The Importance of Being Earnest is a play of childlike innocence and nonsense. In order to present this to the audience, Wilde had to be simple and therefore he uses seven main characters in the play, which are indistinguishable more or less, except if you were to contrast them. There are also a number of serious themes. Opposing traits form the contrasting groups. Initially, Wilde’s approach is not easily identified until Act 2 when all …showed first 75 words of 1102 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1102 total…standard or value and it was clear to see this on stage due to Wilde’s simplicity. In addition to these interesting characters, Importance contained themes of truth, marriage, the idea of being someone which one is not, as well as the idea that people narrow their choices and live with ‘tunnel vision’. All of these elements combined resulted in a satire of the idle upper class of the Victorian age in which Wilde lived.