Oscar Wilde’s play, The Importance of Being Earnest, is set in the English society during the turn of the Twentieth Century. At this point in English history, social class was a crucial concept in English history. There was a rigid class structure with the aristocracy controlling social standards. Other classes, such as the working class, and the developing middle class, could never become a part of the upper class. The aristocracy were a closed circle and married almost exclusively amongst themselves. The play discusses many of these issues as an importance concept.