Lady Bracknell Essay

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Recommended: character of lady bracknell

Kenzi Macon
Miss Sibbach
English IV
13 November, 2014
Realistically Earnest Many characters in The Importance of Being Earnest exhibit realistic qualities, some more so than others. Lady Bracknell came across as the most pragmatic person in the book. Cecily Cardew embodies an actual eighteen year old girl also displaying a fictitious side. John Worthing does not have these realistic qualities at all.
“Lady Bracknell was not always a member of the upper class; she was a social climber bent on marrying into aristocracy… she represents the righteousness of the formerly excluded” (Lady). Every mother wants the best her daughter can ever have; this includes a better life than what the mother once had. This is why she represents the Victorian mothers …show more content…

“Cecily provides Wilde with an opportunity to discuss dull and boring education, Victorian values, money and security, and repression of passion” (Gwendolen). In the Victorian era, young girls were expected to stay at home, study literature and learn to become the perfect housewife. Miss Cardew acts like every other eighteen year old. She wants a “bad boy” and Cecily believes Algernon is the perfect “bad boy” to satisfy her needs. As any other naïve eighteen year old, she falls madly in love with Algernon before she ever meets him and her fantasies continue to run rampant. “She believes Jack’s brother is a wicked man, and though she has never met such a man, she thinks the idea sounds romantic. She toys with rebelliously and romantically pursuing the “wicked brother,” but she has full intentions of reforming him to the correct and appropriate appearance” (Gwendolen). Most teenage girls fantasize about dating a “bad boy” and changing him into a decent young man. Cecily fantasizes about Jack’s brother “Earnest” portraying himself as a rebellious young man with not a care in the world. She resembles the majority of teenage girls in the Victorian era and also the teenage girls in today’s society. Cecily Cardew expresses herself as the second most realistic character in The Importance of Being Earnest by displaying all of her undeniable qualities as

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