Dishonesty

As we read through the book you could see the lies flowing out from the pages. With the pursuit of pleasure they had to make numerous lies to escape their everyday strict social lives. Such as making up fake identities or fake friends. A good example of this is Algernon's good old friend Bunbury. Any time his aunt Lady Bracknell called on him for some duty, he claimed that Bunbury was very ill and needed his assistance. Then he could escape to the country and feel free to get wasted and get in scrapes. We all know that the name Earnest has to do with honesty. Jack's other person he made up named Ernest is quite good at lying. He lied to Gwendolyn that his true name was in fact Ernest. Very far from the truth. He even had Algernon thinking for a little bit that his name was in fact just that because he introduced everyone to Jack as that. In marriage your suppose to stay faithful to your partner, which is why you choose to be married to this person for the rest of your life. Men and women would both lie about where they were going so they could have another partner. They say something along the lines of two is boring and three is company. This just shows that in fact most aren't being completely truthful. One lie that I found pretty humorous was the fact that Algernon ate all those sandwiches that were suppose to be for his aunt and then his Butler lied for him. He didn't even have to ask him to lie for him. Lane could instantly think of a lie off the top of his head. This just shows how often Lane has to lie for Algernon. Another funny lie was Cecily making up that she was already engaged to Ernest. It made her sound completely crazy because he hadn't ever talk to him let alone met him.
I think Wilde is just trying to show you how imperfect this time period was. People were lying left and right so that they would have some enjoyment in life. They had such strong rules that were set and no one really liked them. They all had to pretend to be something they were to be excepted. Also your choices you got to make for yourself was limited. It was almost like the lying was their form of rebellion. Also in the book religion is brought up a lot. Everyone knows that religion talks about the shamefulness of lying. People pretended to be godly and good. I think Wilde was showing just how much people didn't follow the religion they supposedly believed in. In my opinion, Wilde's technique of making all the lies funny was his way to really get across how much they did lie back then.