Act II expands on many of the motifs introduced in Act I, but adds new characters and targets for Wilde's satire. The setting changes to the country — a bucolic setting for getting away from the artificial trappings of society and entering the simplicity of nature — and Wilde examines religion as well as courtship and marriage in the context of Victorian attitudes. But even in the countryside, the characters cannot escape Victorian manners and correctness, as the name Ernest presents humorous complications.
Idleness, duty, and marriage are brought together in the conversations of several characters. Sighing bitterly, Miss Prism observes that people who live for pleasure are usually unmarried. Duty, duty, duty. Servant of the upper class, Prism sees responsibility tinted with obligation as the correct form in Victorian society. Cecily, however, exclaims to Miss Prism, "I suppose that is why he [Jack] often looks a little bored when we three are together." In subtitling his play A Trivial Comedy for Serious People, perhaps Wilde is showing that setting one's jaw in a strong position for living rigidly with duty is both shortsighted and tediously boring.
Miss Prism and Canon Chasuble also provide a comic touch to the subject of religious zeal and its relationship to Victorian morals. Religion is presented as dry, meaningless, and expensive. The minister explains to Jack that the sermons for all sacraments are interchangeable. They can be adapted to be joyful or distressing, depending on the occasion. Through these thoughts Wilde expresses the meaninglessness of religion and the obviously hackneyed, empty words of sermons. Jack's request for a christening is humorous when one considers that he is a grown man — christening is a rite usually appropriate for small babies.
