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Come here when you need to sort out who matters, what they want, and where they actually help your argument in The Importance of Being Earnest.
Contents
The play's central figure. He lives a double life, responsible guardian in the country and carefree Ernest in London. He wants to marry Gwendolen but his lack of family origin blocks him. By the end, he discovers his real name actually is Ernest, which resolves the plot but also makes him the butt of Wilde's biggest joke.
Jack's friend and the play's sharpest wit. He invented Bunbury before Jack invented his brother, and he treats deception as a lifestyle philosophy. He falls for Cecily after traveling to Jack's estate under false pretenses. He is charming and self-aware, and Wilde uses him to voice the play's most direct critiques of social convention.
Algernon's cousin and Jack's love interest. She is poised, confident, and completely certain about what she wants. Her insistence that she can only love a man named Ernest is both funny and pointed. She mirrors the social conditioning of her mother, Lady Bracknell, while believing she is independent.
Jack's ward, living at his country estate. She has been romanticizing the fictional Ernest in her diary for months before Algernon arrives. She is younger than Gwendolen but equally sharp. Her pre-written diary engagement to Algernon shows how thoroughly she has replaced reality with romantic fantasy.
Gwendolen's mother and the play's most formidable character. She controls access to marriage and social respectability. Her interview of Jack is the play's clearest statement of how Victorian class society worked. She is funny because she is completely serious about things Wilde treats as absurd.
Cecily's governess. She is presented as morally serious and slightly pompous. Her accidental role in Jack's origin story, leaving a baby in a handbag instead of a manuscript, drives the final revelation. Wilde uses her to mock the Victorian governess type and to deliver the plot's resolution.
The local clergyman at Jack's country estate. He is willing to perform christenings on demand and carries on a quiet flirtation with Miss Prism. He is a minor character but Wilde uses him to poke at the Church of England's role as a social institution rather than a moral one.
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