Basic introduction to Oscar Wilde and his four comedies
Oscar Wilde(1854-1900), advocate of the aesthetic movement in the late nineteenth century, is a rare genius in the arena of English literature, well-known as a writer, poet, artist and dramatist, whose sophisticated wits and play on words can be barely surpassed. He played a leading role in making plays available to the general public with earnest efforts.
His most enduringly popular comedies, namely, Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, The Importance of Being Earnest; and An Ideal Husband, which satirize the hypocrisy of English upper class, the mainstay of Victorian moral system and the social bounds onto women, are unquestionably four dramatic masterpieces.
Lady Windermere’s Fan is Wilde’s first comedy, centering on Lady Windermere who suspects Lord Windermere is having an affair with Mrs. Erlynne. The infamous woman who abandoned her family twenty years ago is actually Lady Windermere’s mother.The chasm of their marriage is widened to a breaking point as Mrs. Erlynne appears in the birthday ball of Lady Windermere, who then decides to leave her husband for Lord Darlington. To rescue her daughter’s marriage, Mrs. Erlynne sacrifices herself and her reputation.
A Woman of No Importance is a four-act comedy, telling the story of Mrs. Arbuthnot who at a young age had an affair with Lord Illingworth, a dandy with highly social tact, and later brought up their son Gerald on her own. She asks Gerald to refuse Lord Illingworth’s offer and discloses their relationships. To get back his son, Lord Illingworth even intends to marry Mrs. Arbuthnot, who refuses him roundly and considers him a man of no importance.
The Importance of Being Earnest, a farcical comedy, portrays Gwendolen and Cecily with overwhelming enthusiasm for the name Ernest fall in love with Jack and Algernon respectively who use Ernest as a fake name and make up fictitious persons to avoid social obligations. In the end, it turns out that Jack is Algernon’s elder brother and their father happens to have a religious name Ernest. It is then that Jack realizes the importance of being earnest.
An Ideal Husband, the most successful comedic stage play of Wilde, depicts Mrs. Cheveley, a clever schemer, who attempts to blackmail Sir Robert Chiltern, an ideal husband in people’s eyes, ends up with failure, because she has to give the scandalous letter to Lord Goring to avoid arrest for stealing a bracelet. In the end, Lady Chiltern forgives her husband, who is to enter the Cabinet. Mabel Chiltern accepts Lord Goring’s proposal and considers the dandy an ideal husband.
Oscar Wilde’s views towards women in his comedies
In his four comedies, women take on important parts in maintaining and fostering domestic harmony, which suggests Wilde’s insight into Victorian moral from a different angle. Wilde’s plays mainly deal with women from up-class society, where conservative women and new women contrast strikingly with each other. Accepting gender inequality and discrimination, the former hold traditional values like purity, piety and domesticity so firmly that they have nothing serious to do but gossip ceaselessly, take harsh attitudes towards fallen women, and regard marriage as a means of interests. Representatives of this type are the Duchess of Berwick in Lady Windermere's Fan and Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest. Holding strict control over her daughter, the nagging Duchess of Berwick cannot wait to disclose the gossip between Mrs. Erlynne and Lord Windermere to Lady Windermere, while to formidable Lady Bracknell what matters in marriage are birth and wealth, rather than passion and love. Both of them play minor roles in the corresponding plays, which can indicate to some degree that Wilde treats them with triviality.
Readers are against them after reading the plays, let alone the author, who creates the images and makes his readers dislike them via subtle characterization. The latter, also under the influence of Victorian social values though, are unwilling to be chained by household chores and share one thing in common, that is, a mind of their own.
Those new women with self-consciousness take an active part in social life. Some of them are the so called fallen women, falling from respectability, and become marginalized as social outcasts. Due to the limitation of the times and its surroundings, they cannot divorce themselves from those social constraints. For one thing, they want to be embraced by the society again despite pains and guilt they have undertaken. For another, at the bottom of their hearts, they are aspired to struggle against the male dominant society which they fall victim to.
Other new women are angels in the house by the appearance but deep inside live the relentless souls of restlessness. Take Lady Caroline in A Woman of No Importance for example. On the surface, she is a very gentle and considerate wife who cares about her husband in every possible way. Yet gentleness is merely her secretive weapon in controlling her husband and keeping him in his proper place. Men, to her, are to do nothing but pay bills and compliments.
Wisdom and independence hidden in her heart take initial shape as she takes action in practice to realize her self-consciousness. Almost all of new female figures stand out as main focuses in the stories as they have distinctive personalities and free will through Wilde’s vivid portrayal.
What matters to them are not things based on the traditional value system, but the achievement of spiritual emancipation and pragmatic pursuit of self-worth. That’s what counts most to Wilde. He describes female struggles and their harmful impacts to both men and themselves in consequence. Almost all of them are imperfect with merits and demerits of one kind or another. Some have fallen; some speak startling words; some are calculating and plotting; still some hold life trivially. Those are not traits despised by Wilde. On the contrary, he depicts the imperfections in order to kill their traditional mindset as angels in the house and make new women out of the old bodies.
Fallen women like Mrs. Erlynne and Mrs. Arbuthnot have relatively happy endings, which to some extent can reflect Wilde’s supportive attitude towards them. Those new women are no longer vases for mere decorative uses, but upgraded to share a relatively equal position with their husbands or lovers. Looking ahead in search of free and independent women, he enhances female status in family relations to highlight the significance of women, since the rising decay of moral force occurs to him.
Conclusion
In his four comedies, Oscar Wilde who convinces that ego development is of equally significance to women portrays a group of new female images with their own characteristics impressively. In them the author pours much his philosophy of life and aestheticism. Whatever merits or demerits they possess, each of them displays a sense of free will and independence, which distinguish them from the rest Victorian women. Breaking away from the Victorian theatrical principles, Wilde pumps feminist consciousness into the plays by the example of some rebellious representatives in the patriarchy-oriented society.
Some of them struggle so hard to protest against the male-dominant society in pursuit of self-worth by their own efforts that they are distorted by material desires. It’s not merely the tragedy of themselves, but the tragedy of the generation as well as the times.
Through witty dialogues and play on words, Wilde demonstrates his supportive attitude on female progress, his bitter satire on the triviality of Victorian institutions and his criticism on the hypocrisy in upper classes and social life, as he comes to realize gradually that the progress of human civilization will not be reached unless women are free to hold their own fate and decide their own lifestyles.
Just as Wilde says in Lady Windermere's Fan that “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars”, women nowadays should have faith in the foreground of deepen liberation together with the joint efforts of the whole society.
Terminat hora diem, Terminat Author opus.
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