In the play, The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde, the characters travel between the city and the country. Jack and Algernon travel between these two places and bunbury. Moving from these locations and pretending to be different people allowed the main characters to create a humorous and satirical representation of the Victorian Society.
Throughout the play, Jack and Algernon participate in what Algernon calls bunburying. Bunburying is pretty much the act of leaving one place for a false reason and arriving at a new place with a different name. For example, Jack often leaves the country to visit his ill brother Earnest who lives in the city. However, when he arrives in the city he goes by the name Earnest instead of Jack. Jack does not actually have a brother named Earnest and he lies to everyone in the city when he claims that his name is Earnest. Jack and Algy use this tactic in order to be dismissed from social gatherings and things of that sort. It allows them to go against the manners one is supposed to have in the Victorian society. These characters are able to do whatever they want and not worry about how it will affect their true selves. By having his characters bunbury, Wilde was able to poke fun at the expected manners and ways of living during this time period.
Through Algernon and Jacks conversations, Oscar Wilde is able to do this as well. When the two characters speak of pointless matters, Algernon often questions why it is wrong and why it is right to do certain things in society. This happens more than once in the play, while the characters are both in the city and in the country. Jack and Algy will start off having a serious conversation until one of them questions why they must do certain things and what importance it has on their lives. These meaningless conversations and how they may act because of them, however, do not harm their reputations because of Jack and Algernons constant bunburying. These scenes help develop the humor of the play by questioning why people were supposed to do or not do certain things during the time period.
The main characters, Jack and Algernon, in The Importance of Being Earnest provide a humorous and satirical side of the Victorian society through their conversations and their traveling. By questioning the time periods expectations and pretending to be other people, they give comic relief to a serious and proper period of time.
