MODULE 4

Short Summary of Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Brontë is the first-person story of its plain, determined heroine,
Jane Eyre. Orphaned as a child and raised by her cruel Aunt Reed at Gateshead, Jane feels
isolated and unjustly punished. A dramatic incident in the so-called Red Room establishes her
early need for self-respect, but it also sets the stage for her remarkable independence.

Sent to the harsh Lowood School, Jane endures difficult conditions and the loss of her friend
Helen Burns to disease, but she emerges with strength and eventually becomes a teacher
there. At 18, she takes a position as governess at Thornfield Hall, looking after the young Adele
Varens. There she meets the brooding and charismatic Edward Rochester. Trust and intellectual
intimacy grow between them, and Jane falls in love—but their engagement is shattered when
she learns, at the altar, that Rochester is already married to Bertha Mason, a violent woman
confined in Thornfield’s attic.

Jane flees Thornfield, alone and penniless. After fainting on the moors, she is taken in by the
Rivers siblings at Moor House. Jane discovers she has inherited a large fortune, allowing her to
support her newfound cousins. St. John Rivers, a missionary clergyman, proposes to Jane—but
she refuses his loveless offer and instead returns to Rochester when she hears his voice calling
her name. Back at Thornfield (now burned down by Bertha, who died in the blaze), Jane finds
Rochester alive but blinded and maimed. They marry on equal terms and live quietly at
Ferndean Manor, adopt Adele, and welcome a son. Rochester gradually regains sight in one
eye .

At its heart, Jane Eyre is a tale of moral growth, emotional resilience, and the quest for
independence. Jane insists on living authentically—refusing wealth without integrity, love without
equality, and duty without mutual respect. The novel vividly explores themes of class, gender,
spirituality, and the balance between solitude and connection .

Analysis Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847)

Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre is about a young woman’s journey to find her voice, identity, and
independence. From the beginning, Jane is shown as a girl who speaks out when she feels
wronged. When unfairly punished as a child, she says, “Speak I must”, showing her strong need
for self-expression. This theme—the power of speech and silence—runs throughout the novel
and is closely linked to Jane’s desire for personal freedom.

The novel follows Jane’s life from childhood to adulthood, including her time as a governess and
her eventual marriage. It fits the genre of the Bildungsroman (a novel of personal growth), like
David Copperfield or The Mill on the Floss. But Brontë adds complexity by focusing on moments
when Jane chooses to speak or stay silent. These moments show both how society tries to
silence women and how women sometimes silence themselves.
Early in the novel, Jane speaks without fully meaning to: “My tongue pronounced words without
my will”. She is punished for speaking, but she keeps telling her story as a form of rebellion. Her
narration becomes her voice, her way of resisting silence.

As Jane grows, her speech shows her changing relationship with power and control. At first, she
avoids speaking to Rochester, showing her unwillingness to submit. But later, she dreads losing
conversations with him. When near death, Jane forces her pain into silence as an act of
strength and self-control.

Brontë also makes readers question how much they can trust Jane’s narration. Famous lines
like “Reader, I married him” directly involve the reader and reveal Jane’s complex relationship
with the audience. In other places, she defends herself to the reader, suggesting a deeper
struggle for understanding and connection.

Jane Eyre had a big impact, especially on women writers, who connected with its themes of
finding a voice. Critics like Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar saw Bertha Mason—Rochester’s
mad wife—as a symbol of the silenced female writer, full of unexpressed creativity and passion.
But Bertha also reflects Jane’s inner conflict, her struggle between controlling herself and giving
in to strong emotions. Bertha is often described using colonial language (e.g., “savage”), and
many scholars believe Brontë uses this to explore Britain’s colonial mindset and Jane’s own fear
of her passions.

The missionary St. John Rivers, who wants Jane to marry him and go to India, offers another
challenge. Jane respects his religious mission but refuses his idea of duty without love. His
coldness at home contrasts with his powerful sermons. Jane insists on making her own choices,
and his sisters support her refusal.

Brontë also critiques religion throughout the novel. She exposes the hypocrisy of Mr.
Brocklehurst at Lowood School, who preaches humility but lives in comfort. Jane’s friend Helen
Burns represents Christian patience, but Jane ultimately seeks a more active, balanced
faith—one that allows room for her desires and her independence.

Jane struggles with her status as a dependent and with class divisions. She often feels useless
or unwanted, especially as a child. But by the end of the novel, in her marriage to the now-blind
Rochester, Jane finds satisfaction in being useful and needed—without feeling inferior. She
serves him willingly, and their relationship is one of mutual respect and love. She describes their
bond using biblical language: “bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.”

Jane tells the reader early on that her story is “not to be a regular autobiography”. Brontë,
writing under the male name Currer Bell, uses the form of autobiography to explore identity.
Jane often does not recognize herself—seeing a strange figure in the mirror as a child, or
drawing herself as “plain” and “poor”. The novel mixes realism with supernatural elements,
reflecting Jane’s emotional world. These dramatic elements deepen our understanding of her
inner strength.

While some Victorian critics, like Matthew Arnold, were shocked by Brontë’s intensity, readers
since then have admired Jane Eyre for its emotional honesty and bold vision. Jane’s search for
freedom, love, and self-definition continues to inspire readers today.

Charles Dickens’s Bleak House:

Bleak House (1852–53) turns on the interminable Chancery case Jarndyce and Jarndyce, an
absurd lawsuit over a will that drags on for generations—devouring the estate it was meant to
distribute. Two young wards—Ada Clare and Richard Carstone—are drawn into its orbit and
rescued by their distant relative John Jarndyce, while Esther Summerson joins them as Ada’s
companion and later discovers she is Lady Dedlock’s secret illegitimate daughter .The
unwinding of Lady Dedlock’s past culminates in the murder of her lawyer Tulkinghorn, which
Inspector Bucket investigates, linking identity, guilt, and class. . At last, a new will appears to
settle the suit—but finds the inheritance gone. Richard, unmoored, dies; Esther marries Dr.
Woodcourt; Ada raises Richard’s child in a new Bleak House gifted by Jarndyce. Through the
persistent fog of London and Chancery, Dickens critiques legal paralysis, social blindness, and
dehumanizing injustice, counterbalanced by compassion embodied in Jarndyce and Esther.

Analysis Bleak House by Charles Dickens:

Charles Dickens’s Bleak House (1852–53) is a huge and complex novel that mixes many
scenes, characters, and styles—combining both realism and romance. It’s often called a "loose
and baggy monster" because of its length and variety. The novel opens with a symbolic image
of London covered in fog and mud, suggesting confusion and disorder. Dickens even imagines
a dinosaur, a Megalosaurus, walking through the city, setting the tone for a world that feels
ancient, monstrous, and chaotic.

Although Dickens uses historical imagery, his main focus is on the problems of his own time.
One major theme is social neglect. A key example is Jo, a poor street-sweeper described as
dirty and inhuman—not because he is foreign or unfamiliar, but because he is a product of
English society’s own failings. This passage shows Dickens’s harsh and angry tone, marking a
shift in his writing towards a darker and more critical view of the world.

Vision and blindness—both literal and symbolic—play a central role. Dickens mocks characters
like Mrs. Jellyby, who is obsessed with helping people in Africa but ignores her own messy
home and children. The novel’s plot also centers on moments of seeing and recognition, like
when Lady Dedlock recognizes handwriting or a portrait, leading to important revelations about
identity.

Written in the 1850s, when photography was becoming popular, Bleak House reflects the
period's fascination with seeing and surveillance. Detective Bucket, for example, is like a human
camera, able to observe and discover truths that the old court system cannot. Some critics
argue that he represents a new kind of authority based on watching and recording, much like
photography itself.

Yet the novel also explores what cannot be seen. After falling ill with smallpox, Esther
temporarily loses her sight, and mirrors are removed from her room—highlighting the theme of
invisibility and hidden suffering. Disease, like the social decay around Jo, becomes a powerful
symbol. Dickens uses illness not just to reflect physical suffering, but also to link characters and
to critique the belief in social progress.

The Court of Chancery, central to the plot, is shown as a diseased, decaying system that wastes
time and ruins lives—especially through the endless lawsuit of Jarndyce and Jarndyce.
Characters like Miss Flite and Richard Carstone go mad from the delays and confusion it
causes. The court is as monstrous as the Megalosaurus at the novel’s start.

Still, Bleak House also shows the possibility of redemption and forgiveness. Esther’s guardian,
Mr. Jarndyce, repeatedly forgives others and eventually arranges her marriage to Dr. Allan
Woodcourt. Lady Dedlock’s husband forgives her too, and Richard Carstone, before dying, begs
Ada for forgiveness. So while the novel criticizes society, it also holds out hope for human
kindness and healing.

Even though the lawsuit ends, Dickens avoids giving the novel a neat conclusion. When the
case is over, the eccentric Miss Flite releases her birds—a symbolic gesture showing that
freedom is possible, but perhaps not complete. Identity remains unstable: Lady Dedlock ends
up associated with "Nemo" (Latin for "no one"), and Esther is called many affectionate names,
but never clearly defined.

In the end, Bleak House is widely seen as the best literary representation of Victorian
London—a restless, shifting city full of life and confusion. Dickens also explores the human
mind as a place struggling to bring order to chaos. He contrasts the confident, all-knowing
third-person narrator with Esther’s more hesitant, emotional voice. Fittingly, the novel ends with
Esther’s uncertain sentence, showing that her life and thoughts will continue beyond the book.
Dickens ends Bleak House without full closure, reflecting the idea that truth and identity are
always changing, and that no single story or perspective can capture it all.

Short Summary of Goblin Market

Laura and Lizzie, two young sisters, frequently hear strange merchant goblins crying “Come buy
our orchard fruits…” as they draw water at dusk ([Link]). Despite Lizzie’s warning,
curious Laura stays behind and trades a lock of her hair for their forbidden fruit, which sends her
into a pining, wasted state ([Link]). Recognizing Laura is near death, Lizzie goes
alone to face the goblins at the stream. She steadfastly refuses to eat, though they smear her
face with juices ([Link]). Lizzie returns home, dressed in their fruit’s juice, and Laura
tastes it from her skin—this sacrificial gesture revives her ([Link]). Eventually the
sisters marry, bear children, and teach them this story as a testament to sisterly vigilance over
temptation .

An analysis of Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market

Christina Rossetti’s "Goblin Market" (1862) is a richly imaginative and deeply symbolic narrative
poem that helped make her famous. It tells the story of two sisters, Laura and Lizzie, and uses a
fairy-tale structure to explore themes of sisterhood, temptation, commerce, sexuality, and
religion. The poem’s meaning is complex and open to many interpretations—part of the reason
it continues to attract so much scholarly attention.

At first, the poem appears simple and musical, beginning with the repeated call of goblin men:
"Come buy our orchard fruits. / Come buy, come buy."
This call to buy represents both the lure of commerce and sexual temptation. The goblins’ fruit is
lush, rich, and seductive, and Rossetti uses this imagery to reflect Victorian concerns about
consumerism, sin, and desire.

When the sisters appear, it becomes clear that the fruit is forbidden, and the goblin men are the
real danger. Laura is curious and gives in to temptation, while Lizzie is cautious and warns her
about the fate of another girl, Jeanie, who gave in and died. Laura trades a golden lock of hair
for the fruit, which can be seen as symbolic of sexual surrender or loss of innocence.

After indulging, Laura begins to waste away—unable to find the goblins again and haunted by
her desire. Lizzie then bravely faces the goblins, who try to force their fruit on her. She resists,
suffers abuse (described by some critics as a metaphor for rape), but escapes with the juices of
the fruit on her body. She brings them back to Laura, saying:
"Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices / Squeezed from goblin fruits for you."
This moment is filled with both sexual and religious imagery. It recalls the Eucharist, where
Christ’s body and blood bring salvation, and it also suggests deep sisterly love, even hinting
(according to some critics) at lesbian or incestuous undertones.

Thanks to Lizzie’s sacrifice, Laura is restored, breaking the typical Victorian narrative in which a
"fallen woman" is doomed. Rossetti instead shows redemption through female solidarity and
forgiveness. However, the poem ends with a kind of sermon, told years later by the sisters to
their children. It praises sisterly love and warns against temptation—but this ending is enclosed
in quotation marks, suggesting it might be only a story, or perhaps a patriarchal lesson imposed
on women.

Rossetti’s poem also criticizes capitalism and advertising. The goblins are not just
creatures—they are salesmen, and their repeated “Come buy” turns the poem into a kind of
advertisement. Critics argue that Laura, drawn in by the goblins’ marketing, represents the
vulnerable consumer who is promised more than any product can deliver.
Interestingly, while the poem warns against the seductions of the market, Rossetti and her
brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti carefully marketed the poem itself, including illustrations to help
sell the book. In this way, the poem is both about commerce and a product of it.

Time is another key structure in Goblin Market. The poem moves through days, seasons, and
years, highlighting a sense of change, loss, and recovery. This attention to time makes the
poem feel deeply Victorian, echoing the period’s obsession with history and memory.

In summary, Goblin Market is a complex Victorian poem that:

Uses a fairy-tale structure to explore desire, danger, sisterhood, and redemption.

Offers a critique of consumerism, marketing, and Victorian gender roles.

Balances sensual and spiritual themes.

Ends with an open question: does it teach abstinence and self-denial—or does it secretly
challenge the system that demands such control?

Its rich symbolism, open-ended meaning, and imaginative language continue to make it a
landmark poem of the Victorian period.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) draws deeply on
the sensational, affordable fiction of his youth—so-called “shilling shockers”—to explore the
addictive power of illicit pleasures.⁶ The plot follows Mr Utterson, a respectable lawyer,
investigating shocking crimes committed by the sinister Edward Hyde, who is ultimately
revealed to be Dr Jekyll’s hidden alter ego.¹¹ This gothic‑double motif dramatizes Victorian
anxieties about the divided self, respectability, and degeneration.¹⁷ The narrative unfolds
through a quasi‑detective structure of rumours, letters, and fragmented testimony, culminating in
Jekyll’s confessional statement, and underscores themes of secrecy, identity, and social
constraint.⁷

ANALYSIS

In an 1888 interview for Scribner’s Magazine, Robert Louis Stevenson—by then a famous
author thanks to Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde—talked about how much he liked the
penny press. This term referred to cheap, sensational fiction often called penny dreadfuls or
shilling shockers. Although Stevenson grew up reading serious, moral stories like those in
Cassell’s Family Paper, he became more interested in exciting and daring stories he saw
advertised in shop windows. Every Saturday, he would eagerly go from one newsstand to
another, studying these stories. He became addicted to these thrilling tales, recalling how he
explored titles like The Baronet Unmasked, The Discovery of the Dead Body in the Blue Marl
Pit, and Dr Vargas Removing the Senseless Body of Fair Lilias. This shows not only his passion
for stories but also a deeper tension between wanting control and being controlled by pleasure.

This tension—between mastery and surrender—is central to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, which
explores how illicit, cheap pleasures can overpower the rules and restraints of both society and
the mind. One important context for understanding Stevenson’s novel is print culture. Stevenson
called himself a student of the penny press, revealing how this kind of sensational and widely
accessible literature influenced his views on writing. At the time, popular fiction caused concern
among critics who worried about its effects on readers.

Stevenson makes references to literature and publishing throughout the novel: there’s a shop
selling penny numbers near Hyde’s place, and Jekyll receives advertising leaflets in the mail.
Even when Jekyll calls Hyde “a part” rather than a full person (p. 61), it could reflect the way
print culture turned stories into cheap, serialised “parts” for mass consumption. The question of
what makes someone a “whole person” runs through the novel. Jekyll is introduced using a long
list of professional titles—MD, DCL, LLD, FRS—showing how middle-class men tried to define
themselves through respectable identities. These titles act like armor, shielding them from social
judgment.

Respectability was extremely important for the Victorian middle class, a group the novel focuses
on, especially through well-known men. Elaine Showalter, in Sexual Anarchy, notes that the
novel avoids women almost entirely and is centered on male respectability. Some critics see
hints of homoeroticism in the novel—especially in the theme of blackmail, which often implied
secret homosexual relationships in Victorian society. When the lawyer Utterson finds a
disturbing letter, he tells Jekyll’s servant not to speak of it, saying they should at least protect
Jekyll’s reputation (p. 41). Jekyll, too, tries to restore his public image by reminding readers of
his good deeds and hard work (p. 57). Though this language sounds like advice from Victorian
moralists like Samuel Smiles, it fails to resist the power of Hyde.

Jekyll admits that he gave Hyde freedom in his home so that he could enjoy pleasures without
damaging his public image:

"Men have hired criminals to commit their crimes while protecting their own reputation. I was the
first to do so for pleasure. I could walk in public respected, and then, like a schoolboy, throw off
this disguise and dive into freedom" (p. 52).

At this moment, Jekyll declares excitedly: “Think of it—I did not even exist!” This line shows
Stevenson’s deep interest in what makes up a person’s identity.

A major question in the novel is: Who or what is Mr Hyde? The story is a classic Doppelgänger
tale—a story where two characters reflect each other or one person has two sides. This theme
was used by other Gothic writers like Mary Shelley in Frankenstein, James Hogg in Confessions
of a Justified Sinner, and Emily Brontë in Wuthering Heights. As G.K. Chesterton noted, the
most shocking part of Stevenson’s story is not that one man becomes two, but that the two are
the same person. So the novel is not simply about good vs evil or the ego vs the id. Stevenson
shows that Jekyll and Hyde’s relationship is more complex—even Jekyll sometimes feels pity for
Hyde.

Some critics argue that Hyde was inspired by late-Victorian ideas about degeneration,
criminality, and evolution. In Stevenson’s time, people were worried about changes in
society—fears about immigrants, the fall of the British Empire, and blurred gender roles. Hyde
fits into this fear: he is described as deformed and animal-like. Criminologist Cesare Lombroso
saw criminals as primitive or ape-like, and Hyde is described in similar terms. Scholar Patrick
Brantlinger suggests that Stevenson may have drawn on racist stereotypes, especially about
the Irish, when creating Hyde. This would reflect Victorian fears during debates about Irish
Home Rule. However, Hyde’s description is vague enough to represent any outsider or inner
“savage.” Jekyll seems to both fear and desire this savagery—he wants to experience it for
himself, a kind of going native. Scholar Lyn Pykett asks: is degeneration something hidden
inside every person, or is it a disease caused by modern society? Stevenson doesn’t answer,
but he shows how being close to degeneration affects others. When Mr. Enfield sees Hyde, he
says, “It wasn’t like a man; it was like some damned Juggernaut” (p. 7). The term “Juggernaut”
comes from Hindu religion, showing that even colonial anxieties are present in the novel.

Hyde causes strong feelings of fear, disgust, and fascination. Utterson suspects that Hyde has
terrible secrets (p. 19). Secrecy is a key theme in the novel. Jekyll even tells Utterson, “This is a
private matter, and I beg of you to let it sleep” (p. 20). The desire to keep secrets isn’t just
Jekyll’s—Stevenson builds the story like a detective novel, using handwriting analysis and
mysterious documents to uncover hidden truths. Yet much remains unknown: Hyde has never
been photographed (p. 24), and readers never find out exactly what Jekyll’s “pleasures” are.
When the novel came out, some people thought it inspired the Jack the Ripper murders.

The storytelling structure itself reflects this theme of hidden truths. Stevenson uses different
types of narration: third-person narration, letters, and Jekyll’s own confession. This challenges
the idea that truth can be fully known. The novel’s biggest mystery—what exactly Jekyll does as
Hyde—is never revealed. Utterson says Jekyll was wild in his youth, but we never learn how
that wildness showed up in adulthood. Dr. Lanyon refers vaguely to the “moral evil” he saw in
Jekyll but won’t explain further. Jekyll himself says his pleasures were “monstrous” and only
possible when his conscience was asleep (p. 53). Stevenson wants readers to be curious.

Like other fantasy stories of the time—such as Alice in Wonderland, though Dr Jekyll and Mr
Hyde is set in the streets of London—the novella explores the theme of curiosity. Jekyll mocks
Lanyon for being ruled by curiosity, and Utterson resists the temptation to read a letter out of
duty. The narrator says: “It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it” (p. 31),
showing how curiosity is tied to the desire for forbidden knowledge.

A popular saying about how to write a good novel—credited to Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and
Charles Reade—was: “Make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait.” But Stevenson, who
disliked long novels, doesn’t make us wait—his novel ends quickly, though the ending is
unresolved. His goal, instead, was to make readers wonder. And wonder is at the heart of
romance literature. If we’re curious about what Jekyll did as Hyde, the novel— which sold over
40,000 copies in six months—also invites us to think deeply about secrecy, disguise, the
unconscious mind, temptation, and the mystery of identity.

.
Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest (first staged in 1895) is a sharp, farcical
comedy of manners about two upper‑class bachelors—Jack Worthing and Algernon
Moncrieff—who invent alter egos (“Ernest” and the ailing “Bunbury”) to escape social duties and
pursue love.⁹ Wilde mercilessly satirises Victorian respectability, poking fun at the obsession
with marriage, lineage, proper etiquette, and even personal names—showing how society
values appearances over sincerity.¹⁷ With rapid-fire wit, absurd situations, and ironical inversion
(even its subtitle, “A Trivial Comedy for Serious People,” mocks earnestness), the play
champions pleasure and identity flexibility in a world of hypocrisy.¹⁶

ANALYSIS

Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) is a comedy that cleverly criticises
Victorian society. While Queen Victoria’s death in 1901 marks the official end of the era, many
historians see the period’s values—such as seriousness, morality, and rigid social roles—being
questioned well before that. Wilde’s play is part of this challenge. Like Lytton Strachey’s later
Eminent Victorians (1918), which attacked famous figures of the era, Wilde used wit rather than
harsh judgment to expose hypocrisy. Instead of real people, he used fictional characters like
Jack Worthing, who pretends to be “Ernest” but turns out to be more “earnest” than he realised.
Through this, Wilde makes fun of how Victorians thought about identity, morality, and
seriousness.

The play is subtitled A Trivial Comedy for Serious People, a reversal of its earlier title A Serious
Comedy for Trivial People, showing Wilde’s playful tone. These kinds of inversions—flipping
serious and trivial ideas—are central to Wilde’s style. In his 1889 essay The Decay of Lying,
Wilde famously wrote that life imitates art, not the other way around. In the play, characters say
ironic things like “Divorces are made in heaven” or “A simple girl couldn’t be expected to live in
the country,” delivered so quickly and often that no single line dominates. Yet, some statements
like “Who has the right to cast a stone against one who has suffered?” are harder to place as
just jokes—especially considering Wilde’s own life. After suing the Marquess of Queensberry for
libel, Wilde was found guilty of homosexuality and sentenced to prison shortly after the play was
performed.

Wilde pokes fun at many Victorian concerns in the play: triple-decker novels, strict morality,
religious preaching (like Chasuble’s “charity sermon” for the “Society for the Prevention of
Discontent among the Upper Orders”), and especially marriage. Marriage, a pillar of
middle-class respectability, is mocked throughout. For example, Lane notes that in married
households, the champagne is poor quality, to which Algernon says, “Good heavens! Is
marriage so demoralising as that?” Lady Bracknell says the widowed Lady Harbury looks
younger and happier than before. These comments show Wilde’s view of marriage as more
about social duty and wealth than love or pleasure.

Wilde, following the aesthetic movement, believed that pleasure should come before morality.
Jack says early in the play, “Oh pleasure, pleasure! What else should bring one anywhere?”
Later, Algernon adds, “My duty as a gentleman has never interfered with my pleasures.” Even
Gwendolen says, “On an occasion like this, it becomes a pleasure to speak one’s mind.” These
lines show Wilde’s rebellion against Victorian seriousness and realism in art.

In The Decay of Lying, Wilde also said the purpose of a liar (or artist) is “to charm, to delight, to
give pleasure.” In the play, characters lie often, but their lies often reveal deeper truths. The
biggest lies are about identity: Jack invents a fake brother “Ernest,” and Algernon makes up an
invalid friend “Bunbury.” These double lives allow them to escape social responsibilities. Wilde
hints that they might be escaping traditional male roles and hiding secret desires. Some critics
think “Bunburying” refers to secret homosexual pleasures, which had to be disguised in Wilde’s
time.

The play ends with Jack discovering that he really is Ernest and Algernon’s older brother. This
tidy ending is a parody of the melodramatic novels of the time (Jane Eyre, Oliver Twist), where
lost orphans turn out to be rich and respectable. One of the funniest scenes is when Lady
Bracknell reacts to Jack’s origin: he was found in a handbag at Victoria Station. She says: “To
lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.” She is
horrified he was “born” at a railway station, comparing it to the “worst excesses of the French
Revolution.”

At the end of the play, Wilde reveals that Miss Prism, the governess, had accidentally placed her
three-volume novel in a baby carriage and the baby (Jack) in the handbag. This mixes up Jack’s
identity with fiction. Wilde stretches the railway metaphor even more when Lady Bracknell says,
“Until yesterday, I had no idea that there were any families whose origin was a terminus.” Here,
Wilde mocks society’s obsession with heritage and uses the symbol of the train station—usually
linked to progress and connection—to represent the shifting, flexible nature of identity.

In short, The Importance of Being Earnest uses comedy and disguise to challenge many of the
so-called certainties of the Victorian era. With its wit, inversions, and playful treatment of serious
ideas, Wilde’s play critiques respectability, identity, marriage, and morality—marking the end of
the Victorian period with laughter and thought.