Act I: Secret Identities Allow Escape from Rigid Social Obligations
Algernon Moncrieff creates an invalid friend named Bunbury to escape tedious social gatherings, while Jack Worthing invents a profligate brother named Ernest to indulge in London high life. When Jack proposes to Gwendolen Fairfax, she accepts primarily because she insists on loving a man named Ernest. Lady Bracknell rejects Jack's suit upon learning he was abandoned as an infant in a handbag at Victoria Station. Victorian respectability relies entirely on polished appearances, surface decorum, and carefully maintained fictions.
