Ernesto

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Act I, Part One
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Nothing will induce me to part with with Bunbury, and if you ever get married, which seems to me extremely problematic, you will be very glad to know Bunbury. A man who marries without knowing Bunbury has a very tedious time of it.-------------------------------------------------
(See Important Quotations Explained)
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Analysis
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The opening scene of The Importance of Being Earnest establishes a highly stylized, unrealistic world in which no one talks the way ordinary people talk and very little seems to matter to anyone. Algernon and Lane, as well as most othercharacters in the play, are both literary constructs, that is, literary devices created solely to say particular things at particular moments. They have almost no life or significance apart from the way they talk. Their language is sharp, brittle, and full of elegant witticisms and mild, ironic pronouncements. Lane’s first line, for example, regarding Algernon’s piano playing, is an insult couched inpolite, elegant language. We can see the play’s lack of realism in the way Algernon and Lane behave over Lane’s inaccurate entry in the household books. Lane has entered considerably more wine than was actually drunk to cover the fact that he himself has been drinking huge amounts of expensive champagne on the sly. Algernon shows no more concern over the stealing than Lane does over its having beendiscovered, and both men seem to take for granted that servants steal from their masters. In the world of the play, the deception is simply an expected daily nuisance.
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A central purpose of the scene between Algernon and Lane is to lay the foundation for the joke about the cucumber sandwiches, an incident that marks the first appearance of food as asource of conflict as well as a substitute for other appetites. Algernon has ordered some cucumber sandwiches especially for Lady Bracknell, but during the scene with Lane, he absentmindedly eats all the sandwiches himself. In this particular scene, food substitutes for the idea of sex. Algernon’s insatiable appetite, his preoccupation with food, and his habit of wantonly indulging himselfpolitely suggest other forms of voraciousness and wanton self-indulgence. This idea becomes apparent in the early exchange between Algernon and Jack over the question of whether Jack should eat cucumber sandwiches or bread and butter. Here, Algernon interprets eating as a form of social, even sexual, presumption. Algernon can eat the cucumber sandwiches because he’s Lady Bracknell’s blood relation, butJack, who hardly knows Lady Bracknell, should stay away from them. When Jack demonstrates too much enthusiasm for the bread and butter, Algernon reproaches him for behaving as though he were “married to [Gwendolen] already,” as though he had touched her in an aggressive or salacious manner.
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Though Jack’s double life is amusing and light in manyways, his deception also suggests he has a darker, more sinister side, and to this extent his actions reveal the vast separation between private and public life in upper-middle-class Victorian England. Algernon suspects Jack of leading a double life when the play opens, and he goads him, asking where he’s been. He asks Jack pointed questions about his house in Shropshire, knowing full well thatJack’s country estate isn’t in Shropshire, although this seems to be what Jack has always claimed. Algernon doesn’t let on that he knows Jack is lying, and he lets Jack get deeper and deeper into his lie. The idea of a man not knowing where his best friend lives is absurd, of course, and this sort of unrealism gives The Importance of Being Earnest its reputation as a piece of light, superficial...