Importance of being Earnest, Gay Homosexuality, Oscar Wilde , Wilde on story, double identity which , double life, illustration on Victorian society, rigidity on gay and homosexual Victoria time

1. Importance of being
Earnest illustration on
gay and homosexual
Presented by
Mahir Pari Goswami
(Teaching assistant)
Gopinathji mahila College Sihor

2. • The name Ernest was a slang word for a
homosexual in the late nineteenth century seen
here in a line from a book of gay love poetry by an
Oxford classmate of Wilde’s (John Gambril
Nicholson) titled
• Love in Earnest (1882).
• “While Earnest sets my heart aflame.”
• This not only proves the validity of the slang, but
its author suggests that Wilde would have
certainly known the subtle context of the word.

3. • Earnest could also possibly be drawn from
the word “uranist” or “uranism”, both
meaning homosexual and while the name
certainly provides plenty of family
arguments, perhaps its owner has some
secrets of his own.

4. • “I have always suspected you of being a
confirmed and secret Bunburyist; and I am
quite sure of it now.” (Wilde 1454)
• As briefly discussed before, homosexuality in
Great Britain was publically shamed and even
punishable by law, therefore men had to
remain silent about their gay love interests.

5. • So, those obtaining “the love that dare not
speak its name” as Wilde’s lover once wrote,
ultimately have to live two lives to have any
credibility, social standing or reputation.
• Coincidently, both of the main protagonists,
Jack and Algernon, also lead double lives,
both taking up the intriguing name Ernest.

7. • Jack and Algernon both seem to represent
two spectrums of the gay community in
Great Britain.
• Jack denies leading a double life “I’m not a
Bunburyist at all” (Wilde 1455), clearly in
denial because he “always pretended to
have a younger brother name Ernest”
(Wilde 1454).
• We can interpret Jack as denying the fact
that he is gay so he can marry and “kill [his]
brother” (Wilde 1455) Ernest, the gay
symbolic name.

8. • Algernon is his foil, accepting himself as gay
and seeing through Jack’s self-doubt “what
you really are is a Bunburyist” (Wilde 1455),
and seemingly consuls him on the dangers of
being married while “A man who marries
without knowing Bunbury has a very tedious
time of it” (Wilde 1455) and if Jack doesn’t
tell her “Than your wife will [know]. You
don’t seem to realize, that in married life
three is company and two is none.” (Wilde
1455)

9. • Interpret his warning as “If you marry a
women and you know your gay, you certainly
will be sour, however you can still live a
double life and have romance and dignity.”
• The discovered message also follows Wilde’s
own life choices as he was married and had
two sons while having an affair with a young
lord.
• Wilde uses Jack and Algernon in this scene
then to portray the typical rejection of one’s
gay feelings to fit into society;

11. “cucumber sandwiches”
• Looking through the eyes of a nineteenth century
covert gay Englishman, or a middle-schooler
grocery shopping, we can see a possible allusion
because of its phallic shape. The “cucumber
sandwiches” are “for Lady Bracknell” and
Gwendolen (Wilde 1450). Both are women, ahem,
however Algernon decides to eat them instead;
Wilde cements the phallic symbol of the cucumber
by having them served only for the women, only
to have Algernon eat all these “cucumber
sandwiches” as a possible nod to his
homosexuality by taking the phallus shaped
vegetable into his mouth instead of the women’s’.

12. cigarette case
• During Wilde’s trial it was discovered he had
given multiple gay lovers of his cigarette cases
as gifts, so when Jack, another protagonists,
says “It is a very un-gentlemanly thing to read
a private cigarette case” (Wilde 1452) the
audience laughs at the slapstick, while the
playwright’s closer friends can’t help but smirk
with knowing.

13. Conclusion
• Through the naked eye, any audience would
understand the play, but they wouldn’t.
Coded into the text are gay allusions and
humor that perhaps only those in England’s
queer community would understand.