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 bori

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ic nature, however, has its realistic features. For example, telling Algernon ("Ernest") that she has heard of his wickedness, and being told by him that she must not think that, Cecily says, "I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy" (60-61). When Jack is confronted by Cecily with his "brother" (Algernon), Jack denied he has a brother, but by this time Algernon is taken with Cecily and goes along with the charade: "Brother John, I have come . . . to tell you that I am very sorry for all the trouble I have given you, and that I intend to lead a better life in the future" (68). Here we see that the fantasy life of Cecily, as written down in her diary, suddenly begins to create reality (or at least the appearance of reality) in the form of Algernon taking the role the diary has created for him to play. Cecily is most satisfied with the outcome of her effort to reconcile the two "brothers" (jack and Algernon), another indication of the power of the fictional diary to create a reality of sorts. The role of the diary as a romantic force is emphasized again when Cecily begins to copy in it the compliments paid her by Algernon (72-73), who is fa

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