In "The Importance of Being Earnest," Oscar Wilde, a flamboyant anti-conformist with a keen eye for aestheticism, revolutionized 19th century comedic theory by brilliantly integrating Aristotelian rhetoric and immense indignation for Victorian elitism into an esoteric and newly refined satirically cogent framework— a comedy of manners. After the restoration period of 18th century England with its emphasis on as Leon Golden, Professor Emeritus of Classical Languages, describes “festive comedy with…fantasy expression of rebellion against real social order” (Golden 284), England had lost the elaborate epigrammatic beauty and transcendent unified plot structure of the Gecko-Roman construct of the comedy of manners to a new artificially sentimental paradigm of theatre output known as Victorian Melodrama. The strict confines of archetypal characterizations and the socio-economic dynamic of gentry control shattered the fierce inquiry and true “comic catharsis” (Golden 287) that all brilliantly manipulated incongruous frameworks need to evoke true essence, and the spontaneity of eccentric comedic theory seemed to be dead until the presentation of single most important class satire of the late 1800’s—"The Importance of Being Earnest." And it was in this work through the invocation of as Richard Foster, a prominent Christian theologian notes, “[a] very intellectual kind of comedy” (Foster 19) that Oscar Wilde delivered the edifying truth of the Victorian gentry’s pretense, a truth that no other framework could elicit without vitriolic criticism of libel and defamation. Thus, by indirectly parodying the artificial construct of Victorian aristocratic morality, Oscar Wilde transcended the confines of stereotypical comedic melodrama by using the repetition of ironic witticisms and the invocation of mythos to convey his ultimate unspeakable purpose— the representation of the farcical state of hypocritical England in the nineteenth century.

Epigrammatic bon-mots and ironic witticisms that mimic upper class Victorian dialogue and satirize their way of life through diction and facetious persona are ever-present throughout The Importance of Being Earnest in order to demonstrate the vacuity of “Victorian Moralism.” Greeting Jack Worthing, the protagonist of the play, in Act I following a paradoxical soliloquy on the moral duty of the servant class delivered by his servant Lane, Algernon, a dandy archetype of decorative and amoral triviality, provides a primary example of Wilde’s use of reoccurring blatantly ironic bon-mots when he contends to Jack in an utterly blasphemous seriousness that “I thought you came for pleasure?...I call that business” (9). The sheer irony of Algernon’s hedonism displayed in his focus on “pleasure” (9) and his idealization of it to the point of calling it “business” (9) is a pun that demonstrates the dramatic rhetorical effect of Wilde’s simple manipulation of ideas to caricaturize the Victorian aristocracy’s true sense of essence— pleasure seeking; and on an even greater satirical level, Wilde hopes to induce a sense of Victorian hypocrisy which is further demonstrated by Lady Bracknell’s unconceivable sense of lack of empathy when she hints that invalids can control their state of health when she found out Algernon couldn’t attend a dinner she planned: “Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others. Health is the primary duty of life. I am always telling that to your poor uncle, but he never seems to take much notice…as far as any improvement in his ailment goes” (18). The comedic use of dramatic irony through the invocation of comedic pathos with diction such as “illness” (18) that elicit distressful connotations paradoxically intertwined with ridiculous prototypical Victorian views on sickness through pithy epigrammatic statements displays the artful complexity of Wilde’s comedic mission of satirizing the Victorian gentry by inexplicitly undercutting commonplace aristocratic perception that is visibly ludicrous. Hence, as Algernon’s profligate nature and Lady Bracknell’s parochial outlook toward the imperfect demonstrate, the Victorian moralism was vacant, affected, and prodigal—the very three qualities that Victorian morality” condemned.

Introducing Victorian standards through the artificiality and facetious nature of Lady Bracknell, an opulent aristocrats of the Victorian gentry, Wilde wittily invoked the Aristotelian appeal of mythos to deride the shallow materialistic moralism and blatant hypocrisy of Victorian England’s ludicrous and restrictive social mores that dominated the daily life and understanding of the class-oriented insincere society. Questioning Jack’s background in order to figure out whether or not he was the right candidate for marriage to her daughter Gwendolen, Lady Bracknell epitomized the feigned persona of the Victorian gentry in her cold response to Jack’s story of origin: “The cloak-room at Victoria?...The line is immaterial…to be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution” (23). The syntactical construction of the ellipsis, the blatant use of diction such as “immaterial” (23), and the mordant ironic construct of “ordinary decencies of family life” (23) all point to the cohesive invocation of the direct artificial quality of Victorian traditionalism and social mores. As custom deems, Victorian’s prioritized status and tradition, and even though Wilde shaped Lady Bracknell views in the extreme to produce comedic effect with apparent ironic hyperbole such as describing the foundling paradigm as one of the “the worst excesses of the French Reolution” (23), the message is clear: Victorian England’s blatant materialistic way of looking at the world and its emphasis on being “bred” (23) are brainless viewpoints that need to be modified for future generations. Ergo, the contingency of explicitly infusing ironic comments such as Lady Bracknell’s and Victorian traditionalism, displays the hidden undercurrents of Wilde’s idealistic satiric derision of upper-class Victorian society.

By invoking artful Aristotelian appeals and elusive rhetorical devices with clear-cut comedic effect into a cohesive comedic framework, "The Importance of Being Earnest" explicitly denotes the bonds and rigidity of Victorian England in a shockingly lucid fashion without effecting societal judgment which displays one key tenant of the universal significance of comedy—it allows one to say what one wants to say without being punished; and Oscar Wilde, the stereotypical “other” and queer theorist poster child, delivered one of the most enduring interpretive messages on the great hole in the sincerity of Victorian England which acted as a precedent for change in the Edwardian Era, an era of the socio-political reorganization and an era as Oscar Wilde would call “haute couture.”