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Does Cecily have a hidden meaning in The Importance of Being Earnest?

I don't think there's any "hidden" meaning to Cecily. At a fairly young age, she is both innocent and quick-witted, uneducated and capable of intuiting the ways of the world. She is also hopelessly romantic and very imaginative, but that doesn't stop her from getting precisely what she wants: Ernest, er, Algernon.


It says a lot about both her character and Algernon's that her feverish imagination controls much of her life and manages to attract rather than repel him. She imagines a courtship and a betrothal (later broken off, and then reinstated), gifts and letters, all before she'd ever met the man because she'd heard about how terribly "wicked" he is from her guardian, Jack. Her ability to create such fantasies and to seem to wholeheartedly believe them, as well as Algernon's relatively prompt acceptance of such eccentricity, actually seems to make them rather perfect for each other, which is both a compliment to and somewhat of a criticism of both. Algernon is sweet to her but deceptive; Cecily is sweet in general but delusional. In short, they are ridiculous in similar ways! Her creation of a relationship with him before ever having met him is not so very different from his creation of Mr. Bunbury.


Thus, Cecily and Algernon help to illuminate each other's good qualities and bad, and the ease with which they handle each other's misrepresentations or imaginations leads to the conclusion that they will be quite a successful couple. Between his penchant for mischief and her money, their life together should be quite entertaining indeed.

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