Lady Windermere’s Fan is Oscar Wilde’s first successful play and it took the London theatregoers by storm when it was first staged at St James’s Theatre on 20 February 1892. Seeking to tell the story of an estranged mother and her innocent daughter it probes the Victorian society’s cruel treatment of women who exercised their will and sought life outside home with men of their choice. The men concerned often cheated and eventually abandoned these women and society for its part treated them with utter
Mauldrin Lwaki English IV K April 1, 2014 Spring K Research In both Pride and Prejudice and Lady Windermere’s Fan, the main topic of discussion was love and family. Jane Austen discussed love and the different social hierarchy in Pride and Prejudice, while Oscar Wilde mainly focused on family. Both of the stories also discussed about manners, for example how Mr. Collins and his awkward social interactions. Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde can both be compared in their literary works when it comes to the
Lady Windermere's Fan is a play about a woman who suspects her husband is having an affair with another women. Throughout the acts in Lady Windermere’s Fan there are many examples in which gossip and status take place. Gossip is when people have an unconstrained conversation about other people. Status is someone or something’s societal standing. Gossip can cause people’s opinions of other people to change, whether the gossip is true or not. This is present and seen within the play. In Lady Windermere’s
satire. In Oscar Wilde’s 1892 play, “Lady Windermere’s Fan,” Wilde successfully portrays the Victorian upper class as completely ridiculous without becoming offensive to those who are actually a part of it. The Duchess of Berwick has the most dominating personality in this play. As a duchess, she is ranked more highly in society than a lord or lady, and clearly recognizes and takes advantage of that. She is so conceited that she goes on to tell the lord and lady about their companions in society as
question faced by readers is whether Wilde believed in untruth or supported the importance of truth. Oscar Wilde examines themes of truthfulness through the use of character deception in his social comedies The Importance of Being Ernest and Lady Windermere’s Fan. Both plays exploit situations shaped through secrecy and ultimately seeds a statement on social life, albeit a satirical one. Wilde’s plays hold greater meaning with knowledge of Wilde’s own personal life. Oscar Wilde was born in Dubin,
Lady Windermeres Fan by Oscar Wilde As a Wellmade Play The tradition of the well-made play emerged towards the end of the nineteenth century. It was also called piece bien faite meaning 'Second Empire Drama'. It was supported mainly by the works of Eugene Scribe , of Dumas , of Emile Augier , and of Victorien Sardou. The tradition reached to the top with Sardou's works in which the techniques of construction invented by Scribe were completely used. Construction and stagecraft are exploited
Morality of the Upper Class in Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermeres Fan Lady Windermere's Fan is a witty commentary on the wiles of social properness in late 19th century England. Oscar Wilde was a flamboyant homosexual understandably critical of the norms of his day. Within the play, lie subtle and overt contradictions about the "properness" of the high born upper-class. During the Victorian period, strict rules governed mannerisms, protocol, etiquette, decency, etc. This decorum became too oppressive
During a short conversation between the Duchess of Berwick, Lady Windermere, and Lord Darlington, author Oscar Wilde exposes such entertaining arrogance that the members of upper class society contain. All the blunt, cynical insults toward the lower class and sarcastic language between the character enlightens the arrogances of the characters and the cruel structure of their society considering the gaps between lower class and high class, along with men and women. The Duchess of Berwick is the first
“New Historicism is a literary theory based on the idea that literature should be studied and interpreted within the context of both the history of the author and the history of the critic.” Lady Windermere’s Fan applies to the historicist view by showing The Duchess of Berwick’s power over her daughter Lady Agatha Carlisle in order to agree with what society expects during the Victorian era. Men were also considered very dominate in this era just like Lord Windermere and Lord Darlington. Wilde
The aesthetic author Oscar Wilde comments on the upper class of Victorian England. His life impacted the subject matter deeply in The Picture of Dorian Gray. His lesser known work, Lady Windermere’s Fan, works as a commentary on motherhood and Victorian marriage. The two works are stylistically different in the mood, characterization, and theme. The mood of The Picture of Dorian Gray went from Wilde’s normal satirical prose to the dark and sullen description that accompany the transformation of Dorian
English 1404-3 14 May 2016 Victorian Hunger The play The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde was written and set during the Victorian era, a time when the desire for social approval and status controlled the rituals, appearances, and attitudes of the middle and upper class. The search for moral recognition in society was the commonly conspired front that masked the people’s selfish ambitions. Oscar Wilde felt strongly towards the reformation he believed his time period needed, having been
had many great works, which includes “The Importance of Being Earnest”, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, “Lady Windermere’s Fan”, “A Woman of No Importance”, and “An Ideal Husband”. III. The main character is Jack, which
He was the son of lady Jane Francesca Elgee Wilde who was also a poet in 1848 (Oscar Wilde Biography). Oscar graduated in 1871 and won several scholarships to two different colleges. Wilde was a smart man although Oscar Wilde gain more popularity because of his personal
Oscar Wilde: The Tragic Story Oscar Wilde was a distinguished author and playwright born in 1854. Wilde’s only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was published in July 1890 in the Lippincott's Magazine and received a tremendous amount of criticism. Wilde’s novel was a reflection of Aesthetics and was sadly also a literary one-hit wonder. Oscar Wilde was a one-hit literary wonder with his book, The Picture of Dorian Gray, because of the fact he only wrote one novel, his homosexuality in the 1800’s
Oscar Wilde, world renowned author and playwright, had much darker roots than one might expect. Born on October 16th, 1854, in Dublin, Ireland, Oscar was an acclaimed figure in Victorian literature and culture. Known for his brilliance, and boldness in his homosexuality, Wilde faced the arduous task of escaping society’s feeling of an ignominious punishment upon himself. Despite being mostly known as a poet and playwright, he has a published book, which is the only novel he ever wrote, that is now
Throughout the late nineteenth century, Oscar Wilde wrote plays such as Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest- his most famous play. Earnest is a comedic work that focuses on a pair of wealthy men. They have been leading double lives so that they can go off for periods of time and enjoy living without responsibility while still maintaining their aristocratic reputation. Because of Wilde’s invlovement in the aesthetic movement, it is
My English Literature major has helped me to achieve an outstanding level of appreciation, enjoyment, and knowledge of both American and British Literature. As a high school AP English student, I struggled through great works like Hamlet and To the Lighthouse. My teacher’s daily lectures (there was no such thing as class discussion) taught me merely to interpret the works as critics had in the past. I did not enjoy the reading or writing process. As a freshman at Loras, I was enrolled in the Critical
Mr. Hyde and Dorian Gray are characters that nearly match each other in their symbolism and manner. However, it is the key differences that make them remarkably interesting as a pair. They symbolize the battles between good and evil, though they have differing interpretations of morality. Mr. Hyde is the monstrous side of Dr. Jekyll from their book “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” In their story, Dr. Jekyll is a brilliant scientist who has created a formula that turns him into Mr. Hyde
Known for his flamboyant writing and life style Oscar Wilde is today one of the most well known European poets. Focusing on pursuing love, Oscar Wilde took time in his life developing poems based on his experiences with love. His different views of love are expressed in Her Voice, and The Ballad of Reading Gaol. Wilde grew up in a fairly wealthy family. As a young man Wilde attended the university of Oxford. While in college he published his first poetry collection in 1881. Wilde married Constance
In the Victorian era citizens valued respect and honor amongst themselves and focused the society towards propriety. Often, the very principles that this era built itself upon were contradicted and flawed, yet few chose to challenge the broken culture. Oscar Wilde, the scintillating and daring author, playwright, and poet of this strict time period, introduced his own way of writing that changed the world of literature forever. He became a leader for the aesthetic movement in the prudish society