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INTRODUCTION

The Importance of Being Earnest opened in the West End of London in February 1894 during an era when many of the religious, social, political, and economic structures were experiencing change The Victorian Age (the last 2530 years of the 1800s). The British Empire was at its height and occupied much of the globe, including Ireland, Wilde's homeland. The English aristocracy was dominant, snobbish and rich far removed from the British middle class and poor. Many novelists, essayists, poets, philosophers and playwrights of the Victorian Age wrote about social problems, particularly concerning the effects of the Industrial Revolution and political and social reform. Dickens concentrated on the poor, Darwin wrote his theory of evolution describing the survival of the fittest, and Thomas Hardy wrote about the Naturalist Theory of man stuck in the throes of fate. Other notable writers such as Thackeray, the Brontes, Swinburne, Butler, Pinero, and Kipling were also contemporaries of Oscar Wilde. In an age of change, their work, as well as Wilde's plays, encouraged people to think about the artificial barriers that defined society and enabled a privileged life for the rich at the expense of the working class. American writer, Edith Wharton, was also writing about the lifestyles of the rich during the same period. Her novels, such as Ethan Frome, The Age of Innocence, or The House of Mirth, explore the concepts of wealth and privilege at the expense of the working class on the American side of the Atlantic. Although the themes in The Importance of Being Earnest address Victorian social issues, the structure of the play was largely influenced by French theatre, melodrama, social drama, and farce. Wilde was quite familiar with these genres, and borrowed from them freely. A play by W. Lestocq and E.M. Robson, The Foundling, is thought to be a source of Earnest, and it was playing in London at the time Wilde was writing Earnest. The Foundling has an orphan-hero, like Jack Worthing in Wilde's play. A farce is a humorous play using exaggerated physical action, such as slapstick, absurdity, and improbability. It often contains surprises where the unexpected is disclosed. The ending of Earnest, in which Jack misidentifies Prism as his unmarried mother, is typical of the endings of farces. Farces were usually done in three acts and often included changes of identity, stock characters, and lovers misunderstanding each other. Wearing mourning clothes or gobbling food down at times of stress are conventions that can be traced to early farces. Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen also strongly influenced Wilde. Ibsen's innovations in A Doll's House, which had played in London in 1889, were known to Wilde. Wilde also attended Hedda Gabler and Ghosts, two other plays by Ibsen. While in prison, Wilde requested copies of Ibsen plays. The theatre manager of the St. James where Earnest opened, George Alexander, asked Wilde to reduce his original four-act play to three acts, like more conventional farces. Wilde accomplished

this by omitting the Gribsby episode and merging two acts into one. In doing so, he maneuvered his play for greater commercial and literary response. Marriage plots and social comedy were also typical of 1890s literature. Jane Austen and George Eliot were both novelists who used the idea of marriage as the basis for their conflicts. Many of the comedies of the stage were social comedies, plays set in contemporary times discussing current problems. The white, Anglo-Saxon, male society of the time provided many targets of complacency and aristocratic attitudes that playwrights such as Wilde could attack. Earnest came at a time in Wilde's life when he was feeling the pressure of supporting his family and mother, and precariously balancing homosexual affairs especially with Lord Alfred Douglas. The Importance of Being Earnest opened at George Alexander's St. James Theatre on February 14, 1895. On this particular evening, to honor Wilde's aestheticism, the women wore lily corsages, and the young men wore lilies of the valley in their lapels. Wilde himself, an outside observer by birth in the world of elegant fashion, was festooned in a glittering outfit. It was widely reported that he wore a coat with a black velvet collar, a white waistcoat, a black moir ribbon watch chain with seals, white gloves, a green scarab ring, and lilies of the valley in his lapel. Wilde, the Irish outsider, was dramatically accepted by upper-class London, who loved his wit and daring, even when laughing about themselves. The aristocracy attending Wilde's play knew and understood the private lives of characters like Jack and Algernon. They were aware of the culture and atmosphere of the West End. It had clubs, hotels, cafes, restaurants, casinos, and most of the 50 theatres in London. The West End was also a red-light district filled with brothels that could provide any pleasure. It was a virtual garden of delights, and the patrons could understand the need for married men to invent Ernests and Bunburys so that they could frolic in this world.

DISCUSSION
The Importance of Being Earnest is set in late Victorian England, a time of social reform. Society was rediscovering art in its many forms yet as a consequence, The Upper class continued their program of suppressed inferiority. The lower classes were treated with disdain and disgust and the animosity between the groups was easily visible. Essentially, the late Victorian era was the beginning of a mini cultural renaissance, yet Upper Class society, which forms the basis of the play was rigidly controlled by a set of unwritten rules, a code of conduct as it may, in which all were expected to conform with. This code referred to a number of things, including the way they ate, dressed, and spoke. The 19th Century saw many important alliances formed politically between Queen Victoria and her Prime Ministers. This was typified by her friendship with Benjamin Disraeli. Together they formed a number of political partnerships, none of which was more important than the Reform Act. The R! eform Act greatly annoyed the upper class, which considered the idea of any man being allowed to vote as simply disgraceful. The Victorian era saw legislation concerning labour and industry, which began to intrude on the power of the Upper class over the working class labourers. In fact by the late 1880's Lower classes were working less hours, while their wages continued to increase. This allowed many to enjoy luxuries that until then were considered only possible by the Upper Classes. Women, even the ones of the Upper Class were still considered unequal of men even at this stage in history, even though the monarch was a woman. Yet, towards the end of the 19th Century, Women rebelled against their stereotypes. They began to seek smaller families so as to escape the child-breeding, household running typecast.
Keywords talked about in this paper upper class, the upper class, late victorian, upper classes, Victorian era, Oscar Wilde, lower classes, manners, comedy, social, paradox, social class, Class society, Victorian England, well made play, Victorian society, social reform, Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Ministers, non existent, Proscenium Arch, Queen Victoria, an education, local politics, satirizes, laser printer, actor, Original productions, alliteration, witty, satirical, inferiority, disgraceful, comic, wall, intrude, luxuries, code, consonantal, labourers, unwritten, unequal, syllables, unpredictability, unpleasant, stereotypes, wages, full scale, disposition, monarch,

CONCLUSION
In the Victorian Age, which encompassed the last quarter of the nineteenth century, England was at its highest point. The British Empire extended all over the world, prompting the phrase, "The sun never sets in the British Empire." The era saw the flourishing of the English aristocracy, but much like the contemporaneous Gilded Age in America, the rise of the elite created a huge wealth disparity between the very rich and the very poor. This gap became fertile ground for many artists, particularly Charles Dickens, who made a career of examining the social conditions on the lower rungs of English society. The period also played host to a rise of new ideas, most importantly the revolutionary ideas of Darwin, whose work on evolution became extremely influential in the last part of the nineteenth century. The Victorian novelist Thomas Hardy adopted a fatalist philosophy along Darwinian lines, in which now removed from his privileged place at the centre of the world, man was viewed as moving within forces beyond his control. Oscar Wilde, rather than focusing on the lower classes or social conditions, chose to satirize the life of the English aristocracy, a world with which he was personally familiar. His characters are typical Victorian snobs; they are often arrogant, overly proper, formal, and concerned with money. Lady Bracknell in particular embodies the stereotype of the Victorian English aristocrat. Wilde focuses on the easy life of the wealthy, none of whom seem to work at all. Indeed, the main concern of all the characters in the play is something that Wilde viewed as rather trivial: marriage. In basing his work on the problems and trials of marriage, Wilde deliberately adds a Victorian-era interpretation to the age-old English formula of the marriage plot. The works of Jane Austen and George Eliot alone provide multiple examples of the genre. Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, which is distinctly Victorian in tone, dialogue and characterization, adapts this traditional theme to a contemporary vision. Of course, Wilde pokes fun at the institution of marriage, which he saw as a practice surrounded by hypocrisy and absurdity. Although the play ends happily, The Importance of Being Earnest nevertheless leaves the audience under the impression that marriage and social values are often tied together in destructive ways. Ultimately, the aristocracy does not see marriage as an organ of love, but rather as a tool for achieving or sustaining social stature. This is the major theme of the play. Because of the play's profound success, both immediate and enduring, The Importance of Being Earnest has come to represent Oscar Wilde's late-Victorian view of the aristocracy, marriage, wit and social life; the play is often seen as providing a deep insight into London society at both its finest and its most absurd before the dawn of the twentieth century.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

TABLE OF CONTENT Table of content.1 Introduction..2-3 Discussion.4 Conclusion5 Bibliography.6