Earnest Symbols

Jack's cigarette case

Because Jack's cigarette case reveals his dual identity as "Ernest" in town and "Jack" in the country it represents his double life.

Orphans and wards

Both Jack and Cecily are orphans. Jack's lack of family relations makes it difficult for him to marry Gwendolen and settle into a traditional family arrangement. While Cecily's ancestry is officially documented in books, she becomes an orphan, or ward when her grandfather dies. Her parents aren't even mentioned. Cecily's parental figures, Jack and Miss Prism, at best, are only mildly attentive to her needs. Jack and Cecily's status as orphans highlight the place of love and imagination in the creation of family bonds. Both Jack and Cecily invent fictional relationships in order to forge real connections with the other characters. Jack creates a brother "Ernest" so that he can more easily court Gwendolen in town, while Cecily imagines a romance with "Ernest," which ends up developing into a real engagement with Algernon. While characters like Lady Bracknell place heavy emphasis on the importance of family ties in society, Jack and Cecily don't have such social connections, instead relying on love and imagination to form relationships with others.

Bunbury

Bunbury is a fictional invalid that Algernon makes up so that he has a ready excuse whenever he wishes to get out of any social commitment, particularly when he would like to escape to the country. Algernon describes this pretext as "bunburying," but he also uses the term to describe Jack's false representation of himself as "Ernest" and his own masquerade as "Ernest." Bunbury and "bunburying" thus represent deception, fiction, and escapism.

Cecily's Love letters

Cecily writes loves letters between her self and "Ernest." This is another example of Cecily's penchant for inventing stories, thereby serving as another symbol of imagination and fiction making.

Food

Food symbolizes excess, or overindulgence. For instance, Algernon cannot stop eating cucumber sandwiches, or muffins when they are put in front of him, suggesting that his appetites are just as excessive as his eccentric, flamboyant, and extravagant airs.

Town and Country

In The Importance of Being Earnest one's residence is a key signifier of one's social standing and sophistication. Lady Bracknell's keen interest in Jack's address exemplifies this alignment between class, fashion, and residence. She finds Jack's house in town to be "unfashionable," and his country estate to be neither a "profit or a pleasure," but sufficient, as "it gives one position." Just as Lady Bracknell judges Jack's class upon the value of his real estate, Gwendolen evaluates Cecily's tastes based upon her upbringing in the country. Gwendolen, a fashionable urbanite, makes several oblique remarks about country girl Cecily's lack of taste: "I had no idea there was anything approaching good taste in the more remote country districts...Personally I cannot understand how anybody manages to exist in the country—if anybody who is anybody does." While Gwendolen views Cecily as a country- bumpkin-nobody for her rural roots, Cecily associates city living with vulgarity and aristocratic snobbishness: "I believe most London houses are extremely vulgar...I believe the aristocracy are suffering very much." Through Gwendolen and Cecily's attitudes about country and city life, Wilde upsets the characters' alignment of the city with sophistication and the country with poor taste. Instead, he suggests that town and country, alike are paradoxical places—the city is urbane, but it is also "vulgar;" and while the country lacks taste it also affords one "position" in society. Wilde also suggests that town and country are a means of fantasy and escape. Jack escapes to the city, under false pretenses, to avoid his obligations to Cecily in the country, while Algernon similarly escapes to the country to avoid his social obligations to his aunt and cousin.

Jack's business card

In his cigarette case Jack stores business cards with his pseudonym and address in London printed on them. Algernon later uses the card to verify his identity to Cecily. The business card is thus another sign of duplicity and dual identity.

Christenings

Jack and Algernon each arrange a christening with Dr. Chasuble so that they can change their names to "Ernest." The eager willingness of these characters to change their names symbolize the fluid nature of identity in the play.

Jack's Mourning Clothes

Jack's extravagant mourning attire for a brother who is nonexistent and not even dead represents the extravagance of the dandy as well as duplicity.

Miss Prism's Three Volume novel

Miss Prism's three-volume-novel symbolizes the engrossing nature of fiction and the loss of one's sense of reality. Miss Prism mentions to Cecily in Act II that she once wrote a "three-volume-novel." At the end of the play it is revealed that she absentmindedly placed the manuscript of the novel in the infant Jack's stroller, while placing the Jack in a handbag forgotten in a coatroom at Victoria station. The manuscript, being a work of fiction, and its inadvertent role in Jack's childhood disappearance, represents the captivating quality of fiction. One may become so engaged in a work of fiction, that like Miss Prism he/she, may lose track of reality.

Diaries

Normally diaries document real life events, but diaries In the Importance of Being Earnest tend to document fictions. Cecily writes about her fictional engagement to "Ernest" in her diary, showing it to be a conflation of fantasy and fiction, rather than a record of fact. Gwendolen also travels with a diary, in which she records her engagement to "Ernest," a fictional character, rather than a real man. Because diaries are more like fictions, or novels they highlight the conflict between fact and fiction that courses throughout the play.

Earnest

Similar to Bunbury, Ernest represents deception, fiction, and escapism, but also idealism. While Algernon and Jack attempt to masquerade as the real Ernest, he is just as fictional as Algernon's Bunbury. Similarly Jack uses the mischievous antics of his brother Ernest to escape to the city, just as Algernon uses Bunbury as an excuse to escape to the country. Even so, Gwendolen and Cecily hold up Ernest as an ideal name, as well as husband. Both women not only fantasize about marrying a man named Ernest, they say it is a name that "inspires absolute confidence." Their idealism is reflected in these "girlish dream[s]" and definitive assertions.

The Army list

The Army List is a listing of English army generals. It symbolizes name and identity because Jack uncovers his real name and his origins through this source.

Tea Service

The Importance of Being Earnest depicts several pivotal scenes that revolve around tea. While these moments might seem mundane, they are actually carefully crafted scenes in which the characters negotiate tricky scenarios. In Act II Cecily and Gwendolen thinly veil their antagonism towards each other during a tea service, a delicate demonstration of grace and manners. Gwendolen makes digs at Cecily's lack of taste by refusing her offer of sugar and cake on account that such cuisine is out of date in London. Cecily masks her displeasure under the pretense of graciousness, offering Gwendolen healthy helpings of cake and sugar, as a good hostess should. Despite this appearance of composure, each woman's jealousies are reaching their boiling points. From slicing cake to sipping tea, the tea service is a means by which the characters negotiate tense social situations under the pretense of civility.

The Coatroom at Victoria Station and The Brighton Line

The coatroom at Victoria Station is a symbol for Jack's lack of family "relations" and unknown origins. The Brighton Line is Wilde's play on the notion of a family bloodline. Instead of having a lineage to his name, Jack has a place of origin and a train line to his credit, underlining the obscurity of his roots as well as the ridiculous value characters like Lady Bracknell place on family "lines".

The Dandy

The dandy, or fop, was a figure popularized by Wilde. In Wilde's world, the dandy is a man who pays particular attention to his appearance, dress, and lifestyle, almost to the point of excess, while using his wit and charm to point out society's hypocrisy and double standards. Algernon and Jack are examples of this figure. When Algernon dresses up as "Ernest" and when Jack dresses up in mourning clothes, these instances show the affected, flamboyant, and extravagant nature of the dandy. In The Importance of Being Earnest, the dandy, as represented by Algernon and Jack, symbolizes self-indulgence, as well as the revelation of truth.

Jack's handbag

The handbag in which Jack was found as a baby is a symbol for the comedy of errors. Jack's inadvertent abandonment in a place as obscure and ridiculous as a handbag at a train station demonstrates the absurd results that arise when silly, as well as serious, mistakes are made.