#1

"To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.  Who was your father?  He was a evidently a man of some wealth.  Was he born in what the Radical papers call the purple of commerce, or did he rise from the ranks of the aristocracy" (Wilde 14).
        In Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde pokes fun at the folly of the rigid class structure in Victorian England.  The character Lady Bracknell is a model for the upper class.  During the Victorian era the wealthy were concerened with keeping their class exclusive.  They looked down upon others who would try to join.  Much attention was paid to what class one was from and whether or not he could truly be counted as one of the upper class.  Lady Bracknell takes this same approach when Jack (Ernest Worthing) proposes to her daughter.  Lady Bracknell puts Jack through the inquisition, inquiring as to his family background and whther or not he is a man of the upper class. This folly is seen time and time agin throughout Lady Bracknell's interview with Jack.  She even acts rudely about Jack's parents not feeling sympathy that he was abandoned but rather annoyed that such a man would try to marry her daughter. This society which focuses mainly on class is protrayed as ridiculous by Wilde.  The upper class with its concern with social status is made light of by Wilde.