have the
gravest doubts upon the subject [of Jack’s sincerity].
But I intend to crush them,” she says to Jack. Cec-
ily responds in kind: “I am more than content . . .
[Algy’s] voice alone inspires one with absolute cre-
dulity.” Innocence is an act of conscious experience:
an intended action with calculable consequences.
In the world of Wilde’s play, it takes experi-
ence—almost expertise—to remain innocent. The
world that teaches, and the lesson one learns, can
be gathered, amassed, and collated. The sum total of
one’s experiences can be carefully applied to living,
but it is all folly to approach the world in this way.
In The Importance of Being Earnest, the men cover
the gamut of experiences of the world only to dis-
cover that they are truly innocents in the things that
matter. The women, who bask in their wistful bliss,
know innocence is the only effective experience.
“Cecily is not a silly romantic girl,” Jack proclaims to
Algy, wryly insinuating that she has no experience of
the world. “She has got a capital appetite, goes long
walks, and pays no attention at all to her lessons.”
Of course, being “just only eighteen,” Cecily, like
Gwendolen, is the picture of a silly romantic girl.
But only the picture.
Aaron DruckerSucceSS in The Importance of Being Earnest
What does it mean to be a “success” on Oscar
Wilde’s stage? For each character in turn, the