Chasuble and Miss Prism – Lady Bracknell complains to her newfound relative: "My nephew, you seem to be displaying signs of triviality." "On the contrary, Aunt Augusta", he replies, "I've now realised for the first time in my life the vital importance of being Earnest." Characters Jack Worthing (Ernest), a young gentleman from the country, in love with Gwendolen Fairfax. Algernon Moncrieff, a young gentleman from London, the nephew of Lady Bracknell, in love with Cecily Cardew. Gwendolen Fairfax, a young lady, loved by Jack Worthing. Lady Augusta Bracknell, a society lady, Gwendolen's mother. Cecily Cardew, a young lady, the ward of Jack Worthing. Miss Prism, Cecily's governess. The Reverend Canon Chasuble, the priest of Jack's parish. Lane, Algernon's manservant. Merriman, the butler of Jack's country house. Themes Triviality Arthur Ransome described The Importance... as the most trivial of Wilde's society plays and the only one that produces "that peculiar exhilaration of the spirit by which we recognise the beautiful." "It is", he wrote, "precisely because it is consistently trivial that it is not ugly." Ellmann says that The Importance of Being Earnest touched on many themes Wilde had been building since the 1880s – the languor of aesthetic poses was well established, and Wilde takes it as a starting point for the two protagonists. While Salome, An Ideal Husband and The Picture of Dorian Gray had dwelt on more serious wrongdoing, vice in Earnest is represented by Algy's craving for cucumber sandwiches. Wilde told Robert Ross that the play's theme was "That we should treat all trivial things in life very seriously, and all serious things of life with a sincere and studied triviality." The theme is hinted at in the play's ironic title, and "earnestness" is repeatedly alluded to in the dialogue; Algernon says in Act II, "one has to be serious about something if one is to have any amusement in life", but goes on to reproach Jack for 'being serious about everything'". Blackmail and corruption had haunted the double lives of Dorian Gray and Sir Robert Chiltern (in An Ideal Husband), but in Earnest the protagonists' duplicity (Algernon's "bunburying" and Worthing's double life as Jack and Ernest) is undertaken for more innocent purposes – largely to avoid unwelcome social obligations. While much theatre of the time tackled serious social and political issues, Earnest is superficially about nothing at all. It "refuses to play the game" of