Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest is an elaborate piece of satire for social commentary. In this way, it reminded me of Valparaiso, which I saw last week. While Valparaiso is a commentary/expose on our media saturated modern culture, The Importance of Being Earnest explores the often ridiculous formality and priorities of Victorian culture.

Wilde mocks Victorian conventions in a way that is amusing and pleasing to the reader. Contrary to the norm, Gwendolyn completely takes charge of Jack’s proposal to her. Refusing to be docile and sweet, she essentially proposes to herself while Jack ambles awkwardly through his proposal.

Lady Bracknell is a harbinger of all that is ridiculous about Victorian society and conventions of morality. Her inquisition of Jack is rude and superficial, prioritizing whether or not Jack smokes over his job or character. She projects that the misfortune of loosing both parents is somehow Jack’s own folly, and later in the play makes insensitive comments (albeit witty entertainment for the reader) about Jack’s own origins, which he can only explain as a train station in London. Even her tracking down of Gwendolyen and presumptuous entrance into Jack’s country home seethes with an irking self importance.

The play ending also reminded me of Valparaiso. It becomes almost a comedy of errors, where such strange coincidences and changes of events led of all of the characters to this place and this ending. Jack was never actually being fictive, everything in his life actually fit within the far reaches of his imagination. Valparaiso riffs on the theme that little mistakes can snowball into an incredibly humorous/ unlikely situation. And in true bunburyist fashion, both protagonists (Majeski and Jack) use these strange turns of events to escape their own realities.