What is the function/significance of Algernon in The Importance of Being Ernest?

In the play The Importance of Being Earnest
, by Oscar Wilde, the character of Algernon Moncrieff is the reflection of
Jack Worthing, only with a more marked tendency for mischievous
behavior.

Algernon is Wilde's conduit to express his own
views on morality. In a time and place like Victorian England, Wilde himself had to put
up with a puritanical and prudish society. Algernon is the picture of lax morality: It
is not that he is bad, but that he does not intend to be
good.

In his relations with people, he spreads he gospel of
the sybarite: Enjoy the day, seize the moment, eat all you can, enjoy yourself, forget
what is serious and meaningful-all that is boring.

In the
way he lives life, his purpose is to be the catalyst of change in the lives of everybody
else. He loves escaping from his aunt, so she has to adapt to Algernon's schedule. He
feels like falling in love, so he invites himself to Jack's estate in the country and
courts Cecily. He feels like eating, so he invites himself to dinner with Jack. He wants
to Bunbury, so he simply takes off and disappears.

However,
on a more general level, he simply is Algernon. He is the one who is meant to break with
convention of the time, with taboo, and with social expectation. He represents liberty
in the Victorian way of life. His character basically represents Wilde: The dandy who
lives above his means, finds pleasure in good food and drink, and cares very little for
what society feels for him. Algernon is definitely the black sheep of an
overly-moralistic society.