Scene Commentary from pages 35 – 37

The pages 35 to 37 concern Algernon and Cecily’s second private meeting, in the gardens. Most of the dialog is spoken by the two characters, though the Merriman always seems to appear when the characters dialog climaxes. This scene is especially important as it marks the first professions of love for each other.

Algernon is in a difficult position because he knows, Jack wants him away from his estate, yet he wants to stay with Cecily. After his argument with Jack, Algernon starts to converse with Cecily who under the pretence of watering her flowers had entered the garden. After Cecily utters a couple of flirtatious lines, Algernon says “…you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection” (pg.35). This entices Cecily to write down his words from dictation. We get to know a completely different side of Algernon when he professes his love to her by saying "I have dared to love you wildly, passionately, devotedly, hopelessly" (pg.35). From this sentence we can observe that Algernon has indeed changed and become a more romantic man, other than his usual gallivanting and womanizing self. Cecily on the other hand is a very consistent character, she is always naïve and very delusional. We get to see this when she describes her fictional engagement with Earnest over the past three months. She is so delusional that she writes herself letters and even gives herself presents meant to be from Earnest, if she weren’t so young one would believe she has a psychological disorder. But Algernon at this point is so infatuated with Cecily; he doesn’t mind/realize her immature behavior.

The situation becomes more uncomfortable when Cecily reveals similarly to Gwendolen, that she always wanted to love someone named Ernest. Algernon tries to save himself by asking Cecily if she could love him if he had another name. To his surprise she tells him “I might respect you, Ernest, I might admire your character, but I fear that I should not be able to give you my undivided attention”, Algernon decides to be re-christened and consequently runs off to find Dr. Chasuble.