What is the overall tone of The Importance of Being Earnest?

Oscar Wilde wrote the 'Importance of being Earnest' at a time of great social change in Britain -a time when the British working class were beginning to question their place and treatment in comparison to the snobbish, privileged elites. Wilde with the use of parody in this comedy of manners is aiming his acerbic wit at the 'upper classes' who view the 'working class' as something almost unrelated to themselves. The elites in this play seem obsessed with the protocols and their appearance in society and they perceive the working classes to be ignorant and weighed down in squalor and social problems.