Friday, July 17, 2009

Who is Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest?

Lady Bracknell is Algernon Moncrieff's aunt and the mother of Gwendolyn, Jack Worthing's love interest.  Also, at the end of the play, we find out that Jack and Algernon are actually brothers who were separated when Miss Prism, Jack's governess, accidentally abandoned him in a handbag in the cloak room at Victoria Station.  This means Lady Bracknell is actually Jack's Aunt Augusta as well as Algernon's, making Jack and Gwendolyn cousins. 


She is a member of the upper class, although it doesn't sound as though that was always necessarily the case.  She claims that though she had no money when she met Lord Bracknell, she didn't let that prevent her from marrying him.  Lady Bracknell is incredibly intimidating and overbearing, making life for Gwendolyn less enjoyable than it could be and making Gwendolyn and Jack's courtship more difficult than it should be.  She also very much values wealth, as shown by her treatment of Cecily.

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