The Importance of Being Earnest falls under the category of Comedy of Manners. This genre aims to mirror the behaviors and dynamics of the "polite" society of the upper and middle classes. However, the style employed to move the action is through satire, which is the mocking and the exaggeration of such behaviors and dynamics.

It is precisely the use of satire that would have made the play funny to the 19th century audiences that congregated in Saint James's place to first witness The Importance of Being Earnest in its debut on Valentine's Day, 1895.

Now, let's move on to witticism versus entertainment. Wilde's success at comedies of manners lies precisely on the fact that he is a master of language. Even before he became a playwright, Wilde was, both, famous and notorious for his use of epigrams, irony, sarcasm, and paradoxes in his everyday conversations.

His conversation skills secured him invitations to the most important houses of fashionable London, and it was through his talk, and not through his writings, that he actually became first known. Imagine the excellent match between the satire expected of a comedy of manners, combined with the naturally-sarcastic and instantly hilarious style of Wilde's typical language.

This is why this play is still so successful; it transcends time and style because the dialogue, the "smart-talk", and the axioms established so nonchalantly by Algernon are intrinsic pieces of the author's own life and personality. In all, Earnest is sort of an extension of a day in the life of Wilde, and knowing this aspect of the author made the play all the more funny and sincere to the audience of his time.

Almost as soon as the play opens, Algernon makes such another incongruous statement. He says to his butler, Lane,

I don't play accurately—any one can play accurately—but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life.

Such a statement is incongruous, and humorous, because Algernon insists that anyone can play the piano accurately—which is not true—and so he prides himself not on playing accurately but on playing with a great deal of emotional expression. Generally both accuracy and expression are valued in a truly talented pianist. Further, he claims that he plays the piano with sentiment—with great feeling—but he does not choose to exercise such expression of emotion in his actual life. So, for the piano, he is sensitive, but in life he is unfeeling? He remains purposefully emotionless during life (a claim which he is proud to make), but he is purposely emotional when he plays the piano? Ridiculous. But also funny because it is so ridiculous!

Shortly thereafter, Algernon accuses "the servants" of drinking a ludicrous amount of champagne on the very night that he had friends over to dine. He claims that "at a bachelor's establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne." This, too, is incongruous because it was clearly Algernon and his friends that consumed the alcohol, and yet he blames the servants rather than own up to this irresponsible level of consumption. (If he actually believed his servants were stealing, one cannot imagine they would remain employed by him.) Moreover, he claims that such thievery, the servants drinking the master's champagne, only occurs in bachelors' homes and not the homes of married men. Perhaps this is because bachelors drink so much more than married men—who, it seems, are kept in some control by their wives—and they need someone to blame it on. Lane, of course, plays along, adding more humor, and says that bachelors' wine is of a "superior quality" and "in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand." In other words, bachelors are free to spend their money on good wine, but wives will prevent their husbands from doing so once they are married: a nice dig at the institution of marriage as one where the wife rules the roost and controls the money (another incongruity considering that husbands had legal power over their wives during this era).

Incongruities like these are funny because they are unexpected. When reality differs from our expectations, irony is produced. We are delighted to discover such discrepancies when the stakes are so low, especially when they have to do with the upper class. It is a great deal easier to laugh at the upper class in text because their problems are often not of the life-and-death variety (as problems might be for the lower or working class). Algernon is concerned about piano playing, champagne, cucumber sandwiches, and the like. Incongruities surrounding topics like these are humorous because they are so trivial.

Humor in The Importance of Being Earnest draws upon sarcasm, wit, and contradiction. Many of the characters’ statements, especially Algernon’s, are humorous because they subvert expectation. For example, upon telling Lane, his servant, that it is “perfectly natural” that he never thinks of his family life, Algernon remarks to himself that:

“Lane’s views on marriage seem somewhat lax. Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them? They seem, as a class, to have absolutely no sense of moral responsibility.”

In the context of the Victorian Era, this remark is particularly ironic—the upper classes set an example for the lower classes to follow, not the other way around. The incongruity of this statement with prevailing social norms creates humor.

Later in the first act, another example of incongruity arises. Algernon’s aunt, Lady Bracknell, speaks of a mutual acquaintance who recently lost her husband. One would expect that the recently widowed Lady Harbury would be quite mournful; instead, she is described to be “living entirely for pleasure now.” Algernon also notes the rumor that “her hair has turned quite gold from grief,” a statement very much at odds with the stereotype of a widow.

Humor can also be drawn from a play on words. For instance, in response to Jack’s statement that he has lost both of his parents, Lady Bracknell states:

“To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”

By playing on the dual meanings in the word “lose,” Wilde not only exhibits his impressive command of language but also creates a terribly insensitive response to a declaration of misfortune. In doing so, incongruity again gives way to humor: the unexpected nature of Lady Bracknell’s response is funny because of its incongruity with the subject at hand.

Incongruity can also come from contradictory attitudes that the characters hold. Gwendolyn's professed “ideal” is to marry a man named Ernest; naturally, this causes a great deal of consternation for Jack, who has been introduced under a false name. Claiming that she could only love a man named Ernest, Jack intends to get christened as such at the earliest convenience. However, the discovery that Jack’s born name is Ernest resolves the conflict. Gwendolyn is content is to marry him, so long as his name is Ernest. Her change of heart has nothing to do with his character or newly discovered heritage—even the fact that they are first cousins does not appear to pose a concern. The illogical attitude that Gwendolyn holds is at odds with the more practical concerns of marriage.

Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest is a comedy of errors, meaning that it satirizes the manners, attitudes, and behaviors of the upper classes. As well as satire, much of the comedy of the play also derives from a liberal use of irony.

Lady Bracknell is perhaps the most obvious example of satire in the play. She is a personification of the Victorian upper classes, and to that end, she is foolish, cynical, and pretentious. Algernon is also representative of the Victorian upper classes. He lives a lavish and idle life, and, as Lady Bracknell says, he has "nothing but his debts to depend upon."

Irony in the play takes two main forms. There is situational irony, where events or behaviors that unfold are contrary to what the audience or the characters might expect to happen, and then there is dramatic irony, which is when the audience knows something that one or more of the characters on stage do not. A good example of situational irony is when Lady Bracknell comments that her friend, Lady Harbury, has recently become a widow. Contrary to what we might expect, Lady Bracknell informs us that Lady Harbury "looks quite twenty years younger." A good example of dramatic irony is the mistaken belief of both Gwendolyn and Cecily that they are both engaged to marry the same man, named Ernest. The audience, however, is aware that the men they are in love with are only pretending to be the same person.

As to the question about whether there is a difference between being "witty" and being "funny," perhaps the best answer is that one can be funny without being witty but perhaps not witty without being funny.

The first instance of wit in The Importance of Being Earnest comes in the title. Puns are sometimes considered to be an inferior form of wit, but the pun on the name Ernest and the quality of being earnest is employed by Wilde in a variety of ways that elevate this form. Even if one discounts the disputed claim (made by Laurence Senelick, among many others) that earnest was a late Victorian slang term meaning "homosexual," the disparity between the quality of earnestness and the frivolity of Cecily and Gwendolen's concern with the name is a running joke throughout the play.

It is easy to give examples of wit in The Importance of Being Earnest, since almost every line provides one. Take, for instance, the opening lines of the play:

ALGERNON: Did you hear what I was playing, Lane?
LANE: I didn't think it polite to listen, sir.

The idea that it is bad manners to eavesdrop on other people's conversations is stretched here to the extreme notion that it would be impolite to listen to someone playing the piano. When Wilde does not take conventional ideas to extremes, he often inverts them, as when Algernon asks,

If the lower orders don't set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?

This turns on its head the conventional idea that the aristocracy should set a good example for the lower orders to follow while containing the truth that, certainly within the play, the aristocrats do not in fact set such an example.

In The Importance of Being Earnest, humor does not so much contribute to the creation and resolution of conflict as skirt around the edges of it, darting in and out with little discernable impact on the plot but to great overall effect.

“To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”

Jack, remarkably, allows the insensitive remark to slide. This pattern continues throughout the play—humor is interjected slyly, but it does not in itself either provoke or resolve conflict.

However, conflict in the play is often humorous. The main conflict in the play, in which Gwendolyn and Cecily refuse to marry men without the good fortune to be named Ernest, is certainly funny, but humor doesn’t lead to the conflict—the absurd nature of the conflict creates humor.

So what purpose, then, does humor serve in The Importance of Being Earnest? Wilde utilizes humor to satirize the values of Victorian England, and particularly those of the upper class. He also intentionally subverts traditional moral overtones that were so common under Queen Victoria: The Importance of Being Earnest is the opposite of a morality play. Wilde championed aestheticism, which held that a work of art need only be be beautiful and not morally instructive, and much of his humor reveals his dedication to these ideals. For instance, Wilde notes through Algernon that:

“In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.”

A humorous line, this serves the dual purpose of satirizing shallowness. Indeed, many of the funniest lines in the play contain double-edged humor that challenge the social conventions of the era.

Oscar Wilde, in writing The Importance of Being Earnest, aims to appeal more to the basic Id -the naughty side- of all individuals, rather than to a storyline, when he develops his characters.

In the character of Algernon Moncrief, for example, he exalts those inner demons that we all wish we could exploit without consequences. Eating heavily, not paying bills, running away from responsibilities at a moment's notice, living above one's means, and looking sharp at all times are some of Algernon's favorite things to do. This directly appeals to the senses of an audience who would wish to have as many liberties as that. However, what makes Algernon funny although wicked and deceitful is that he openly declares that he is perfectly happy living that way. The fact that Algernon, with his charm and sarcasm, is able to get away with everything and not regret one thing makes it impossible not to giggle even a bit. After getting to know Algernon's bigger- than- life character you get to realize that he maybe even deserves to get away with it, after all. This, with the inclusion of the famous fake invalid friend "Bunbury", makes the audience understand the mockery of it all. Algernon even calls his mischievous escapes "Bunburying". That should say a lot about someone who really does not care about being "good".

With Jack, who is the main character and Algernon's counterpart, the story is similar. Jack is raised by a rich man who, upon his own death, leaves him in charge of his large estate and of the guardianship of the man's daughter, Cecily. Jack is a young man, and this is a lot of responsibility. Hence, he invents an bad brother named Earnest who supposedly lives in London causing all kinds of mischief- ironically, very similar mischief as Algernon causes in his everyday life: Unpaid restaurant bills, and creditors running after him everywhere he goes. However, Ernest is his only escape from the everyday tortures of a boring life in a country estate.

When Jack and Algernon meet in Algernon's London flat, the two of them are not aware of each other's double lives until Algernon finds evidence of it in a cigarette case that Cecily gives Jack addressed as "Uncle Jack". This finding is funny as well because we realize how fond Algernon truly is of leading double lives and the admiration he professes for Jack after the discovery is quite humorous.

Nothing will induce me to part with Bunbury, and if you ever get married, which seems to me extremely problematic, you will be very glad to know Bunbury. A man who marries without knowing Bunbury has a very tedious time of it.

Also, Wilde makes the communication between the two men quite silly at times, yet, amusing:

Therefore, it is the witticism of dialogue and the silly situations what mix together to make a very ironic setting where anything goes with the same flow of satire as if it were a serious situation.