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I tried to analyze the Bunburism in Oscar Wilde's play, The Importance of Being Earnest. Wilde strongly attacked the hypocrisy and materialism of the Victorian society in his drama. He is against the Victorian vulgar moralism and philistinism. Wilde's Bunburism derived from his aestheticism and it was embodied through homosexuality and realization of true self. He insists that the personality and self-expression are the most important elements for the artistic life.
In The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde uses not only the convention of the melodrama, but a purely farcical intrigue, Bunburism. In this play, an individualist is expressed by the name of ‘dandies’. Two male dandies's Bunburing is a means of breaking out of the restrictions imposed upon them by their social obligations and escaping from the Victorian convention. They try to pursue their own selves through Bunburing. This device that is used in the play is a medium to attain an ideal self-realization which Wilde pursued through his life. Above all, his individualism differs from the egoism because of the importance of other person's personality and dignity.
In conclusion, he has a critical attitude toward the utilitarian philistinism, narrow puritanism and privileged conventional morals prevalent in the Victorian society. Wilde criticizes all these inhumane elements in an eloquent and paradoxical way of dialogues through his Bunburism. Wilde's Bunburism consists of individualism, homosexuality, parody of his age and self-realization.