One may quite reasonably suppose that to read homosexual undertones into any and all works composed by authors of said sexuality would be to display a degree of prejudice quite unfounded by either reason or empirical evidence. No matter whether the discrimination be favourable or derogatory, such gross generalisations would be akin, say, to presuming that the football team one barracks for must inevitably determine one’s taste in food … as if eating meat pies at a game were only suited to Collingwood supporters.
That being said, in the case of Oscar Wilde’s brilliant play, The Importance of Being Earnest, there can be little doubt that the equally well-known and comical notion of ‘Bunburying’ nonetheless carries with it – quite consciously and purposefully, I shall argue – deep homosexual connotations.
Certainly, at the most literal level, the action and dialogue of the play give little to no reason to suppose that the characters of either Mr. Algernon Moncrieff or Mr. John Worthing are themselves homosexual. The rakish stratagem both men have independently devised in order to avoid any familial obligations, is, prima facie, as boyish as it is asexual. For example, the ‘pleasure’ that draws Jack to the city is seen to be found just as much in the allure of the higher quality champagne of his bachelor friends as it is in the ‘business’ (as Algy calls it) of marriage.
Furthermore, the affection both display towards their respective beloveds – Ms. Cecily Cardew and Ms. Gwendoline Fairfax – is portrayed as sincere and unconfused. Indeed, their devotion is portrayed as the balm to the virulent superficiality of a society lived blindly according to outdated etiquette and mores, and not at all by good sense or authentic feeling. As Algernon, near the close of the final curtain, defiantly announces to his consistently conservative aunt Bracknell: “Cecily is the sweetest, dearest, prettiest girl in the whole world. And I don’t care twopence about social possibilities.” And yet, while love – ostensively only of the heterosexual variety – wins out in the end and cuts through many of the much-abused social constructs defining Victorian England, the significance of the opening vehicle of humour, ‘Bunburying’ (and not ‘Earnesting’, mind you), has been all but forgotten in the warming glow of the play’s happy resolution.
If we are to give Oscar Wilde the credence that his reputation, wit, and genius all undoubtedly deserve, then the title of the play ought not to be regarded as merely a cheap, though admittedly affective, pun. Rather, the more profound significance and moral of Wilde’s comedy of manners is seen as shared with that of William Shakespeare’s eternal, Romeo & Juliet. “That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet”, muses Romeo of Montague’s elevated Muse. Whereas Jack-of-‘Earnest’-reputation’s sweetheart contrastingly piques the audience’s humour with her own air-headed avowal: “We live, as I hope you know, in an age of ideals … and my ideal has always been to love someone of the name of Earnest.”
So what has all this to do with Bunburying? Well, the fact is that Oscar Wilde was a renowned homosexual. He himself knew it; his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas (or ‘Boise’, as Wilde fondly referred to him) knew it; Boise’s father knew it (and successfully prosecuted Wilde for it); Wilde’s wife and children presumably came to realise it; Wilde’s audience certainly knew it; and we – over one hundred years after the first performance of Earnest – are still well aware it.
Oscar Wilde – famous for ostentatiously walking down the Strand with a single lily in his hand – would have been only too conscious of his audience’s so-called prejudice for hoping to detect any hint of scandal in his work. (One must here be mindful that the first performance of The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895 was, in fact, the tipping point for the libel cases that eventually led to Wilde’s incarceration for ‘gross indecency’.) The very term ‘Bunburying’ appears to be constituted of rather evocative etymological roots: ‘Bun’ (a colloquialism for buttock) and ‘Bury’ (meaning to conceal and/or submerge). And it is not only the notion of having a fictitious friend that is found comical, it is also, like the later word-play surrounding ‘muffins’, the very sound and implied meaning of the term ‘Bunburying’ that we find amusing – if only because we feel that we are insiders to the fact that the taboo is being so wittily flaunted.
“If Gwendolen accepts me, I am going to kill my brother,” declares Jack to a sceptical Algernon. Here the audience cannot help but wonder whether Wilde himself would have made similar resolutions to himself when determining to marry the mother of his two children, Miss Constance Lloyd. Indeed, it can hardly be thought to escape the curiosity of all but the most dull audience members to wonder whether the practice of Bunburying first found its conception in Wildes’ own domestic life. Such wonder is only further augmented when Algernon responds to Jack’s pledge: “A man who marries without knowing Bunbury has a very tedious time of it.”
Furthermore, the reputation (stereotypical or not) of gay men to engage in sexual acts in the most varied of locations (public toilets, especially) can, perhaps, be seen to be invoked when Algernon asserts, “One has a right to Bunbury anywhere one chooses. Every serious Bunburyist knows that.” Of course, much of the humour in these lines arises from taking such a trivial notion so seriously (as Wilde’s own epitaph to the play reads, ‘A trivial comedy for serious people’). However, like the title of the play itself, the very brilliance of Wilde is his ability to make that, which on the surface may seem merely flippant, nonetheless speak to the very deepest of social concerns.
In conclusion, The Importance of Being Earnest is not merely ‘a trivial comedy’, any more than it is a plain and naïve commendation to live authentically. Wilde’s own genius and sexuality (for both of which he paid dearly) ensures that this play offers the most cutting satirical commentary possible for its time, asking the audience (sometimes indirectly; sometimes directly) to question all their expectations of both the theatre and society at large. And ‘Bunburying’ – one of the principle vehicles of the play – is genius as much for its suggestive sexual ambiguity as it is for its cleverness.
Thank you for you attention.
Mr. Ross Barham, 03.2008
