Imagine living in a society where how you look is more important than what kind of person you are. Oscar Wilde is trying to make various points about upper class victorian society in "The Importance of Being Earnest," but the main one I’m going to focus on is the way Wilde tries to portray the Victorian's values. Without reading the play, the title gives you an insight of what the play is about. Earnestness is a determination and a serious desire to do the correct thing. Throughout the play, Wilde shows that Victorians value appearance more than anything. The way they are viewed in society is more important than who they actually are. For example, while a victorian could lead a secret life, carry on affairs within marriage or have children outside of wedlock, society would look the other way as long as the appearance of property maintained. A character that resembles this idea is Algernon. In the act one, Algernon comes off a living a life of total bachelorhood. He takes less responsibility and is always being foolish and disrespectful. He even congratulates himself on his humor. But outside of his own world, Algernon is viewed by society as a proper man who only does good. Being presentable to the society is such a big deal that some of these characters live a double life. Algernon functions as an expression of the length to which victorians had to go to in order to escape a society that values appearance over reality. He uses an imaginary invalid friend, Bunbury, to get out of boring engagements and also to bring some excitement to his life. Jack also lives a double life. He is Earnest in the town and Jack in the country. He explains to Algernon that his reasoning for this is because he was “placed in the position of guardian and he had to adopt a very high moral tone on all subjects” (pg. 10) When Jack wants to get away for a bit, he uses his second life as an excuse to get away. Jack and Algernon both create personas to be fr