Oscar Wilde's most famous comedy of manners, The Importance of Being Earnest, is both farcical and critical of Victorian society. Wilde invites us to find a meaning at work even in the title with the word “importance”; In this senseless world created by Wilde, what is really important? Is our reality really that far from the version Wilde created? The dramatic physicalities that Wilde gives to many characters provide lighthearted humor, but is it fair to say that Wilde's "masterpiece" has no substance or moral significance? Wilde uses Lady Bracknell to introduce his satire on Victorian attitudes towards marriage in the first act by having Lady Bracknell treat Jack's proposal to her daughter Gwendolen Fairfax as a well-considered business proposition combining social status, lineage and wealth. Just as in the reality of Victorian society, Wilde portrays marriage as a test that in no way involves the love or opinion of the bride-to-be, but is instead a decision made entirely by the bride's father. However, rather than Gwendolen's father having the power, Wilde chooses Lady Bracknell, Gwendolen's mother, as the domineering figure to create light-hearted humor through incongruity and reversal of gender roles. After an almost clinical and cold cross-examination by Jack that removes any empathy the audience felt towards Lady Bracknell and therefore makes us appreciate the other characters even more, she decides that Jack cannot marry Gwendolen until he attempts to “acquire some relationships as soon as possible" (1.2.215). This shows that even Lady Bracknell, a member of the rich bourgeoisie, realizes that the legacy is not very important but fashionable and perhaps it is just there for show, not that she cares, she just follows the trend. Here, Wilde undermines the... center of the paper... to demonstrate how far the Victorians had to go to free themselves from the suffocating moral repression carried out by a society obsessed with conforming to the upper class. ideals. Algernon symbolizes the wild and unrestricted side of Victorian society. Ultimately, it is unfair to suggest that The Importance of Being Earnest is a superficial farce that has no connection to the historical context in which it was created; however, Wilde's references to the crucial issues of his time are usually overshadowed by the petty concerns of his characters, leaving criticism an anticlimax that is easily ignored. The overwhelming evidence indicates that the work is an intricate and undeniably intelligent assessment of Victorian life, which leads me to be unable to agree with Archer that The Importance of Being Earnest has no substance or moral significance in any way..