... him apart. One of the ways Wilde's wit manifests itself is in puns. Running throughout the entire play is the double meaning behind the word earnest, which functions both as a male name and as an adjective describing seriousness. The plays twists and turns around this theme, its characters lying in order to be "Ernest," and then discovering that because of a number of remarkable circumstances they had ... Wilde as dry, stern, conservative, and so "earnestly" concerned with the maintenance of social norms and the status quo that it had become almost inhuman. In the figure of Lady Bracknell...

• Word Count: 946
• Approx Pages: 4