Character Analysis
Pryer
Slightly older than Ernest, Pryer is his senior as a curate in a London parish. Ernest's falling under Pryer's influence underscores Ernest's impressionability and vacillation. The most obvious harm done by Pryer is his cunningly executed wresting of Ernest's earlier and smaller inheritance from him under the guise of founding a preposterous College of Spiritual Pathology. Pryer's corruption, however, exceeds that of the ordinary clerical swindler.