Oscar Wilde presents a very candid impression of Victorian society and its values in The Importance Of Being Earnest. The title itself represents the irony of the play. The word earnest works on two levels- first the name Ernest, which is the main focus of the play, and also it sounds like honest which is exactly what Jack and Algernon- the two main characters of the play-are not. There are four main themes which can be recognised in the play: social snobbery, money matters, appearance matters and false values and lastly, not being sincere. In this essay I intend to focus on each category to highlight the society Wilde describes and the values he portrays. These will be backed up by quotations from the play. In the play Wilde often describes the social snobbery of the characters, Lady Bracknell being a prime example. She considers the lower class as inferior to her, as can be demonstrated in her interrogation with Jack in act one. She asks him if he knows everything or nothing. She goes on to say ‘The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes…’ that implies that the lower class would pose a threat to her if they happened to know more than her. In act three Lady Bracknell proves her place in the upper class whilst criticising Algernon. She tells him, ‘Never speak disrespectfully of society…only people who can’t get into it do that’ so really she is saying that she and he are both ‘in’, but he is not acting like it as she is. Algernon himself views the lower class as only having one use- to set good examples. At the beginning of act one he says to himself ‘If the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them? They seem, as a class to have absolutely no sense of moral responsibility.’ When Jack arrives he patronises Algernon of speaking like a dentist. This