"""A trivial comedy for serious people"€”how appropriate is this subtitle for the play?""

gave his play the apt subtitle "A Trivial Play for Serious
People." This subtitle sets the tone for the play in the sense that its seemingly
paradoxical combination of words employs a technique that Wilde has his characters use
repeatedly in their dialogue. The mix of verbal , epigrammatic expressions, andreverse our
expectations and aid Wilde in poking fun at his shallow upper class characters.

Further, the play's subtitle is appropriate because it describes Wilde's comedy of
manners perfectly. The play is a, and as such, it proves to be a sharp critique of the values
and the marriage practices of the Victorian elite. However, the characters are extremely
superficial and silly, as is the marriage plot of the play. Two men, Jack and Algernon, decide
they want to marry two women, Gwendolen and Cecily, whom they do not know very well, and both
men want to be baptized under the new name Ernest, because the women both prefer
that...