How Does Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest Challenge Constructions of Sexuality?
4) How Does Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest Challenge Constructions of Sexuality?
Oscar Wilde; the renowned Irish writer is most commonly known for his famed social comedies, including: Lady Windermere's Fan, A Women of No Importance and of course The Importance of Being Earnest. Regrettably this period of fame was followed by his fall into public disgrace and time spent in Reading Gaol after the critical libel suit from the father of his lover; Lord Alfred Douglas.
While Wilde is now known for his relatively remarkable sexual preferences we must not, as Alan Sinfield states, 'assume that queerness, like murder, will out'. This means that though Wilde may be considered queer, this does not mean that we should assume undoubtedly that every character or nuance is undoubtedly so. 'It might be nice to think of Jack and Algernon as a gay couple' writes Sinfield, 'But it doesn't really work.'1.
As put forward by Peter Raby, Wilde can be seen to present the image of a highly superficial and hypocritical society2, with vast divide between our personal and social identities. This helps push audiences to question identity in terms of the social implications of gender, name, spousal choice and sexual preference, since defined or not, sexuality is surely a key element of our identities.
During the late nineteen hundreds, when the play was written, sexuality was not well defined; there was simply 'heterosexuality' and at the time the recent term, 'invert'3, which referred to the soul of one gender trapped inside a body of the opposing gender. With social issues changing over time, we must not look necessarily for queer tones, but for the mockeries that Wilde makes of social constructs so that we can in turn relate them to challenge the more modern constructions of sexuality4.
At the outset, the title of the play refers to the importance of being sincere, here Wilde's use of irony embodies the theme of satire. This theme runs throughout the entire play due to
Oscar Wilde; the renowned Irish writer is most commonly known for his famed social comedies, including: Lady Windermere's Fan, A Women of No Importance and of course The Importance of Being Earnest. Regrettably this period of fame was followed by his fall into public disgrace and time spent in Reading Gaol after the critical libel suit from the father of his lover; Lord Alfred Douglas.
While Wilde is now known for his relatively remarkable sexual preferences we must not, as Alan Sinfield states, 'assume that queerness, like murder, will out'. This means that though Wilde may be considered queer, this does not mean that we should assume undoubtedly that every character or nuance is undoubtedly so. 'It might be nice to think of Jack and Algernon as a gay couple' writes Sinfield, 'But it doesn't really work.'1.
As put forward by Peter Raby, Wilde can be seen to present the image of a highly superficial and hypocritical society2, with vast divide between our personal and social identities. This helps push audiences to question identity in terms of the social implications of gender, name, spousal choice and sexual preference, since defined or not, sexuality is surely a key element of our identities.
During the late nineteen hundreds, when the play was written, sexuality was not well defined; there was simply 'heterosexuality' and at the time the recent term, 'invert'3, which referred to the soul of one gender trapped inside a body of the opposing gender. With social issues changing over time, we must not look necessarily for queer tones, but for the mockeries that Wilde makes of social constructs so that we can in turn relate them to challenge the more modern constructions of sexuality4.
At the outset, the title of the play refers to the importance of being sincere, here Wilde's use of irony embodies the theme of satire. This theme runs throughout the entire play due to