The Importance of Being Earnest

Analysis: Food Fight

In the third act, Gwendolen and Cecily have a very heated fight, all using food and verbal formalities as their choice weapon. Cecily asks if Gwendolen would rather have cake or bread and butter and if she would like sugar in her tea. When Gwendolen suggests she would like no sugar and bread and butter, Cecil responds with absolute evil! She gives Gwendolen a slice of cake and lumps of sugar in her tea!

This absolutely shows the values these women have. Instead of getting angry and expressing that, they still want to maintain the their "proper" and "polite" behavior. The ladies believe they are engaged to the same guy!! It seems that throughout this entire book, things that should be important and skipped over lightly, and things that should not matter at all are held with the highest regard (such as both Jack and Algy wanting to be Earnest.) The food fight clearly demonstrates to the reader just how far formalities and etiquette extend into the lives of these shallow characters. Even in a moment of embarrassment, anger, and frustration (such as realizing you are engaged to the same guy as someone,) both Cecily and Gwendolen put appearances and formalities before the expression of true emotion.




Passage Analysis:
"
Lady Bracknell: ...Now to minor matters. Are your parents living?
Jack: I have lost both my parents.
Lady Bracknell: To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness...
"

The absurdity of this statement does what it is exactly intended to do; make the reader sincerely question the I.Q and mental health of the character Lady Bracknell. She does not have an emotional bone in her body and instead the only values that guide her are the shallow ones of looks and materialism which she holds so dear to her heart. Etiquette guides her rather than morals.

Lady Bracknell makes a comment about something that is supposed to be a tragedy and turns it around to look like Jack's carelessness. This question is part of a series of questions that she uses to evaluate Jack to make her opinion on weather Jack would be a good fit for Gwendolen. She also starts off the inquiry about Jack's parents by saying "now on to more minor matters." This shows how she would not even care if Jack's parents did did not approve of their marriage, and that her opinion is the only true standing one. She also does not even think about the mental toll that may have been placed upon Jack for having no parents. Instead of thinking about if Jack is okay, she merely scolds him instead saying he was "careless." She scolds him because she is obsessed with how things look from the outside, and for Jack not to have any parents is no longer an inquiry, but a value judgment and social judgment that will be put on him in society. Lady Bracknell does not want the best for her daughter, but instead wants to live in the physical picture of how she thinks Gwendolen's world should look like. Her motivation is far from caring about ones character, and more about their pocketbook and famous (family) name of some sort.

Opinion:

I rather liked this play. It was light-hearted and funny which always makes for a great read. It is actually funny and re-enforces my point that I found it light-hearted, when every issue in the book was actually incredibly important to the characters. It all the more characterized their ridiculousness because the reader is not going to go around and tell someone when the proper time to eat muffins is and when it is not appropriate. It was very funny and the author did a fine job developing (or underdeveloping) these shallow and snobby characters.