ABSTRACT
Algernon’s dismissal of his butler Lane and the entire ‘lower orders’ at the opening of The Importance of Being Earnest is indicative of the barbed humour of Wilde’s high-society comedies. The decadent aristocracy, populated by snobs such as Lady Bracknell and dandies such as Cyril Graham and Lord Goring, are the subject of Wilde’s plays, but are also exposed for their own want of a ‘sense of moral responsibility’. Wilde’s remarkable success rested on getting the very same audience who were being exposed so brutally to laugh at themselves, and to pay him handsomely for the privilege of doing so.
