Both Gwendolen Fairfax and Cecily Cardew provide Wilde with opportunities to discuss ideas and tout the New Woman near the turn of the century. They are curiously similar in many ways, but as the writer's tools, they have their differences.
Both women are smart, persistent and in pursuit of goals in which they take the initiative. Gwendolen follows Jack to the country — an atmosphere rather alien to her experiences, and Cecily pursues Algernon from the moment she lays eyes on him. Both women are perfectly capable of outwitting their jailers. Gwendolen escapes from her dominating mother, Lady Bracknell; Cecily outwits Jack by arranging for Algernon to stay, and she also manages to escape Miss Prism to carry on a tryst with her future fiancé. The first moment Cecily meets Algernon, she firmly explains her identity with a no-nonsense reaction to his patronizing comment.
For both women, appearances and style are important. Gwendolen must have the perfect proposal performed in the correct manner and must marry a man named Ernest simply because of the name's connotations. Cecily also craves appearance and style. She believes Jack's brother is a wicked man, and though she has never met such a man, she thinks the idea sounds romantic. She toys with rebelliously and romantically pursuing the "wicked brother," but she has full intentions of reforming him to the correct and appropriate appearance. The respectable name of Ernest for a husband is important to her. Both women, despite their differences, are products of a world in which how one does something is more important than why.
