The Irony of Words
In the play Romeo and Juliet, Juliet said "what's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet". That statement is however, false. A name can be very important and defining of a person. The second thing that someone will know about someone after their physical appearance is their name and humans, with all of their biases and prejudice, will make expectations of you based on these two things. This is very apparent in Oscar Wilde's book The Importance of Being Earnest. In this book two women fall in love with a man who doesn't even exist and one of them fell in love with this man before even seeing him. This shows that people, no matter how intelligent they are, can be rather shallow.

The verbal irony in this book is very apparent. In the beginning of the play, John "Jack" Worthing proposes to the love of his life Gwendolen. She
says yes, but she will only marry him if his name is Earnest and he cannot bring himself to tell her that his real name is John which she had dismissed

as boring and everyday. This is a terrific example of verbal irony because, as says "Jack is not really an earnest man, thought he calls himself "Ernest," and Gwendolen does not really want to marry an earnest man, but a man earnest is name only". This is later complicated when John's friend Algernon visits the country as his brother Earnest and falls in love with John's ward Cecily. Cecily, like Gwendolen, fell in love with the false name that Algernon wore. At this point, the reader may recognize that both of these women had fallen in love with a made up person, another example of verbal irony.

Both Cecily and Gwendolen fall in love with a name instead of a man. This shows that, even though they were very intelligent people, they both had very shallow views of love. Gwendolen herself said "I pity any woman who is married to a man called John...The only really safe name is

Earnest". That by itself says that she has decided on who she will marry and that the person that she marries cannot be anything else than what she wishes him to be. Even Cecily, who is portrayed as an intelligent and level-headed girl, said that she had always had "a girlish dream...to love some
one whose name was Earnest". This ends up pushing Algernon and John to lying to both of them and getting caught doing so.

This shallowness can apply to Victorian society as a whole. As said by the author of the analysis of The Importance of Being Earnest "Even when Jack and Algernon are caught in their lies, they never suffer any real punishment". This shows that this society doesn't value honesty, compassion or truthfulness. This creates a uncaring environment, especially if you do not have a measure of power in this society.

One of the root problems of the people in this book is that they are corrupted with the biases and prejudices of their time. As soon as they
know even the slightest bit about a person, they pass judgement onto that person. One person who did this was Cecily. She fell in love with the
make-believe Earnest before she even met him because it was her dream to love a man named Earnest, even though he was a supposed good-for-
nothing. The reason she feels like this though is because of what society has told her about love.

Back in the Victorian age, marriage was more out of necessity. It is only recently that marriage has been seen as a commitment of love. Since marriage was not fueled by love, it makes the reader wonder why Gwendolen and John were so passionate about marriage. They should be trying to avoid marriage at all costs and be content with being in love. It is, however, entirely possible that they believe that marriage should come from love and not necessity unlike the rest of their society. This however, would mostly reflect on Wilde's views.

This play is at its core a comedy created by Oscar Wilde's wit and loving use of parody. He creates, as aptly put by Burkhard Niederhoff "the massive presence of both parody and paradox" in this play to make the reader look closer to see the sense in the play. Two men are forced to lie
to win the love of two women that they are both close to and they have to become the same person, get caught and end up finding out that they are
actually brothers. If this was a real scenario, John would have probably never married Gwendolen due to the disproval that Lady Bracknell shows towards John's proposal and John would have probably never learned of his true parents or his brother. It is this improbable series of events that makes this book a true piece of art. Citations

Shmoop Editorial Team. "The Importance of Being Earnest Analysis" . Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 4 Jun. 2013.
"Even when Jack and Algernon are caught in their lies, they never suffer any real punishment"
"Parody, Paradox and Play in The Importance of Being Earnest" Connotations. N/A, n.d. Web.2003-2004. "the massive presence of both parody and paradox".
"THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST: LITERARY CRITICISM / NOTES . John Wiley Publishing Company, n.d. N/A "Jack is not really an earnest man, thought he calls himself "Ernest," and Gwendolen does not really want to marry an earnest man, but a man earnest is name only"
Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest. Paris: leonard Smithers, 1898. Print. "a girlish dream...to love some one whose name was Earnest"

Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. New York City: Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, 1992. Print. "what's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet"