The Importance of Being Earnest, a play written by Oscar Wilde is set in England in the late Victorian era. Wilde uses obvious situational and dramatic irony within the play to satirize his time period. According to Roger Sale in Being Ernest the title has a double meaning and is certainly another example of satire used by Wilde. With a comic approach, Wilde ridicules the absurdities of the characters' courtship rituals, their false faces and their secrets. (Sale, 478) In the Victorian era, courtship rituals were slightly different from courtships in modern times. It started with couples first talking, dating, and finally keeping each other company after mutual attraction was confirmed. The character Jack, in all his seriousness, refutes these rituals. Gwendolyn says “I adore you. But you haven't proposed to me yet. Absolutely nothing was said about the wedding. The topic wasn't even touched on." (Wilde, 622) This shows that Jack ignores the stages of courtship and jumps straight into marriage. Wilde is certainly commenting satirically on courtship and how there really must be a mutual attraction. After Gwendolyn's acceptance of his proposal, problems with different social affairs begin to be resolved. Gwendolyn says “I was told; and my ideal has always been to love someone called Ernest. There is something about that name that inspires absolute confidence…” (Wilde, 622) Indeed, Ernest's love for Gwendolyn seems rather arbitrary as Gwendolyn indirectly admits that she loves Ernest only for his name. This only adds to the satire of the courtship because the girl will only marry him because his name is Ernest. The characters Lady Bracknell and Al... in the center of the card... invent these fictitious alter egos so that they are able to escape the constraints of propriety. However, different members of society have different views on what is dignified and what is not. A paradox within the play is the impossibility of being serious and moral within society. Characters who embrace banality and evil are the ones who may have the greatest chance of achieving virtue. Works Cited • Baraka, Amiri. "The Dutchman." Phases of the drama. Fifth ed. Boston/ New York Bedford/ St. Martins, 2003. 1086-093• Baraka, Amiri. "The Myth of 'Negro Literature'." Inside the Circle. Ed. Angelyn Mitchell. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1994. 165-171.• Rice, Julian C. “Leroi Jones’ “Dutchman”: A Reading.” jstor.org. Network. April 7, 2011. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1207453