The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People

Cecily returns to water the roses, and the two begin a flirtation conducted through her diary. When Algernon declares her “the visible personification of absolute perfection,” she insists on copying his words down. He rhapsodizes wildly, passionately, devotedly, hopelessly, and she gently observes that “hopelessly doesn’t seem to make much sense.” Then she drops her bombshell: they have been engaged for three months, since February fourteenth, and she has accepted him, bought him a ring, and even written his love letters for him.

Part 5

Cecily produces the blue-ribboned box of letters and the bangle with the true-lover’s knot, explaining that she was forced to compose his correspondence three times a week. The engagement, she continues primly, was broken off on the twenty-second of March because a serious engagement should be broken at least once, but she forgave him before the week was out. Algernon kneels and calls her a perfect angel; she runs her fingers through his hair and asks hopefully whether his curls are natural.

Then comes the complication of names. Cecily confesses her girlish dream of loving someone called Ernest—the name inspires absolute confidence. Algernon suggests he might be rechristened, and she agrees that Dr. Chasuble, who has never written a book and therefore knows a great deal, can certainly handle it.

He dashes off to arrange it, and Merriman announces a Miss Fairfax on important business. Cecily receives Gwendolen with suspicious politeness, but the two are soon charmed by each other’s sweetness and agree to be called Cecily and Gwendolen at once. When Gwendolen mentions her father Lord Bracknell and delivers her theory that the home is the proper sphere for the man, Cecily stares through her own fond gaze at this thoroughly formidable creature.

Then Gwendolen learns that Cecily is Mr. Worthing’s ward—her Ernest’s ward—and politely wishes she were forty-two and plain. Cecily, equally stung, wishes Gwendolen were a trifle older too. Each reveals she is engaged to Ernest, and each produces her diary as proof. The civility curdles rapidly. Tea is served, and under Merriman’s restraining eye, they exchange poisoned compliments about walks in five counties, the absence of flowers in the country, and agricultural depression. Cecily puts four lumps of sugar into Gwendolen’s cup when sugar is declared unfashionable, and serves her an enormous slice of cake when cake is declared unfashionable as well. Gwendolen rises in indignation and warns Cecily she may go too far.

Jack’s arrival breaks the standoff. Gwendolen asks whether he is engaged to Cecily; he laughs and offers his cheek. Cecily sweetly announces that the gentleman is her Uncle Jack, her guardian. Algernon appears, and Cecily confirms that this, at last, is Ernest. Then Gwendolen reveals that her cousin is Algernon Moncrieff, and Cecily recoils in horror, asking whether his name is really Algernon. He cannot deny it. The two girls embrace each other protectively while the men groan, and together they demand to know where the real brother Ernest is hiding.

Part 6

Jack, with immense reluctance, confesses the truth: he has no brother Ernest. He never had a brother, and he certainly has no intention of acquiring one. Gwendolen gravely informs Cecily that neither of them is engaged to be married to anyone at all, and the two young ladies sweep into the house, observing that men are so cowardly.

Left alone, Jack accuses Algernon of Bunburying in his garden, and Algernon replies that this has been the most wonderful Bunbury he has ever had. He coolly eats muffins while Jack rages, explaining that one must always eat muffins quite calmly—the butter might otherwise get on his cuffs. When Jack protests that this is heartless, Algernon offers him tea-cake instead, and a furious tug-of-war over the muffin dish ensues. Algernon finally announces that he cannot leave without dinner and has arranged to be christened Ernest himself at a quarter to six. Jack points out that he has booked five-thirty for the same purpose, and the absurdity of two simultaneous christenings is debated at length, complete with medical warnings about the hereditary nature of chills.

The curtain rises on the third act in the Manor House morning-room. Gwendolen and Cecily watch the men from the window, observing that they appear to have some sense of shame left because they did not follow them indoors at once. The men approach whistling some dreadful British opera air, and the girls preserve a dignified silence that produces, as Gwendolen notes, an unpleasant effect. When pressed, both Algernon and Jack freely admit they invented their brothers solely to have an opportunity of meeting the women they love. The girls, though skeptical, find the explanations stylistically adequate—Gwendolen declares that in matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.

The question of Christian names remains an insuperable barrier, but both men solemnly vow to be christened this very afternoon. Gwendolen marvels at how absurd it is to talk of the equality of the sexes when questions of self-sacrifice are concerned.

The reunion is interrupted by the terrifying entrance of Lady Bracknell, who has tracked her daughter from London by luggage train, having purchased the confidence of Gwendolen’s maid with a small coin. She is told that Gwendolen is engaged to Mr. Worthing, and Algernon to Cecily. After dispatching the matter of Mr. Bunbury—who has, Algernon assures her airily, been “quite exploded”—she turns her gimlet eye on Cecily, demanding to know whether she is connected with any of the larger railway stations in London.

Jack, in a voice of clear, cold fury, recites Cecily’s three addresses and her distinguished solicitors, Messrs. Markby, Markby, and Markby, one of whom is occasionally seen at dinner parties. He also produces certificates of her birth, baptism, registration, vaccination, confirmation, measles—German and English. Lady Bracknell, mollified by the hundred and thirty thousand pounds in the Funds and by Cecily’s profile, which displays distinct social possibilities, gives her consent to the marriage. Style, it seems, has carried the day, and Algernon, embracing his bride, does not care twopence about social possibilities at all.