Oscar Wilde frames “The Importance of Being Earnest” around the paradoxical epigram, a distorted metaphor for the central theme of the work, the division of truth and identity, which alludes to a homosexual subtext. Other targets of Wilde's absurd but grounded humor are the social conventions of his suffocating Victorian society, which are presented as a “superficial mask of good manners” (1655). Aided by clever wordplay, frenetic misunderstandings and knowledge dissonance between characters and audience, devices that are now staples of contemporary theater and situation comedy, “Earnest” suggests that, especially in “civilized” society, we all lead a double life that a variety of postures impose on us, an idea with which the closeted homosexual (until his public prosecution for sodomy) Wilde was understandably obsessed. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The Game's Initial Thrust: Exploring Bisexual Identities Algernon and Jack's "Bunburys" initially function as separate geographic characters for the city and country, simple escapes from pesky social obligations. However, the homoerotic connotations of the pun name (even the double “bu,” which serves mostly alliterative purposes, insinuates a union of similarities, and “Bunbury” rhymes with “buggery,” British slang for sodomy) flares up when paired with Algernon's repeated attacks on marriage:ALGERNON. “…It will put me next to Mary Farquhar, who is always flirting with her husband across the dinner table. It's not very pleasant. In fact, it's not even decent... and this kind of thing is on the rise. The amount of women in London who flirt with their husbands is absolutely scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one's clean linen in public” (1633). The mixed truth of a Wildean epigram – affirming normality in a ridiculous way, as in the case of Algernon's horrified reaction to marital flirtation, and often capped by the modification of an established cliché, as in the case of “washing clean linen” – it's not just funny, but salient; his distaste for public displays of "clean" heterosexual affection implies his deep resentment that his underwear is considered dirty and must be washed in private. Although both men are "Bunburyists," Wilde maintains and heightens the dramatic tension through Jack's denial of the fact. . The characters are brought to hyperbolic conviction in their brief speeches, a frenetic technique that amplifies the play's distant relationship to vaudevillian humor and reveals another duality within homosexuality; Algernon is perfectly happy being gay, while Jack is repelled by the idea, perhaps to the point of self-loathing. Algernon puns on the phrase “separate from,” showing his reluctance to move away from both the world and the physically divisive position of homosexuality: “Nothing will make me part with Bunbury, and if you ever marry, which seems to me extremely troublesome, you will be very happy to know Bunbury. man who marries without knowing Bunbury has a very dull time” (1634) Jack states that he will “kill [his] brother,” confusing his sexual duality as all he will kill is a part of himself: "This is nonsense. If I married a charming girl like Gwendolen, and she were the only girl I ever saw in my life that I would marry, I certainly would not want to know Bunbury” (1634). His trust in Gwendolen as his only soulmate is a normal declaration of love in most workstheatrical; here, he alludes to a fundamentally homosexual man who “converted” to heterosexuality on this one occasion. Wilde extends the duality of homosexuality to the female population, as Algernon emphasizes Gwendolen's alternative to serious marriage: “Then your wife will. You don't seem to realize that in married life three is company and two is nothing” (1634). Once again Wilde updates a pre-existing aphorism (“The company of two, of three a crowd”) and applies it for his own subversive measures, simultaneously ridiculing two distinct cultural exemplars, the cliché of the love triangle of French drama and the English marriage. The convergence of art and life in the epigram is a mainstay for Wilde who bases his observations on two grounds, the aesthetic and the natural, and adds contemporaneity for his Victorian audience while maintaining universality for future performances. What must be a relatively universal puzzle to audience members is Algernon's cultish language towards Jack: “Besides, now that I know you're a confirmed Bunburyist, it's only natural that I want to talk to you about Bunburying. I want to tell you the rules” (1633). These “rules,” one might assume, are the unwritten codes of homosexuality, and since Algernon never gives the game away by explaining what they are, Wilde explodes another duality in the theater – which audience members “get it” and which ones stay in the dark. While Algernon and Jack codify Bunburying in defiance of the unpretentious audience, Wilde employs another character/audience duality: the comically dissonant effect of accentuating the female characters' ignorance of a situation versus the audience's knowledge of the truth. a prime example of such farcical confusion, from which Wilde extracts material for the mercurial nature of female emotions. Gwendolen's opening lines foreshadow their problematic relationship, born of the misinformation of appellations and appearances, which plays against the superior position of the audience: “Cecily Cardew? What a very sweet name! Something tells me we're going to be great friends. I already like you more than I can say. My first impressions of people are never wrong” (1653). His blindness to circumstances is made physical through the use of a play on words: “Cecily, mother, whose views on education are remarkably rigid, raised me to be exceedingly short-sighted; it is part of his system; so do you mind if I look at you through my glasses?" (1653) His feeble understanding of the situation elicits further laughter, especially when he dispels any doubt of foul play: “Ernest has a strong and upright nature. He is the very soul of truth and of honor. Disloyalty would be as impossible to him as deception" (1654). Although deception is the most flagrant offense, the word disloyalty recalls his promiscuous Bunburying and brings us back to the binary of sexuality women are officially at odds, Wilde is able to criticize the Victorian courtesy that often obscures ill will. In the absence of witnesses, a no-holds-barred fight continues: “CECILY .When I see a spade a spade. I am happy to say that our social spheres have been very different this is a devastating insult and, interestingly, it is "the presence of the servants [that] exerts a restraining influence, under which both girls chafe", as Wilde points out in the stage directions (1655). The juxtaposition between upper and lower classes farcically dramatizes a duality of social mores in which women behave with a mutual contempt as corny as their snacks: “CECILY. ...I can.