Group Writing

The most obvious ways that Wilde portrays the motif dishonesty in his play is through the characters’ physical actions and what they say. When Lady Bracknell is interviewing Jack to see if he is worthy of marrying Gwendolyn, no matter what he says, she seems to make it even more impressive than it should be. Wilde uses this scene to tell how the Victorian society is always lying to make themselves higher than the rest. Then, Algernon goes bunburying to meet Cecily, and he pretends to be Jack’s made-up brother, Ernest. Making up a fake identity is a bad form of dishonesty, especially in the case of Jack and Algernon, where they’ve both gone bunburying under the name of Ernest to get married. Wilde uses dishonesty in bunburying to show how often the Victorian society lies, and how big of lies that they are. Also, Miss Prism never told anyone that she left a baby in a bag. Wilde did this to both give an explanation to why Jack was found in a bag and later adopted, and to show how people in high society hide both big and little secrets from others to make themselves accepted. Wilde’s incorporation of dishonesty and untruthfulness in this play makes it more interesting and gives it excitement and suspense.