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Get every literary device explanation for The Importance of Being EarnestPlus so much more...
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Irony
Explanation and Analysis—The Tea Party:
Gwendolen and Cecily's tea party during Act 2, Part 2 is filled with dramatic irony. The audience, aware that Jack and Algernon are both pretending to be Ernest, eagerly awaits the inevitable misunderstanding that results from this deception:
Cecily: Mr. Ernest Worthing and I are engaged to be married.
Gwendolen: [Quite politely, rising]. My darling Cecily, I think there must be some slight error. Mr. Ernest Worthing is engaged to me.
The humor in this scene derives from the fact that, while Gwendolen and Cecily believe that they are both engaged to the same man, the audience knows perfectly well that they are engaged to two different people, neither of whom is named Ernest. Since the audience is in on Jack and Algernon's deception, it is ironic when the two women presume their fiancés to be innocent and begin to place the blame on each other:
Cecily: [Rising] To save my poor, innocent, trusting boy from the machinations of any other girl there are no lengths to which I would not go.
Gwendolen: From the moment I saw you I distrusted you. I felt that you were false and deceitful.
This entire scene is also ironic in a more general sense, in that there is a difference between how things appear and how they are (situational irony). The women appear to be having a friendly tea party and restrain themselves so as not to appear indecorous in front of the servants, but the atmosphere is undoubtedly hostile. All their words to each other seem polite on the surface, but are actually sarcastic and insulting.
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