Oscar Wilde's play 'The Importance of Being Earnest' has been debated over the centuries on whether or not a hidden message is communicated or if it is, as Wilde believed, just art for art’s own sake. This play was first opened at the St. James’s Theatre on February 14th in 1895 and was a major social event even though London was stifled with a major snowstorm. For the upper class, St.James was the world, but the distinction of society in the little parish was obvious since the lower classes had their own seating areas, own entrances, lobbies, bars, etc. Wilde incorporates the instability of the English class system in his play. He shows the world that everyone knows to be unstable, as moral as it pretends to be. As the critic Eric Bentley
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