How Did Oscar Wilde Contribute In Society

In ‘The Important of Being Earnest’, Oscar Wilde's ridiculing representation of Victorian Society comments on the ridiculous behavior of the Victorian Society’s inability to recognise the difference between important and unimportant issues. Therefore, Oscar Wilde subverts Victorian values to mock and imply triviality and superficiality. Wilde forces the audience to rethink the importance of their life and how they act while also scrutinizing the ignorance of the characters in upper class society through mocking their morals and obsessive fascinations. Wilde's uses the inversion of what isn’t serious and what is to ridicule Victorian Society. Despite this, Wilde wanted to create something beautiful and superficial. Hence, it would be more

Throughout mankind, there have been plenty of time where disobedience has lead to  greater changes for humanity. Author Oscar Wilde once stated “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history. Is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience and rebellion.” Wilde’s statement claims that disobedience is a trait that every human possesses, disobedience is the reason society is so developed. As history has shown us, humans have never been satisfied when there is a higher power over them. For this reason, it is through disobedience and rebellion that social progress has been made.

Human beings possess several virtues that differentiate them from other creatures and can use them in ways that represent their perceptions of social order. Surprisingly, Oscar Wilde believes that disobedience is an original virtue of every human and that it is responsible for progress and development. While Wilde’s claim is not entirely accurate, it is largely valid as evidenced by the recent events across the world, including the US, that have led to positive outcomes in spite of being termed and perceived as acts of disobedience.

Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest. The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Alison Booth, et al. 9th ed. New York: Norton, 2005. 1879-21.

Wilde’s lifestyle may have caused him to be snubbed in certain social situations.   It maybe that he drew on his own experiences to create the atmosphere of scandal in the last chapters, even though, other than murder, the protagonist’s “sins” are never named and only briefly alluded to.

Upon his return to England in 1883, Wilde began lecturing on his experiences in America. This is how he came to meet Constance Lloyd, whom he later married on May 29, 1884. The couple had two children together. However, the marriage began to have problems after Wilde met Canadian, Robert Ross, which "began his involvement in the disordered, destructive homosexual lifestyle so luridly suggested in The Picture of Dorian Gray and catalogued in his sensational trials" (Stayley 318). Robert Ross forced Wilde to confront the homosexual tendencies that he had been trying desperately to suppress. A whole new world opened for Wilde, and his only resource in which to channel this new energy was through his literary works.

Oscar Wilde was a figurehead for a larger cause in the late nineteenth century. His reality crumbled under the cognitive dissonance of the high-class aristocrats and their struggle to find any reason to overthrow those who are cognizant enough to see and react to said dissonance. What are best known as the Wilde trials, consisted of using completely fictional literature as evidence to real events. Wilde’s novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray was a tool used to undermine Wilde’s authority and testimony about his personal romantic encounters. While, the book may hold status as a revolutionary novel about exploring ideas, the Victorians did not think as much once they took a closer look. Once a popular novel about high-class society soon became an object of severe scrutiny and libel for the author. The Victorians began to change how they perceived the entire English language. The aesthetics that they once sought after were now being thrown into question.

Oscar Wilde was on the only person who predicted the Civil War. He was just seven when it started, and it would forever impact the way he looks at rebellious events for the rest of his life. The Civil War was a Civil Disobedience that the Southern states started and in the end, that certain right would not come to be after the war ended. Oscar’s exposure with the idea of civil disobedience was first seen by the Civil War. My exposure to Civil Disobedience was from certain events that also would become to be know as “history”, from that I know that Civil Disobedience is a prominent way of creating progress and development in a society.

In The Picture of Dorian Grey, Oscar Wilde explores the importance of physical appearances, and its relations to success in society. “Dorian experiences the psychic transformation and gradually ends up in self-destruction after alienating his self-identification” (Zhang). Wilde writes about how his main character, Dorian Grey, explores and learns about the philosophical elements of life and mortality. “To him, man was a being with myriad lives and myriad sensations, a complex multiform creature that bore within itself strange legacies of thought and passion, and whose very flesh was tainted with the monstrous maladies of the dead” (Wilde 150). Oscar Wilde is able to create a fictional world that explores many controversial issues present in real life. Wilde uses the development of his characters to discuss his opinions on several different matters relating to beauty, mortality, and the supernatural.

Background Oscar Wilde grew up in a household of successful parents. Wilde’s father, William Wilde, was a famous eye surgeon. His mother, Jane Francesca Elgee, was a profound writer (Pearson, 15). They both had an impact on his fame and achievements. He grew up with two siblings, Willie, his older brother, and Isola, his little sister.

Throughout his life Oscar Wilde had many strong influences exerted upon him. During his early childhood his mother influenced him and into college some of his professors and certain philosophers left a substantial impression upon him. Into adulthood these influences leaked out in his writing. These influences gave him ample ideas for writing The Picture of Dorian Gray. Wilde's study of the Hellenistic ideals of Epicurus, his coddled lifestyle as a child and his devotion to the movement of Aesthetics and Moral Ambiguity have produced one of the most astounding works of horror fiction.

John Lahr, a critic of the famous author and playwright Oscar Wilde, once claimed, “To stand out in Victorian culture,Wilde had to stand against it.” Wilde definitely did not conform to the society by which he was surrounded; being an aesthetic homosexual was not the typical or ideal Victorian man. His distaste for the era he lived in is seen clearly in his humorous play The Importance of Being Earnest. Wilde was personally judged and outcasted by his own society, which caused him to mock his audience and argue that the Victorian Era was not as virtuous as those of that time attempted to appear. He uses this piece of writing as an opportunity to not only stand against and disprove the Victorian ideals, but to persuade his audience to realize

Oscar Wilde was born in the height victorian age. His dad was a doctor tell he died. His mother who wrote under an alias for an irish newspaper called The Nation until it was raided in 1848 and had to close. He had 5 siblings, Willie Wilde, Mary wilde, Emile Wilde, Isola Wilde, and Henry Wilde. He has been rich and poor all his life and today he has been remembered for all the good he did and all the bad.

In life it’s not about counting the years but instead making the years count. Kevin McElroyIn The Picture of Dorian Gray, the author Oscar Wilde relays the message to the reader that youth decays with age but value and beauty does not. The character Dorian Gray mourned his stage of youth through the portrait instead of having cherished the times he experienced. This use of symbolism through the portrait is Wilde 's way of expressing this theme. This main symbol is the portrait itself as the author uses it to gradually reveal Dorian’s true identity. Dorian Gray is an attractive figure on the outside, but on the inside there is an obsessive and selfish person. These inner qualities eventually lead to his murderous acts and overall self-destruction.

Throughout the years, there have been many people have tried to come up with their own ideas for life that have failed. Some may have been closer to the truth than others. Many writers expressed these theories of theirs in their writings, creating a large amount of literature reflecting their anomalous opinions. The Dubliner Oscar Wilde portrayed his hedonistic struggles his writings. Hedonism tainted Wilde’s life and was thoroughly reflected in his writings. These hedonistic views are painted across his countless essays. Weighed with this bondage Wilde postponed a long needed conversion. Struggling with these difficulties right up to the end. Extravagance occupied Wilde’s stories in the form of hedonism. All of Oscar Wilde’s writings reflect his life in a personal way most largely in the aspect of Wilde’s hedonism also his torn conscience was greatly reflected in them too (Pearce 241; Ellmann 66).