John, Jack, Ernest Worthing

Jack Worthing, the main character, is the major landowner in Hertfordshire, where he has a country residence. There, where he is known by Jack, he is the pillar of the community. He is the tutor of Mr. Cardew’s granddaughter, Cecily. For years, he has pretended to have an irresponsible younger brother named Earnest, whom he is always having to bail out of some mischief. In fact, he himself is the reprobate brother Earnest. Ernest is the name Jack goes by in London, where he really goes on these occasions. The fictional brother is Jack’s alibi for disappearing from Hertfordshire and going to London to get off his responsibilities and to see his beloved.

Until he seeks to marry Gwendolen, Jack has used Earnest as an escape from real life, but Gwendolen’s fixation on that name, so it  obligates Jack to embrace his deception. He pretended to be baptized as Earnest for her beloved. At the end of the story he will know his origin and who were his parents and surprisingly, he will know that he has a real brother.


Algernon Moncrieff.

Algernon Moncrieff

Algernon, the second main character, is closer to the figure of the dandy than any other character in the novel. A charming bachelor, Algernon is brilliant, witty, selfish, amoral. Like Jack, Algernon has invented a fictional character, a chronic invalid named Bunbury, to give him a reprieve from his real life. Algernon is constantly being summoned to Bunbury’s deathbed, which conveniently draws him away from tiresome or distasteful social obligations. Like Jack’s fictional brother Ernest, Bunbury provides Algernon with a way of indulging himself while also suggesting great seriousness and sense of duty. However, a salient difference exists between Jack and Algernon. Jack does not admit to being a “Bunburyist,” even after he’s been called on it, while Algernon not only acknowledges his wrongdoing but also revels in it. Algernon’s delight in his own cleverness and ingenuity has little to do with contempt for others.

He presents himself in the Manor House as Jack’s brother to meet Cecily, because he is in love with her. After that event, start all the plot and confessions of the main characters.


Gwendolen Fairfax

Gwendolen Fairfax

Gwendolen is Lady Bracknell’s daughter and Jack’s beloved, whom she knows as Ernest, and she is fixated on this name. Her mother does not like Earnest because of the preoccupation of the Victorian middle- and upper-middle classes with the appearance of virtue and honor. Gwendolen is so caught up in finding a husband named Earnest, whose name, she says, “inspires absolute confidence,” that she can’t even see that the man calling himself Earnest is fooling her with an extensive deception. It creates a dilemma for Jack, who is willing to be baptized with that name.

She is a model and an arbiter of elegant fashion and sophistication, and nearly everything she says and does is calculated for effect. As Jack fears, Gwendolen does indeed show signs of becoming her mother “in about a hundred and fifty years,” but she is likeable, as is Lady Bracknell, because her pronouncements are so outrageous.


Cecily Cardew

Cecily Cardew

Jack’s pupil, the granddaughter of the elder gentleman who found and adopted Jack when he was a baby. Cecily is the most idealistic and dreamy character in the novel. She is a child of nature. However, her ingenuity is belied by her fascination with wickedness. She is obsessed with the name Ernest too, just as Gwendolen is, but wickedness is primarily what leads her to fall in love with Algernon, whose reputation is wayward enough to intrigue her. She is a fantasist. She has invented her romance with Ernest since she heard about him. Though she does not have an alter-ego as vivid or developed as Bunbury or Ernest, her claim that she and Algernon/Earnest are already engaged is rooted in the fantasy world she’s created around Ernest.


Lady Bracknell

Lady Bracknell

Algernon’s snob aunt. A selfish, materialist and domineering woman. She is Gwendolen’s mother. Lady Bracknell married well, with a Lord, and her primary goal in her life is to see her daughter doing the same. She has a list of “eligible young men” and a prepared interview she gives to potential suitors.

Miss Prism

Miss Prism

Cecily’s governess. She approves of Jack’s presumed respectability and criticizes his “unfortunate” brother. Puritan though she is, Miss Prism’s severe pronouncements have a way of going so far over the top that they inspire laughter. Despite her rigidity, Miss Prism seems to have a softer side. She speaks of having once written a novel whose manuscript was “lost” or “abandoned.” Also, she entertains romantic feelings for Dr. Chasuble. She has an important role of Mr. Worthing’s origin.


Rev. Canon Chasuble

Rev. Canon Chasuble

The rector on Jack’s estate. Both Jack and Algernon approach Dr. Chasuble to request that they be baptized as “Ernest.” Dr. Chasuble entertains secret romantic feelings for Miss Prism.


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