Act II-Ernest

I would like to discuss the important matter regarding Jack’s cigarette case. Jack’s case exposes his secret identity leading Algernon to develop suspicions about his other life. That life itself is a lie to the extent that Jack has always lied to Algernon about what it really is. Moreover, “three-volume novel” in the dour Miss Prism’s past suggests that Miss Prism herself has had an alter ego at some point. Miss Prism tells Cecily not to “speak slightingly of” fiction. She says, “The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily.” Even before this exchange, Cecily avoids her schoolbooks. She would rather write than read and pulls out her diary, where she records her “wonderful secrets.” This leads me to conclude that these are themselves lies. Cecily’s schooling is part of Miss Prism and Jack’s desire for Cecily to “improve herself in every way,” and Cecily continues this attempt to continue her writing. This is also ironic in the text as it poses a reason for Cecily avoids the schoolbooks and writes in her diary instead.

Moreover this quote is of great significance to the novel: Algernon:  “Oh! I am not really wicked at all, cousin Cecily. You mustn’t think that I am wicked.” Cecily:  “If you are not, then you have certainly been deceiving us all in a very inexcusable manner. 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.” Here, Algernon, who is presenting himself as Jack’s brother Ernest, is shown into the garden. He greets Cecily, calling her his “little cousin,” and she greets him as “my wicked cousin Ernest.” The moral status of Jack’s fictional brother  undergoes a change between Acts I and II. At Algernon’s flat in Half Moon Street, “Ernest” was merely “profligate”.  As Jack says, he got into “scrapes,” which is to say “jams” or mischief. They are, however, something Algernon is fond of. When Jack warns him that Bunbury may get him into “a serious scrape some day,” Algernon replies, “I love scrapes. They are the only things that are never serious.” This is a bit ironic to the text I would say as well because it clearly shows how Algernon and Jack have a play on words here and just how detailed the language between them can get. They sort of talk sarcastically about “scrapes” and this is ironic to the text.