Dishonestly in The Importance of Being Earnest

   In The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde, there are many relations to dishonesty through different literary techniques. Characters in the play often say many things that contradict things they say earlier. Epigrams in particular seem to come up repeatedly and are often little quips that don't always make sense. Algernon seems to always say life lessons that are not very sensible which makes them also a little untruthful. There is a lot of satire on social institutions especially regarding marriage. Then marriage was about who had money or property and was more of a business deal than about love. That is not dishonest because when you marry someone you are supposed to love them, but if it is a business deal that isn't necessarily so. References to the name Ernest, or to the trait are common. At the end Jack finds out that his birth name is Ernest. He has been going by Jack, a name given to him by his adopted father. He then went on to make up "Ernest" and then go by that name in London. While telling everyone about this so-called "Ernest" he didn't realize that he was spilling lies, he was actually telling the truth. At the end he figures it out and is unhappy with this. Wilde conveys the pursuit of pleasure through many characters, Algernon in particular. Algernon always wants the lush, lavish clothing; he wants the delicious food; and he wants to party. He creates his friend "Bunbury" to make sure this happens. By making up this Bunbury he is always lying to someone.
  In the play, Wilde seems to be saying that dishonesty will always come out somehow. That is an epigram in itself. By creating this characters who lie, and live half their lives falsely it makes fun of people in life who do lie. Wilde is trying to poke fun at the upper class people during the Victorian Age who would do whatever they liked and not get in trouble for it. In this play it came back to bite Algernon and Jack, though they did end up squeezing out of it. An underlying message in The Importance of Being Earnest is how being dishonest and untruthful will end up for worse.