The Importance of Being Earnest Group

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ennie
Student
College - Senior

What is the meaning of burnbury in The Important of being Earnest?

what is the significance of burnbury itself to the whole story ???

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Posted by ennie on Thursday June 18, 2009 at 4:29 AM and tagged with literature, the important of being earnest.

Answers:

  1. parkerlee
    parkerlee Teacher

    eNotes Editor

    "Bunbury" is the imaginary friend Jack (Earnest) must "visit" in order to avoid attending his aunt's long and boring dinner parties. This is a purely virtual invention of his to have an excuse for his absence. According to Jack, his "friend" is of very fragile health and often needs his personal attendance. Of course, these "spells" conveniently occur whenever Jack needs them to get away.

    On a symbolic level Bunbury represents all the sham and double talk that has got Jack into trouble in the first place. It is the main vehicle for the intrique of the story- along with, of course, his own lost (then refound) identity.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/importance-being/themes
    http://www.enotes.com/importance-being/wildes-play-victor...

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    Posted by parkerlee on Thursday June 18, 2009 at 6:58 AM

  2. herappleness
    herappleness Teacher
    Graduate School

    eNotes Editor

    Aliester Crowley started a rumor that Oscar Wilde supposedly took once a coach to Banbury and saw some pretty boy which he then invited to go to Sunbury, so the term became a homosexual Victorian innuendo for double dealing, much like Algernon did in Earnest with his fake friend Bunbury.

    (D'arch Smith, Timothy: Bunbury - Two Notes on Oscar Wilde (1998))

    Overall, even today the term "Bunburyist" refers to a person with a double life, and it is still termed as a homosexual coinage.

    Sources:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheridan_Morley
    http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4718

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    Posted by herappleness on Thursday June 18, 2009 at 8:02 AM