NON-AFRICAN DRAMA OSCAR WILDE: The Importance of Being Earnest Comment on the role of Gwendolen Fairfax.

Answer Details

Gwendolen Fairfax, daughter of Lady Bracknell and cousin of Algernon, is one of the two fashionable young women whose romantic ambitions drive the plot of Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. She is at once a comic creation and a vehicle for Wilde's satire of the Victorian upper-class woman.

She loves Jack and insists on the name Ernest. Gwendolen accepts Jack's proposal, but her love is fixed on the name she believes to be his. She declares that her ideal has always been to love someone called Ernest, since the name inspires absolute confidence and produces vibrations. This absurd attachment to a mere name over the man's true character satirises the shallowness and artificiality of fashionable romance.

She is sophisticated and self-assured. Gwendolen is worldly, poised and fond of pronouncing opinions with an air of authority, echoing her formidable mother. She fancies herself modern and independent yet remains entirely a product of her class, ruled by manners, fashion and appearances.

She advances and complicates the plot. Her determination to marry Jack despite Lady Bracknell's refusal, and her decision to follow him to the country, brings her into contact with Cecily. The famous tea-table scene, in which the two women, each believing herself engaged to "Ernest", clash with icy politeness before uniting against the men, is one of the play's comic high points and a key turning of the plot.

She is a foil to Cecily. Gwendolen the town lady and Cecily the country girl mirror one another: both are obsessed with the name Ernest, both are quick to quarrel and quicker to reconcile. Their parallel roles reinforce Wilde's mockery of feminine fashion and sentiment.

She embodies Wilde's satire. Through her paradoxical utterances and misplaced priorities, Gwendolen exposes the trivial values of her world, where surface counts for more than substance. She is delightful comic company and a sharp instrument of the play's social criticism.