Analysis of Gwendolen in Oscar Wilde's'THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNEST'

GWENDOLEN AND MARRIAGE In Victorian times the custom of marriage was that 'an engagement should come upon a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant, as the case may be. It [was] hardly a matter that she could be allowed to arrange for herself.' (Lady Bracknell, Act 1, pg 308) It easy to see then, that marrying for love was unheard of, and instead the whole matter was predominantly a business arrangement. Girls were expected …

…Jack and Algernon who both take on false identities at various points in the play. Towards the conclusion of the story, their trickery is exposed and by the end it turns out that honesty, as opposed to deception, is what brings them to their individual happy endings, anyway. Any text, which so successfully deals with issues such as deception, superficiality, indolence, hypocrisy and selfishness will certainly remain relevant to audiences of many eras to come.