Oscar Wilde The Importance Of Being Earnest Gender Essay

Imagine in Victorian society, a time when “men where men and women were women” to the highest degree, a woman being head of household, controlling social obligations, managing finances, and taking on the stereotypically paternal role of deciding possible spouses for children. Such scenario has only been widely accepted in the past handful of decades, never mind a time when women had very little control over when they could leave their home, yet in The Importance of Being Earnest, such a world exists. Oscar Wilde introduces a world in which women can be dominant figures without negative consequences. In The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde uses characters who possess inverted stereotypical gender traits and satire to criticize and mock the strict gender
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roles held up by Victorian ideals.
The Victorian age was a time period when the rift between men and women became more apparent than ever. Each gender was confined and supposedly thrived in their own individual spheres, with women in the private sphere where they stayed in the home unless taken out to social gathering where they balanced out the harshness of the world inhabited by men with their grace and femininity (Hughes). Such unyielding separation between sexes caused some, such as Oscar Wilde, to speak out against unfair expectations.
The Importance of Being Earnest opened at the height of Oscar Wilde’s fame and was regarded as some of his best work and cemented him as someone of importance with great artistic skill. The subject matter of the play was no surprise coming from Wilde as he had frequently spoken out against similar subjects, speaking out against restrictive clothing on women, such as corsets, that prevented them from doing duties the same as any man (Brackett). Such vocal statements that went against the status quo, in public and his works alike, made Wilde a leader for progression regarding how women were viewed
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in
society.
Soon after the leading men of the story, Jack and Algernon, are introduced in the play, Lady Bracknell sweeps into the scene seeming to exude Victorianism and what it stands for. Though she represents upper class and Victorian norms, she also acts as something more. Lady Bracknell has taken on the dominant and otherwise “male” head of household role. When Jack voices his interest in marrying Gwendolyn, “... she asserts herself aggressively while interrogating Jack with the traditional questions a father would typically ask of a man pursuing the hand of his daughter” (Wulu 4). Lord Bracknell has taken on the role typically seen of women of that time, never speaking, not in the role of decision making, and said to be unknown outside of the family circle while his wife is social and in charge of family matters (The Importance of Being Earnest 42). She acts as an example Victorian woman who can break from the typical role of women in that era.
The play centers around problems and drama that unfold around two men courting, but all these troubles arise from the fact that Jack and Algernon take such passive roles in the relationships with their respective ladies. In Jack’s relationship, he does not actively seek her out, asks if he can propose to her (The Importance of Being Earnest 16), and will turn himself into “Ernest” so that Gwendolen’s fantasy of marrying a man named Ernest may be fulfilled. Algernon and Cecily’s “engagement” is run entirely by Cecily while Algernon goes along with what she says without complaint or input. Women were discouraged from focusing on marriage too much and being forward yet that is exactly what Cecily has done while Algernon is being chased by her for being supposedly name Ernest. Throughout Jack and Algernon’s romantic interactions they behave submissively, being pursued by Gwendolen and Cecily, and bend to the will of the women they are courting, very much an inversion of the normal Victorian system of courting and marriage.