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Cecily's Diary in The Importance of Being Earnest

This study will examine the role of the diary of the character of Cecily Cardew in Oscar Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest, and the relationship of that diary to the story and Cecily's relationship with Ernest. The diary is merely another piece of utter nonsense and deception, especially self-deception, in a play composed of little but deception and nonsense.

Cecily creates in her diary a make-believe world in which she fantasizes a relationship with Ernest. In fact, the relationship she fantasizes is not with the real "Ernest," who is in fact Jack, but rather with Algernon, who she believes to be Jack's brother, who is not actually his brother. In fact, Jack has no brother, and in any case, Cecily had never even met "Ernest" (Algernon) before she had composed the bulk of her dreamed-up relationship with him in the diary. Therefore, the diary and its preposterous fictions fit quite neatly into the farcical nonsense of the play.

Because she is creating the ideal relationship with Ernest in the diary---or at least ideal in her terms---she is completely satisfied with it. The relationship she creates is a cliche, in fact, a relationship which she believes typifies love among the upper class. She is not so much even writing about a relationship which she is creating as she is writing about a romanticized version of a relationship which has never existed and likely never will.

The first time the diary is introduced is in Act II, after Cecily shuns her study of boring subjects (she is only eighteen years old) in order to create the fantasy relationship which occupies her heart and imagination. Miss Prism says to Cecily, "I really don't see why you should keep a diary at all." Cecily answers,

I keep a diary in order to enter the wonderful secrets of my life. If I didn't write them down, I should probably forget all about them (57).

Most of Cecily's diary, however, has nothing to do with her memory of realit...

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Cecily's Diary in The Importance of Being Earnest. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 03:19, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1690455.html