Interplanetary Theory Of Gender In The Picture Of Dorian Grey By Oscar Wilde

During the Victorian period, upper and middle class men and women existed in different spheres of life: the private sphere, and the public sphere. The private sphere, which included taking care of the home, entertaining guests, and raising children was dominated by women. Meanwhile men were superior in the public sphere, where they took part in politics and business. This lead to the archetypes of women being fragile and motherly, controlled by their emotions, and of men being rational and strong. Social norms, supported by laws, viewed women as “relative creatures” that were below men in the natural hierarchy and only defined in reference to men. These two ideas towards women created a gap of equality for women and constricted them to their sphere of domesticity. The suffrage movement, followed by the first and second waves of feminism gave rise to many civil rights for women, narrowing the gap of inequality. The quest for equality continues today, as these two spheres begin to merge, due to the rise in social media and the subsequent decreasing private life, and women gain more influence in the public sphere. While the forms of inequality are different and an issue for both genders, the Victorian ideas are still present and prominent today.

    The Victorian period in American history spawned a certain view of women that in many ways has become a central part of gender myths still alive today, although in a diluted way.

He believed such attitudes and symptoms of women to be caused by an abnormal shift of the uterus in a woman’s body. Unfortunately, these beliefs carried over into the Victorian era. A woman in Victorian society was to be the caretaker and nurturer of husband, child and household, all the while expected to remain active in women’s society. Many women’s clubs literary groups and associations became popular during this time because of this expectation. Women were thought to have no sexual desires and were told from a very young age that such thoughts were unnatural. Women and men played traditional roles and it was the popular (male) opinion at the time that there should be 2 separate spheres in which men and women operate. According to the Victorian male, a woman was to have no greater aspirations than motherhood and marriage this was the woman’s private sphere. The Public sphere which was the man’s domain included commerce, work outside the home and

For those reasons and many others, the lack of education available and allowed for women caused their states of minds to be undeveloped. </span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:2.4;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:27px;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;"> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Societal rights were another factor that shaped women's minds and were a detriment to them during the Victorian era. Some societal rights in today's society are the right to education, right to housing, right to adequate standard of living, right to health and the right to science and culture (dictionary.com). In a recent acclaimed paper, (author) said, &quot; During the Victorian era, men and women searched for an ideal relationship based on the expectations of a demanding

Mill’s Subject of Women clearly reflected his views that society did not know what women were capable of because so much was forbidden to them. He felt that society did not let them try. Queen Victoria while held up as an example as a great ruler, was the archetype of the perfect ideal woman, wife, mother, and Queen but still a woman to be guided by society's dictates and the rule of her husband. Mill’s argued that the subordination of women to that of men was wrong, it hindered the growth of society and should be replaced with a system of equality (Mill 1121-1129).

Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ and Neil Jordan’s ‘Interview with a Vampire’ are gothic narrations that incorporate the themes of sensuality and hedonism. Although the texts do not contain any explicit statements of homoeroticism, the suggestive narration, allusions and imagery, camera angles and music highlight the homoerotic feelings between men. While Wilde does not mention any homosexual acts explicitly, the element of homoeroticism is described within the competition for Dorian’s attention. Dorian is described through allusions to be likened to Adonis; a creature who looks as if ‘he were made of ivory and rose-leaves.’

Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray has several major preoccupations which are integral in understanding the depths in which it goes in formulating its central message. The novel presents itself almost as an essay, with a preface concluding with the statement “All art is quite useless” (Wilde 4). From this preface, to its conclusion, it deals with the role of art as catharsis for the artist; however, not only as a release of emotion, but also as a “closet” for the artist’s innermost desires. The novel literally expresses this through its first lines, “The artist is the creator of beautiful things / to reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim” (Wilde 3). Thus, art acts as a vehicle to conceal that which the person truly yearns and

The author documents Professor Ellis Hanson’s interpretations of The Importance of Being Earnest. Hanson notes that Wilde mocks marriage and satirizes the decay of lying. He also suggests that Wilde’s use of “Ernest,” which has multiple meanings, can be viewed as a “homosexual double entendre.” Hanson’s views are novel and interesting. And since he is an English professor at Cornell University, he is also credible. I hope to use this source to provide more examples of how Wilde uses his cynicism to “criticize elements of Victorian society.”

The film used for my assignment caught my attention for illustrating a man that would be considered a superstar for our time. Staged in the Victorian era, Wild’s artistic love for beauty is shown through his work in novels, poems playwrights and handsome men. In the beginning of the scene where he meets Constance (wife) ,a lady is shown asking what made Oscar so important? The other lady responds “he is known for being himself. As the movie continues viewers are able to see what made Wilde different from many of the other men during this time. The film depicts the subject of homosexuality and considered a crime against societies order. Social concerns of homosexually were seen as a taboo and those convicted served time. Throughout his marriage

Looking back on Oscar Wilde 's life, there are many realizations that he struggled finding something that suited him best with his type of work. A man of the 19th century, who is best known for his only novella The Picture of Dorian Gray and his play The Importance of Being Earnest as well as his infamous arrest, imprisonment and being a gay author leading to his downfall. Oscar Wilde who was known as a playwright, author, sometime poet, and also a not very motivated school student, still came to success. He was very talented, intelligent and aesthetically interested and looked at others works as influential. Using this influence he started to write his own works and became a successful and well known author.

He was slightly ahead of his time. Those deciding his court case were stuck in the century’s previous historical and religious beliefs while “Wilde seem[ed] to stand more obviously at the beginning of a peculiarly modern sense of personal identity as a form of political affiliation, rather than at the back end of the Victorian era” (Joyce, p 513). Wilde stood trial for going against the public norm. His homosexual behaviors were seen as deviant and aberrant. Why would he want anything outside of his marriage and children? How could anyone want more than that? The societal standards of the Victorian era perceived these questions as objective. However, this case was a rare display of the full force of the English government trial system taking place. Rarely were individuals convicted of this crime (between 8-12 a year in the 1840’s) and most were not high-class citizens. “Wilde was the darling of London society” before his arrest. It was common knowledge that he was a sexually fluid person (Adut, 214). The Picture of Dorian Gray was a widely well liked novel before Wilde’s arrest and not until later was it seen as a deviant work filled with homosexuality, or better known during that time as homophilia. Londoners knew of Wilde’s proclivity for years, however they only rejected his presence once this information was seen as negative in the news.

When first published in 1890, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray was considered to be “scandalous and immoral” by Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine because of the homosexuality displayed in the story. During the time the book form of the story was released, Wilde started engaging in affairs with another man as his marriage was failing. The Picture of Dorian Gray reflects Wilde’s shifting sexuality during the 1890s through Dorian Gray’s relationship with Basil Hallward and Lord Henry Wotton.

During the Victorian era, women began challenging their exclusion from the patriarchy more fiercely. While laws and customs still enforced the female dependency upon men, some men were also rallying behind the women’s fight for equality. “The Subjection of Women” by John Stuart Mill was chosen by the suffrage movement to be the “definitive analysis” of women in society (Greenblatt 1104). The question of morality helped Mill make his argument about the legal treatment of women, “The legal subordination of one sex to the other-- is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement” (Mill 1105). In this selection, Mill also mentions that men do not want their relationships to only be out of obedience, since it was deemed morally right, and instead would prefer women who are connected to their men, “Men do not want solely the obedience of women, they want their sentiments. All men, except the most brutish, desire to have, in the woman most nearly connected with them, not a forced slave but a willing one…” (Mill

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).

The Victorian Era took place during 1837- 1901 and is known as Queen Victoria’s time period. She was the first English monarch to see her name given to a time period while living. It was a time of rapid advances in scientific, technological and medical knowledge, and even population growth. Although Victorian England was based around the ideals of proper etiquette and maintaining “high society”, the treatment of women during the Victorian Era highlights the contradictions of this time.