THE IMPORTANCE OF
BEING ERNEST
Jack Worthing,
bold man from the strangers native, alive in country together with Cecily, an eighteen year-old girl on which manages the
guardianship, and with the governess of this last, Miss Prism. Jack decides to
go to London
and to attend the city living rooms as Ernest introducing himself: he intends
above all to visit the house of the friend Algernon Moncrieff, to the purpose to meet her cousin, the beautiful
Gwendolen Fairfax, of which he wants to ask the hand.
The young suffered this proposal of marriage, convinced also of the fact that
her pretender calls Ernest, name that on her practices
a particular charm. Meanwhile Algernon comes to know
that the young Cecily has been submitted to the
friend and, desiring to know her, it brings him in the country: after having
discovered the address it introduces him in the house, affirming to be the
smaller brother of Jack, and he succeeds in seducing Cecily.
In the meantime the same Jack arrives, which is well soon reached by Gwendolen, definite to marry him despite the opposition of
her mother, Lady Bracknell, hostile to the marriage since she has known that
Jack is a foundling even if then adopted by a well-off family. Cecily and Gwendolen so they
become friends but, confiding herself, they discover that the respective
fiancés have lied on his own identity; nevertheless, after various quarrels
among the four persons in love, all seems to level him. Of there to few,
looking for her daughter Gwendolen comes also in the country Lady Bracknell. It comes so to
knowledge of the engagement of her nephew Algernon
with Cecily and, sees the rich dowry of the girl, it
approves without reservations it. To this point however it is Jack as guardian
of the young girl, to refuse his own consent, at least until Lady Bracknell it
will keep on opposing herself to his marriage with Gwendolen.
The tangled story resolves only when the governess of Cecily
appears, Miss Prism, in which Lady Bracknell recognises the woman that, many
years before had disappeared bringing with itself the first-born child of her sister, Mrs Moncrieff:
Jack, in fact, is not other that the most greater brother of Algernon and his true name is really Ernest. Resolved
therefore all the doubts on his origins, Jack can
finally to marry Gwendolen e Cecily becomes the wife of Algernon.
