Chapter Synopsis of The Importance of Being Earnest - Study Guide by Oscar Wilde

one. In any case, she is a monster, without being a myth, which is rather unfair". But she is a harmless monster, for in this world, an unhappy ending is quite out of the question, and Lady Bracknell can emerge as a harmless, nonsensical Gorgon.

He mentions Miss Prism’s name, which excites Lady Bracknell, and she insists on meeting her. This is also another opportunity to emphasise Lady Bracknell’s snobbishness – she inquires if Miss Prism is "a female of repellent aspect, remotely connected with education". Dr Chasuble’s indignant reply is that, "she is the most cultivate of ladies, and the very picture of respectability". Lady Bracknell quickly retorts that it is "obviously the same person".

It turns out that twenty years earlier Miss Prism had been the governess of Lady Bracknell’s sister, and had been entrusted with a baby, which she had lost. Miss Prism confesses that she had accidentally placed the baby in a black leather handbag, which she had left in the cloakroom at Victoria Station. Jack produces the handbag in which he had been found and Miss Prism recognises it as the one she had mislaid.

She does so in a manner typical of the shocking nonsensibility of the play, not enquiring after the child she mislaid, but concentrating on the bag. "I am delighted to have it so unexpectedly restored to me," she says. "It has been a great inconvenience being without it all these years".

Thus, Jack’s parentage is discovered - he turns out to be Algy’s elder brother, the son of Lady Bracknell’s sister and General Earnest John Moncrieff. It also emerges that his name is really Earnest, after all. All obstacles to marriage have now been overcome, and the play closes with Jack embracing Gwendolen and Algy embracing Cecily. Dr Chasuble also rejects his former views on celibacy and embraces Miss Prism.