This play will be one of the funniest comedies that you will ever read. However, arguably, The Importance of Being Earnest is not a comedy but a farce. The whole idea of a farce is to show how the absurdity of the silliness in the play must seem to impact the characters in a serious way. In fact, life is viewed as very trivial. The main characters are bent upon flouting social mores, but the worst that we can say about Jack and Algernon is that the one is guilty of laziness and other of gluttony. Yet lying seems to be the central structure of the play. Whether Jack has an imaginary, "wicked" brother, Algernon has his "Bunbury," or Gwendolen and Cecily have their rather imaginative diaries, the truth finally comes out in the end with Jack discovering who he really is.
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