How Is Bunburying Used For Algernon

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Question 8: Bunburying is used throughout the play firstly by Jack as a way to temporarily escape his life as the guardian of Cecily. Jack uses the name of Ernest to flee to the city whenever he wants to relax or become free of behaving a certain way when he is Jack. The audience or reader of the play comes to find out that Algernon has been using the name "bunburry" to refer to a sickly friend who he must go and visit as a scapegoat to get himself out of having to perform a task or go any where he does not want to. It allows for the higher upper class to more or less go out and do whatever they want under an alias so they can protect their true identity. This notion that the upper class live double lives could be seen as Wilde taking a jab