Wilde 's Early Life, Marriage, Works, Later Years

Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband Oscar Wilde (1845-1903) lived an outrageous and controversial life which was well publicized and condemned, as his life defied the strict social mores of the time. He was put into this public position due to the success of his plays which challenged Victorian earnestness while being hilariously funny. His plays, in particular An Ideal Husband, 1895 portray Victorian society as viciously hypocritical at it's worst and laughably pretentious at it's best. Wilde expressed this point of view in An Ideal Husband through the rich use of plot development, construction of characters, dramatic irony, hyperbole, witty and epigrammatic repartee and satire.

Write an essay that argues your position on the extent to which Wilde’s claims are valid.

         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

The playwriter Oscar Wilde sexual philosophies are reinforced throughout his play, The Importance of Being Ernest. Wilde’s characters and choices of stage direction evoke a tone of sexuality and deviance. The characters’ social belief’s and identities are in parallel with the Literary Queer Theory on many key points.

Carnegie Hall- A concert hall in New York City where Mia Hall, a cellist, is playing a show. It is a surprise to Adam Wilde, upcoming rock star, to see the sign outside the concert hall. He has known Mia for years. Adam buys a ticket to the concert, and Mia invites him backstage, where they speak for the first time in three years.

At the time he delivered his lecture on Chatterton, Oscar Wilde’s career was transforming. He was transitioning from the performances he had honed during four solid years of addressing countless audiences and was developing, with greater energy than ever before, his profile as an accomplished author, critic, and editor. His discovery of Chatterton stands at the center of these changes. Paying close attention to Chatterton enabled Wilde to understand that the astonishing inventiveness of the Rowley forgeries evinced the imaginative impulse that inspired the finest forms of imaginative literature. Exploiting the links between imagination, authenticity, and truth, Chatterton’s artistic originality arose in fabrications that conjured a literary past that historically never existed.

    "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,

On May 19th, 1864 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of such stories as The Scarlet Letter, Young Goodman Brown, and The Birthmark dies of an unknown cause. He was 59 years old. During the latter part of his life the once active Hawthorne’s health began to decline for mysterious reasons. He wrote little during the final years of his life, and what he did write was often little more than incoherent babbling. It was clear the once brilliant Nathaniel Hawthorne was not in full possession of his mental faculties.

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.

Wilde has purposely presented society as being enslaved through the theme of age. These were major themes throughout the novel as Dorian is a character who struggled to understand what type of person he wanted to be. " If it were I to always be young and the picture to grow old" The fact that two complete opposites 'young' and 'old' are in the same line creates a stark contrast. Dorian is clinging onto his youthful side and escaping the other. This shows Dorian's desperation with remaining young.

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.

Oscar Wilde’s play, The Importance of Being Earnest; A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is best described as such, a trivial comedy for serious people. Wilde’s play is structured through the influences of social drama and farce. This play was written in 1895 during the Victorian era where an expected behavior governed all areas of life including sexuality and frivolity. Oscar Wilde’s own sexuality is historically well-known as he was married to a woman, but partook in sexual relations with men (“Oscar Wilde”). This play was birthed during the midst of pressures that Wilde experienced in balancing his marital life and precariously trying to maintain his homosexual proclivities. Wilde’s response to the English aristocracy, in all its arrogance,

In conclusion Wilde teaches us that, “Love and sacrifice can endear to God.” We find out that the Happy Prince is actually not a happy prince. The reason why the townspeople name him the happy prince is because of the smile that was put on him as he stands so high on the pedestal. Wilde uses figurative language throughout the short story only to spice up his writing and he finishes with making one or the reader think of they way people lives are being lived. He makes us think about the way we judge someone based of their facial expressions or body gestures.

The seemingly happy ending doesn’t represent what true fairy-tale happy endings are supposed to be. For instance, in the final scene of the play, both Algernon and Jack get to be with the girl of their dreams. Throughout the play, Algernon used his upper class privileges to manipulate the rules and norms of the society. He ignored the moral ramifications of his actions because he knew that his wealth and position on the social ladder would excuse his wrong-doings. Even so, Wilde almost directly rewards Algernon by allowing him to marry Cecily. The ironic incongruity of the plot-twisted ending suggests a fabricated happy ending that seems to excuse the aristocracy for their faults, simply because of their upper class. Wilde purpose in this is

The genre of comedy, throughout the history of dramatic art has always served to not only entertain audiences, but to make them aware of their own individual flaws, or flaws that exist in society. (Weitz, E.) Comedy has no precise definition, and its boundaries are broad. One function of comedy however has remained the same - to hold up a mirror to the society of the time but through pleasure, inviting audiences to reflect and also providing amusement. Set in the late nineteenth century, the play An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde (1895) epitomises comedy, as both a literary and dramatic genre. Wilde was masterful in his ability to combine aspects of evolved comedic traditions and dramatic conventions to critique Victorian society. Drawing on characteristics of Greek and Roman tragicomedy, the choices in the play’s plot involves elements of tragedy as well as scenes that serve as comic relief and give the audience a sense of finality through a happy resolution. (Bureman, L) Focussing on the upper class stratum, Wilde employs a comedy of manners Molière style, of the Restoration Period in the seventeenth century in the play by combining forms of comedy with aspects of realist drama. The portrayal of archetypal figures such as Lady Chiltern and Lord Goring satirize rigid moral value of the time and expose their hypocrisies, through dialogue involving irony, wit and humour. Elements of farce and disguises characterized by ‘commedia dell’arte’, a form of comedy first developed in