Title: The Importance of Being Earnest

Author: Oscar Wilde

Copyright: ©2000-2012 BookRags, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Summary:

Jack Worthing the man who wants to do something fun so he lied to his company and pretend that he has a brother
named Earnest. Cecily Cardew was the ward of Jack. She was eighteen years old and she is the daughter of Thomas
Cardew that helped the protagonist to have a good life.

It was all going so smooth but still he was busted by his closest friend, Algernon Moncrieff, so Jack confronted
didn’t hesitate to tell him the truth why he lied to them. In their conversation Cecily was talked about because it’s he’s ward
and he has the responsibilities to guide her that her late father Thomas Cardew left her. Algernon was impressed with the
girl, instead of they’re talking about why Jack was escaping his duties; they focused on talking about Cecily.

When Jack went to London he met Gwendolen Fairfax, the daughter of Lady Bracknell. They know him as Earnest
not Jack. They loved each other so much but her mother did not agree with their decisions after he told his background that
he was on a hand-bag covered by a cloak at Victorian Station. At the end of the story the secrets are revealed but
Gwendolen still loved him and her affections did not changed at all same as Cecily to Algernon that also pretend that he
was Earnest.

Lady Bracknell told them what really happened at that time when Jack is covered by a cloak. Algernon has an elder
brother and that is Jack, their mother is her poor sister, Mrs. Moncrieff. It was unexpected but it went well and they accept
each other with their love ones.

Setting:

The heart of England - The urban center of London; full of business, fashion, culture, and general decadence

Hertfordshire - where man can get close to nature and distract himself from the rush of city life.

Characterization:

 Protagonist:

John (Jack/Ernest) Worthing, J.P. - The play’s protagonist. Jack Worthing is a seemingly responsible and
respectable young man who leads a double life.

Algernon Moncrieff - The play’s secondary hero. Algernon is a charming, idle, decorative bachelor, nephew of
Lady Bracknell, cousin of Gwendolen Fairfax, and best friend of Jack Worthing, whom he has known for years as
Ernest.

Gwendolen Fairfax - Algernon’s cousin and Lady Bracknell’s daughter. Gwendolen is in love with Jack, whom she
knows as Ernest. A model and arbiter of high fashion and society,

Cecily Cardew - Jack’s ward, the granddaughter of the old gentlemen who found and adopted Jack when
Jack was a baby.
 Miss Prism - Cecily’s governess. She highly approves of Jack’s presumed respectability and harshly criticizes his
“unfortunate” brother.

Rev. Canon Chasuble, D.D. - The rector on Jack’s estate. Both Jack and Algernon approach Dr. Chasuble to
request that they be christened “Ernest.” Dr. Chasuble entertains secret romantic feelings for Miss Prism.

Lane - Algernon’s manservant. Lane is the only person who knows about Algernon’s practice of “Bunburying.”

Merriman - The butler at the Manor House, Jack’s estate in the country.

 Antagonist:

Lady Augusta Bracknell - Algernon's aunt and the sister of Jack's mother. She opposes Jack's marriage with
her daughter Gwendolen, though relents when she learns that Jack is actually her nephew.

Conflicts:

o Jack wants to marry Gwendolen, who believes his name is really Ernest-and loves him for that, and that he cannot
because Lady Bracknell does not approve of Jack’s background.
o Gwendolen’s obsession with the name “Ernest,” since she does not know Jack’s real name.

Resolution:

o Jack made a condition with Lady Bracknell that if he approves the marriage of Algernon and Cecily she will also
approves the marriage of Jack and her daughter
o She tells him she can forgive him, as she feels he is sure to change.

Theme:

 Marriage is pleasurable or a restrictive social duty. In general, the older generation thinks of marriage as a means to
an end, a way of maintaining or bettering your social position
 As the situation gets worst, characters must weave more complex lies to get out of the tangles of their previous lies.
Eventually they reach the point where lies will no longer work and the truth is revealed.

Foreshadowing:

Flashback:
Tone: It is satirical or sarcastic. For example, Lady Bracknell wants to see in Jack is her money, property, stylishness, and
an aristocratic name but not her son-in-law

Figure of speech:

Simile metaphor Hyperbole personification Onomatopoeia

It is almost as bad as Were I fortunate I haven’t the smallest For heaven’s sake
the way Gwendolen enough to be Miss intention of doing give me back my
flirts with you. Prism's pupil, I would anything of the kind. cigarette case.
hang upon her lips.

You have invented a It is simply washing The amount of The happy English
very useful brother one’s clean linen in women in London home has proved in
called Earnest. public. who flirts with their half the time.
own husbands is
perfectly scandalous.
I am not a bunburyist
at all.
It’s perfectly easy to
be cynical.

Author’s background:

Oscar Wilde, celebrated playwright and literary provocateur, was born in Dublin on October 16, 1854. He was
educated at Trinity College, Dublin and Magdalen College, Oxford before settling in London. During his days at Dublin and
Oxford, he developed a set of attitudes and postures for which he would eventually become famous. Chief among these
were his flamboyant style of dress, his contempt for conventional values, and his belief in aestheticism—a movement that
embraced the principle of art for the sake of beauty and beauty alone. After a stunning performance in college, Wilde settled
in London in 1878, where he moved in circles that included Lillie Langtry, the novelists Henry James and George Moore,
and the young William Butler Yeats.