Gender Roles In The Importance Of Being Earnest By Oscar Wilde

Gender roles. Something everyone plays a role in. Everyone has a gender and is expected to fit into a certain role in society. Women are expected to live up to a certain standard, always be pretty, and listen to their husband. Men are expected to make the money, give orders, and have more power than women. This was present in the Victorian Era and is still present today. Gender is a social construct. It has been shaped, or constructed, by society to follow certain stereotypes. In The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde uses gender role reversal and stereotypes to criticize gender roles in society. In a traditional Victorian Society, it is usually the man who controls the life of his wife. During the time period this play was published,
In this case Gwendolyn and Cecily are always very proper and they are expected to live up to the standard of a Victorian woman. Like upper-class women today, women in the Victorian Era had high standards they were demanded to meet. Lady Bracknell could not imagine her daughter, Gwendolyn, being away from the classy and hustling life of the city for an extended period of time. There was no way a true lady could deal with such uncivilized surroundings. Another gender role stereotype is that women are shallow, dumb, and fake therefore they should not be given any power. Wilde presents this stereotype when Gwendolyn and Cecily find out that the men they love have been lying to them. They realize that they now have the power in their relationships; they have to decide when to forgive Algernon and Jack. However, they don't seem to know what to do with the power and they comically try many different ways to handle the situation. This highlights the stereotype that women should not be given any power because they don't know how to handle it. Gwendolyn also portrays the stereotype that some women do not marry for love; rather they marry for material assets, looks, or even the name of the person. One of Gwendolyn’s requirements is that Earnest must be the name of the man she marries. When she meets Jack she is not impressed. She claims, “there is very little music to the name Jack” (Wilde 1433). She also says that she has “pitty [on] any woman who is married to a man called John” and “the only really safe name is Earnest” (Wilde 1433-1434). This proves that Gwendolyn is truly shallow and she is only thinking about his name. The fact that his name must be Earnest is a metaphor. It shows how women do not really love for love they have an ulterior