The Importance of Being Earnest/Victorian Research

Over the past few days, while we have been reading The Importance of Being Earnest I have noticed that many of the things that I learned in my research of the Victorian era show up repeatedly in the play. First of all, while doing the research I learned that marriage in the Victorian era was all about money for the bride's family and not about romance. This comes up a lot in the play, and is shown clearly on page 31 when Gwendolen says, "... I may marry someone else and marry often..." She is saying that she might marry multiple times, and this was not uncommon in the Victorian era.

Another parallel between my research and the play was social classes in the Victorian era. During this era the lower class were extremely poor and slaved away in factories or in the fields barely able to support their families, while the upper class looked down upon them and lived lives of high class and wealth. A perfect example of this is shown on page 8 when Algernon says, "Really, if the lower orders don't set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?" He is indicating his disrespect for the lower class, and how he looks down upon them like many upper class people in the Victorian era.