Discuss "conflict" in The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde?

The play The Importance of Being Earnest,
by Oscar Wilde, is a comedy of manners which intends to satirize the oddities
that were resounding among members of the middle and upper classes of Victorian England.
These oddities manifest themselves mostly in the behavior and demeanor of these social
classes and are often quite ridiculous and useless. It is precisely those qualities
which Wilde aims to target with this play.

Conflict is an
essential part of a comedy of manners, because the situations that are present in them
are often contradictory, ironic, and senseless. In The Importance of Being
Earnest we find a myriad of conflicting situations which bring out those
behaviors of the upper classes that Wilde wanted to
mock.

The first conflict we see in Act I is social. Lady
Bracknell seeks a husband for her daughter, Gwendolen, but only a rich man with a title
will do. Although Jack Worthing clearly has money he lacks a "name", that is,
a respectable family name to which Lady Bracknell can connect her daughter for social
purposes. Since Jack is a foundling and grew up adopted, he is unable to locate a family
member to be able to satisfy Lady Bracknell. This is when we see the ridiculous (but
funny) retort that she gives Jack advising him to acquire a
family:

I
would strongly advise you, Mr. Worthing, to try and acquire some relations as soon as
possible, and to make a definite effort to produce at any rate one parent, of either
sex, before the season is quite
over.

Therefore, until Jack
finds some relations, Lady Bracknell will feel entitled to treat him badly since, in her
mind, he is beneath her in social status. Therefore, he is not worthy of much. This is
the actual conflict of class consciousness and class
separation.

The second conflict is moral. Algernon lacks
morals of any kind but, since he lacks them, does that make him immoral, or merely,
amoral? His Bunburying is his way to escape responsibility from family, creditors, and
events that he despises. Similarly, Jack creates this ill brother called Ernest whom he
uses to also escape responsibility. The topic of double lives is everywhere in the play,
and tells us about the hypocritical nature of the prudish Victorians. It is a conflict
of truth versus lies; morality vs. immorality. It is just like Algernon tells Jack, when
he expressed how foolish Jack would be for "getting rid" of his fake brother
Ernest:

You
don't seem to realize, that in married life three is company and two is
none.

In all, The
Importance of Being Earnest, presents conflict by exposing the ironic
situations that occur in households where there are no real rules of decorum to be
followed, and where everything is superficial. Wilde is effective in describing the
concept of conflict under the perspective of the hypocritical and snobbish nature of the
upper classes.