Truly Earnest?

I thought The Importance of Being Earnest was the best reading so far. I had never read the script before and I was intrigued with the predicaments that were beginning to show themselves at the climax of the story. I did not expect Algernon to show up at Jack’s residence in the first place, and completely disregarding the opinion of Jack. Before they knew they were brothers, Algernon treated Jack with disrespect as far as I can see. It did not seem much like they were brothers at all, so it was originally hard for me to take the bunburying concept to the level that Wilde was probably intending it to be. Now that I have been introduced to the hidden meaning of Bunbury, I look at the whole script in a different manner. For instance, Jack was being a smartass by asking Algernon if the situation “was what he meant by bunburying” when Cecily and Gwendolen retreated into the house after they found out that “supposedly” neither man was Earnest, inevitably leaving Jack and Algernon to be with each other in the garden. It is interesting to go through the movie and look at the pun’s associated with the bunburying because I was originally fascinated with the two men’s decisions to fall in love with these two women so rapidly and without much question. At first I believed Wilde was intending the reader to believe in love at first sight, but now I know that in the end, Jack and Algernon were not being Earnest as much as they wanted to be. I will be watching the movie tonight, and im interested in seing how the non-verbal actions that are so important to the language of our time show any of these hidden puns.

Some of the questions that I came up with in the reading refered to the way Algernon treated his company and his manservant. Did Lane take the blame for Algernon eating the cucumber sandwiches, in saying that the market didn’t have any for sale that day? Also, what sort of relationship was there between Chasable and Lady Bracknell, if any?