Dishonesty in the Importance of Being Earnest, Hamlet and a Streetcar Named Desire

The common theme in The Importance of Being Earnest, Hamlet and A Streetcar Named Desire is a lack of honesty. The characters in these plays disguise the truth from themselves and others, in order to ease or avoid the discomfort they feel in certain situations (physical or emotional), and to prevent their sins from being discovered. Whether these are simple white lies or blatant absences of truth, the life of the dishonest character is affected negatively by their choice to sacrifice the truth.

In The Importance of Being Earnest, Algernon explains his lies as a game he calls Bunburying. "You have invented a very useful young brother called Earnest, in order that you may be able to come up to town as often as you like," he says to Jack. "I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose...If it wasn't for Bunbury's extraordinary bad health, for instance, I wouldn't be able to dine with you at Willis's tonight, for I have been really engaged to Aunt Augusta for more than a week" (1882).

Algernon enjoys Bunburying because it allows him to avoid dinner invitations from his Aunt Augusta. Algernon knows that at dinner, he will be seated next to Mary Farquhar, who he finds "scandalous" because she flirts with her husband. He does not like spending time with his relatives, and says that, "I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only thing that makes me put up with them at all" (1891). He describes his relatives as "simply a tedious pack of people who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die" (1891).