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Discuss the role of lady bracknell
How are the roles of women and men reversed in the importance of being earnest
How are the women more dominant in the importance of being earnest
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Matriarchal Figures in The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde and Persuasion by Jane Austen
‘A dominant female member of the family’[1] is often described as a
matriarch. Lady Bracknell in ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ and
Lady Russell in ‘Persuasion’ fulfill this role therefore can be
described as matriarchs, and as such they play vital roles. They
affect the lives of Gwendolen and Anne, by imposing their beliefs on
them.
Although Lady Russell is not related to any of the characters in
‘Persuasion’, after Anne’s mother died Lady Russell took on the role
of her mother. Lady Russell has some control over Anne, as Anne ‘had
always loved and relied on’ her and cannot believe she would ‘be
continually advising her in vain’. The matriarchs are pivotal as they
are the prime reasons for the plots’ complications; Lady Bracknell
tries to prevent two potential marriages between Jack and Gwendolen,
and Algernon and Cecily, and she is the reason Jack finds out about
his family connections. Lady Russell persuades Anne not to marry
Wentworth causing eight years of heartache and misery, as she was
wrongly persuaded. She induces further complications by trying to
persuade Anne to marry William Walter Elliot, when Anne and Wentworth
meet again.
Lady Bracknell’s importance is enhanced because she overshadows her
husband, which is true to her matriarch ways, and he occupies a
subordinate position. Lady Bracknell has taken the opposite role to
that which society accepted in the 1890’s, her husband stays at home,
while she goes to social gatherings. Her husband’s role is summed up
in Gwendolen’s speech to Cecily about her father.
‘The home seems to be the proper sphere for the man. And certainly,
once a m...
... middle of paper ...
...y say that Anne should marry for
money ‘she deprecated the connexion [to Wentworth] in every light’,
and only approves of alliances with men with money, such as Charles
Musgrove and William Walter Elliot. The matriarchs actions and advice
to women would be ‘don’t marry for money, but go where money is’[8].
[1] The Pocket Oxford Dictionary
[2] York Advanced Notes ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’
[3] Richard Foster , Wilde as Parodist: A Second Look at The
Importance of Being Earnest
[4] Inside the House of Fiction, ‘Jane Austen’s Cover Story’
[5] Dan Rebellato, Drama Classics Series, ‘The Importance of Being
Earnest’
[6] York Notes Advanced – ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’
[7] Richard Foster , Wilde as Parodist: A Second Look at The
Importance of Being Earnest
[8] Juliet McMaster , Alfred Lord Tennyson as quoted in ‘Class’
A Spirited Female Lead in Pride and Prejudice by Austen and Much Ado About Nothing by Shakespeare
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Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice In 1796 Jane Austin wrote a classic novel named Pride and Prejudice. She wrote many novels but they were not published. In 1813 the novel was published.
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In those days it was not so. If a husband was poor or a gambler or a
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The short story Girl written by Jamaica Kincaid is a mother’s compilation of advice, skills, and life experience to her daughter. The mother believes that her offer of practical and helpful guidance will assist her daughter in becoming a proper woman, and gaining a fulfilling life and respectable status in the community. Posed against the mother’s sincere concern for her daughter’s future is Sir Walter’s superficial affection to his daughters in the novel Persuasion written by Jane Austen. Due to his detailed attention for appearance and social rank, Sir Walter has been negligent to his daughters’ interests and fails to fulfill his responsibility as a father. Throughout both literary works, the use of language and tone towards persuasive endeavors reveals the difference in family dynamics and the success of persuasion on the character’s transformation.
I have also learnt a lot more about Jane Austen and her life and about
Feminism is a global movement that affects women all around the world either directly or indirectly because of the discrimination that it defends. Over the years women have been limited to living in a male dominated world. Women have been alienated from educational opportunities, workforce or labor opportunities and most importantly financial opportunities. Being oppressed by these factors and others has left women with the little option of becoming a housewife or a servant, or inheritor. Feminism has proven to be a controversial yet present point in the works of literary giants such as William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte and many others. Charlotte Bronte phenomenal novel Jane Eyre is developed with ample evidence that is a direct
The Role of Women in the Society Depicted by Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Ed. Donald Gray. New York: WW Norton &. Company, 1996.
Jane Austen’s works are characterized by their classic portrayals of love among the gentry of England. Most of Austen’s novels use the lens of romance in order to provide social commentary through both realism and irony. Austen’s first published bookThe central conflicts in both of Jane Austen’s novels Emma and Persuasion are founded on the structure of class systems and the ensuing societal differences between the gentry and the proletariat. Although Emma and Persuasion were written only a year apart, Austen’s treatment of social class systems differs greatly between the two novels, thus allowing us to trace the development of her beliefs regarding the gentry and their role in society through the analysis of Austen’s differing treatment of class systems in the Emma and Persuasion. The society depicted in Emma is based on a far more rigid social structure than that of the naval society of Persuasion, which Austen embodies through her strikingly different female protagonists, Emma Woodhouse and Anne Eliot, and their respective conflicts. In her final novel, Persuasion, Austen explores the emerging idea of a meritocracy through her portrayal of the male protagonist, Captain Wentworth. The evolution from a traditional aristocracy-based society in Emma to that of a contemporary meritocracy-based society in Persuasion embodies Austen’s own development and illustrates her subversion of almost all the social attitudes and institutions that were central to her initial novels.
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