Even Older Handbags: An Analysis of an Analysis (Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest)

11 November, 2015

In “Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest” Christopher Nassaar makes the argument that Oscar Wilde’s final play is in many respects a parody of his earlier works – a popular interpretation among scholars. However, his specific interest is the theme of child abuse, a seldom discussed topic which he feels deserves more attention. Nassaar highlights the playwright’s apparent fascination with characters who have suffered misfortune in their youth, and eventually argues that in The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde manipulates this theme to create an atmosphere of both general hilarity and self-ridicule. However, the fault in this argument is that Nassaar does very little to actually support it. He is unable to both properly connect his thoughts and convey his evidence in a compelling way – instead choosing simply to summarize.
In an attempt to prove that the theme of child abuse often occurs throughout Wilde’s work, Nassaar cites numerous situations in which Wilde’s characters are abandoned or abused. The issue is that he very rarely stops to connect these situations to his overall thesis. Nassaar explains how “[Dorian Gray’s] antisocial behavior stems from a childhood of violence and neglect,” but fails to establish how this interpretation - one which “goes against the structure and ethos of the novel” - is brought to absurdity in The Importance of Being Earnest (78). At no point does he analyse his evidence or attempt to connect it the thesis. Nassaar simply summarizes how child abuse is represented in the novel, as if it speaks for itself, while simultaneously criticising the validity of his own argument. In line with this theme, the author presents another abusive situation found in “The Happy Prince”, one of Wilde’s short stores. He describes how the match girl’s “father will beat her if she does not bring home some money,” before abruptly explaining how the main character in Salomé, an entirely different work, is “also an abused child” (78). Nassaar makes no attempt to transition between these two thoughts, nor does he leave any room for analysis. He writes as if the reader has some great understanding of Wilde’s works, and thus feels no need to actually explain his ideas. The majority of the essay follows in this manner: his thoughts are poorly connected and rarely make reference to the thesis. As a result, most of the text does not contribute to his argument in any meaningful way, rather, it merely establishes a trend.
Only in the last two paragraphs does Nassaar actually arrive at the point of his argument: that Wilde intended The Importance of Being Earnest and its farcical child abuse to be a parody of his previous works. Nassaar fails, however, to make this argument in any compelling way. He begins by recounting how Jack is abused by the “incompetent governess Miss Prism, who absentmindedly places him in an old handbag” (80). As a result, Jack is deprived of the name Ernest, which Nassaar describes as a “major catastrophe” (80). Once again, the author finds himself summarizing the plot, rather than explaining how this comic misfortune is in any way an attempt by Wilde to parody his former works. Though the author makes clear that Wilde wrote characters who were lost and abused, he offers no compelling examples which directly parallel Jack’s story. Furthermore, in using words such as absentmindedly, abuse, and catastrophe, the author tries to characterize Miss Prism rather than let her actions speak for themselves. His use of hyperbolic language is telling – almost as if Nassaar is trying compensate for his argument’s weakness. Finally, as if realizing these specific weaknesses, Nassaar actually attempts to support his thesis in the final paragraph; he is suddenly able to invoke numerous parallels between The Importance of Being Earnest and Wilde’s earlier works. He explains that Jack and Algernon’s bunburying is mirrored in Dorian Gray's “very dangerous and ultimately lethal double life,” and that Chausible’s sexual longing for Miss Prism “parodies Jokanaan in Salomé” (80). While these examples do finally establish that Wilde’s play in some ways parodies his earlier works, they come far too late. Nassaar’s argument suffers from an incredible lack of focus: he prioritized uncompelling, inconsequential information, while leaving his few crucial pieces of evidence only a single paragraph. His argument would be much more compelling if he instead focused solely on these points, rather than attempt to string his essay together under the vague banner of abuse. In trying to convey both, he is able to effectively argue neither.
Ultimately, Nassaar’s inability to concisely support his argument reveals its numerous faults. He shows his evidence to be entirely uncompelling, and further hampers his argument though an inability to even properly convey his ideas. His focus only on the weak theme of child abuse allows the author to lose himself in summary of Wilde’s former works. As a consequence, his work has almost no real direction. This lack of focus demonstrates that even the essence of an argument is either unimportant to, or lost on him.

Works Cited

Nassaar, Christopher. "Wilde's the Importance of Being Earnest." The Explicator Vol. 60.Issue 2 (2002): 78-80. Print.