In "The Importance of Being Serious", Oscar Wilde's characters frantically seek to express themselves in a society which has an inflexible and distinct set of expected boundaries. of the individual. The conventions of marriage and love, as well as the compulsion to project a mask of virtue, result in characters being trapped in a metaphysical corset that prevents the true expression of the individual from surfacing. The restrictive nature of these constraints leads characters such as Jack and Algernon to seek greater freedom and find it in the design of "Bunbury"; a figurative subordinate facade, which allows them to escape the authoritarian and restrictive roles of their society. The contradiction of a character forced to create another mask to escape his original facade illustrates the superficiality of his society fanatical about external appearances. Characters incapable of forming this secondary façade are discouragedly imprisoned in their “corset”; forced to twist their sincere feelings to fit the conventions of their society. Disadvantages...