The importance of being earnest

Analysis of mayor characters

Jack Worthing, the play’s protagonist, was found as a baby by Mr. Thomas Cardew in a handbag in the cloakroom of a railway station in London. Now, he is living in Hertfordshire, where he is known by name Jack. Here, he seems to be responsible and respectable young man. He is guardian to Mr. Cardew’s granddaughter, Cecily.
He has also pretended to have an irresponsible younger brother named Ernest. But Ernest is Jack’s excuse for disappearing from Hertfordshire and going to London to escape his responsibilities and doing exactly the same what he disapproves in behavior of his fictional brother Ernest.

Jack represents conventional Victorian values. He wants that other people think that he is honest, but he doesn’t respect such notions like duty and honor. He wants to be seen as upright and moral, but he doesn’t care about lies which he has to tell in order to live this kind of life that he wants. Oscar Wilde is criticizing the general tolerance for hypocrisy in Victorian society.
So, Jack uses his brother Ernest to escape from his real life, but then he meets Gwendolyn who has a fixation on the name Ernest. He needs become to Ernest and reconciles his two worlds and discovers who actually he is.

Algernon Moncrief is play’s secondary actor. He is selfish, amoral and charming bachelor. In all play he is making paradoxical pronouncements that sometimes don’t make sense and sometimes they are so profound. Like Jack, Algernon has invented a fictional character, a chronic invalid named Bunbury. He uses Bunbury in the same way as Jack uses his brother Ernest.
Difference between Jack and Algernon is that Algernon admits his wrong behavior and he is delighting with this behavior. Algernon is completely amoral and his only sense of life is to live beautifully.

Gwendolen Fairfax is female character in the play that represents the qualities of conventional Victorian woman. She is artificial and pretentious. Everything what she says and does is calculating for effect. She is fixated on name Ernest and she wants a husband with this name, because this name inspires in her as she says “absolute confidence”. She is so obsessive with this question that she can’t see that a man with this name is lying to her.

Cecily Cardew is opposite to Gwendolyn. She is ingenuous but in other hand she is fascinated with wickedness. The reputation of “uncle Jack´s brother” intrigues her and make her fall in love with him. She like Jack and Algernon invents her romance with Ernest. She created that with many details and artistic work.