The Misunderstood Legacy Of Oscar Wilde

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.

Oscar Wilde’s play entitled “The Importance of Being Earnest” illustrates the concept of dual personality, fantasy, love, and lies. Jack, Algernon, Gwendolyn, and Cecily all live in lies. They are manipulated by their fantasies and desire for perfect relationship and love. Jack, the protagonist in the play, is the root of lies because of his imaginary brother named Earnest. Algernon uses the name to win Cecily, while Gwendolyn and Cecily are both fascinated by this name because it expresses strength and perfection of manhood. Due to their search and desire to have Earnest, the male and female characters escape from the reality. Therefore, Wilde in The Importance of Being Earnest portrays a gender doubled

In the book, The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, there is a character named Lord Henry Wotton. He is the story's antagonist and whom critics often think most resembles Oscar Wilde. Wilde remarks "Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks of me: Dorian what I would like to be-in other ages perhaps." Within the preface of The Picture Of Dorian Gray, there lie the lines "Those who go beneath the symbol do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their own peril." From Wilde's statement, we can assume that there is a part of Wilde represented in each of the main characters, but how they represent him is up for the reader to decide.

One might believe that honesty is one of the building blocks of a society and is what initiates trust between people; furthermore, the Victorian era was a time period in British history where rules and morals appeared to be strict. The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde, a nineteenth century author who was one of the most acclaimed playwrights of his day, is a play set in the Victorian time period that demonstrates how trivial telling the truth was. Different characters throughout Wilde’s play establish their dishonestly through hiding who they really are and pretending to be someone whom they are not. In an essay titled “From ‘Oscar Wilde’s Game of Being Earnest,’” Tirthankar Bose describes the characters from The Importance of Being Earnest as playing games with one another, which is a result of the deceit that was present in the play. Although the Victorian time period is a time characterized by strong morals and values, The Importance of Being Earnest proves this notion to not apply to telling the truth and ultimately questions why truth is not valued in the Victorian time period amongst other strictly upheld values. Honesty is not valued throughout the play because some of the characters felt to need to appear as if they represented the strict morals that were common throughout the time period.

         The novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, written by Oscar Wilde originally appeared in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine in 1890.  It was then published in 1891, in book form, containing six additional chapters with revisions. The first reviews of Dorian Gray were mostly unfavorable.  It was condemned for its speculative treatment  of immoral or at least uncomfortable subjects. A review in the St. James’s Gazette by Samuel Henry Jeyes, journalist and biographer was titled "‘A Study in Puppydom."   Jeyes refers to Wilde’s idle, “effeminate” characters in the book and writes: “The puppies appear to fill up the intervals of talk by plucking daisies and playing with them, and

    "I turned half way around and saw Dorian Gray for the first time. I knew that I had come face to face with someone whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself" (7). During the Victorian era, this was a dangerous quote. The Victorian era was about progress. It was an attempt aimed at cleaning up the society and setting a moral standard. The Victorian era was a time of relative peace and economic stability (Marshall 783). Victorians did not want anything "unclean" or "unacceptable" to interfere with their idea of perfection. Therefore, this quote, taken from Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray,

Wilde presents a very resourceful platform for public criticism and debate through the clever use of is characters’ personalities and opinions. Friends Jack and Algernon represent a second then triviality through their acts and notions of a desire to be christened in the name of Ernest to gain the affections of two likewise paradoxical women; Gwendolyn and Cecily. On page 40, Jack asserts, “I would like to be christened myself…” before obviously claiming that he has no recollection any previous christening like that of every other infant at the time (Wilde, 40). Later on page 47, Algernon enquires about ten very same rectors and expresses his urgency to be christened the same name of this Ernest (Wilde, 47). The hand-in-hand involvement names and christening an excessive need to display one’s 'public’ nature as good, honest men, which,

The characters in the play are the primary source of the humor and irony. In Otto Reinert’s “Satiric Strategy in the Importance of Being Earnest” he points out that, “Wilde's basic formula for satire is their (the characters) assumption of a code of behavior that represents the reality that Victorian convention pretends to ignore” (Reinert 15). The main character, Jack Worthing, is a prime example of this. To function in society he creates an alter-ego named Ernest. This way, he can be “Ernest in town and Jack in the country” (Wilde 1737). Jack represents his conventional Victorian side – he has responsibility as a guardian in the country, where it is his “duty” to “adopt a very high moral tone on all subjects” (Wilde 1738). Ernest, however, enables Jack to throw away his real life troubles and act carelessly, something he could never do as Jack. The dual nature of his character satirizes the hypocrisy in conventional Victorian

The Importance of Being Earnest, written by a fascinating Oscar Wilde reveals a story of social class and hierarchy during the roaring Victorian time period (1837-1901). Focusing his writing on the social classes, the play becomes comical when he exposes the flaws held by the upper class during this time. Wilde saw earnestness as being a key ideal in Victorian culture for much of British society struck Wilde as dry, stern, conservative, and so “earnestly” concerned with the maintenance of social norms and the status quo that it had become almost inhuman. This play depicts certain characters that conform so easily to the conventional social status and characteristics of the Victorian culture. Such characters include Algernon, Jack, Cecily, and Gwendolyn. These characters introduce many themes that focus on the Victorian lifestyle, primarily the issues of being “earnest” and one’s own morality.

The play, The Importance of Being Earnest, written by Oscar Wilde is about two young gentlemen named Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, who have taken on imaginative alter egos. Jack Worthing pretended to be his younger brother, Ernest, in order to leave his boring life in the country, and to propose to Gwendolyn Fairfax. Algernon Moncrieff also takes on the name, Ernest, in order to meet Jack Worthing’s young and pretty ward, Cecily Cardew. Things begin to take a turn for the worst when Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff run into each other at Jack Worthing’s estate in the country and their deceptive schemes are discovered.

Everyone disobeys at one point in their life. They either lie to their parents or hide something from a friend or talk back to a teacher. No one in the world is perfect. In 1891,an Irish author by the name of Oscar Wilde once stated,” Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made and through rebellion.”

Wilde uses the satirical devices travesty and irony in order to portray marriage negatively. Through his use of satire, one can infer that Wilde sees marriage as a hindrance and a task that society seems to be obsessed with. In Act 1, the proposal scene is shown. After Gwendolen and Jack admit that they have feelings for each other, Jack states that they should get married at once, but Gwendolen decides that Jack must properly propose first. The use of travesty is present here when the meaningful act of proposing to someone is constructed to be comical. Jack asks Gwendolen if he may propose to her. When most individuals wish to propose, they do not usually ask for permission first. Once Jack does propose, Gwendolen asks as though she is surprised and asks, “How long have you been about it!” (line 360). Through the way that Jack and Gwendolen conduct themselves, marriage can be perceived as trivial, when it is actually a significant act because a person is committing to a life with another individual. This shows that Wilde does not agree with marriage and it is not to be taken as seriously as society treats it today.

Homoeroticism and Defiance of Victorian Values in Oscar Wilde's The Portrait of Mr. W.H. Oscar Wilde once satirically said, "Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everybody in good society holds exactly the same opinions. " Rather than hold the same opinions as those in good Victorian society, he boldly challenges them. Oscar Wilde parallels the relationships of Shakespeare, Michelangelo and other revered historical intellectuals with his relationship to Lord Alfred Douglas in his work, The Portrait of Mr. W.H., and during his criminal trial. Through these parallels, Wilde attempts to normalize and justify his homosexuality in a time of rampant homophobia, forcing the examination of self-expression, through writing and speech, as a tool of defiance.

Being one of the most famous plays written by Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest is a romantic comedy that makes good use of the conflicts of characters to deal with themes such as marriage, social class and hypocrisy. There are two different types of conflict to drive plot and capture audience attention in a story: internal and external conflict. The former concerns a character’s emotional, moral or ideological dilemma within his own mind; the latter concerns a character’s struggle against an opposing view from another character, society or the nature. In fact, in The Importance of Being Earnest, by increasing the story’s tension and enhancing character development, the internal and external conflicts of Jack Worthing contribute