The Importance of Being Earnest

Cecily’s objection to studying German in the opening scene of Act 2–she thinks it makes her unattractive–echoes Lady Bracknell’s statements about education (24). Lady Bracknell’s views that, in England, education is ineffective is supported by Miss Prism’s role as tutor. Miss Prism does not understand Dr. Chasuble’s learned allusions and, is shown to be unqualified to teach Cecily.

Cecily’s claim to Miss Prism that she would forget the details of her life if she did not write them down in a diary and that it is memory which “usually chronicles things which never happened” (36) is made absurd by the revelation later that she has recorded an entirely fictional courtship with Ernest. A diary is meant to be a recording of real events, but hers is, paradoxically, fictional. Algernon inverts the normal function of a personal card in a similar way. Instead of the card serving as proof of his identity, it allows him to pretend to be someone else and meet Cecily. His use of the card is also ironic given that he said in Act 1 that he was keeping it to prevent Jack from hiding his identity.

Just as they did for Jack and Algernon in Act 1, tea snacks serve as a point of contention between Gwendolen and Cecily, as an initially affectionate first meeting between the two women rapidly sours. The tea service, an emblem of British notions of civilized behavior, should recall the young women to the formal manners intended to smooth over conflicts between the upper classes. Instead, it underscores the intraclass conflict represented by Jack and Cecily on one hand and Algernon and Gwendolen on the other. When Gwendolen wonders “how anybody manages to exist in the country,” and insists that she would die of boredom, Cecily responds: “Ah! That is what the newspapers call agricultural depression, is it not? I believe the aristocracy are very much suffering from it just at present” (63). Cecily continues obliquely insulting her guest by deliberately preparing Gwendolen’s tea incorrectly and giving her cake instead of bread and butter. The supposedly civilizing ritual of the tea service has instead led to even greater animosity.

Gwendolen and Cecily’s scene together shows that their superficiality extends beyond insisting that they could only ever love a man named Ernest. By the end of the scene, they have each contradicted nearly everything they have said and shown that nothing they say should be taken seriously. Upon meeting, Gwendolen says that she is certain that the two will become great friends and that her “first impressions of people are never wrong” (58). By the end of tea, however, Gwendolen is claiming that she distrusted Cecily from the moment they meet.

In the scene immediately following Cecily and Gwendolen’s quarrel, the relationships between Jack, Algernon, Cecily, and Gwendolen all change dramatically. Gwendolen and Cecily began as two newly engaged women friendly with each other but turn hostile once it seems that they are competing for the same man named Ernest. By the end of the Act, however, the two ladies have discovered that they are not engaged to the same man and become friends once, bonding over having been deceived.

Once Jack and Algernon have had their false identities stripped away, they fall to wrangling over muffins in a parallel to Gwendolen and Cecily’s earlier dispute. Before, the two women had argued over who would marry “Ernest,” and now the two men now argue over who can be christened and become Ernest. Jack’s point that Algernon has definitely been christened before, whereas there is no evidence that he ever has, hints again at the differences in their respective sources of wealth and class position.