Oscar Wilde's Earnest View of the Woman's Condition

“The Importance of Being Earnest” exists not only as a shining example of Oscar Wilde’s unmatchable wit, but as a seriously contemplative examination of human nature and social order. In this 1895 society comedy Wilde manages to challenge societal customs and norms that existed in the Victorian era, especially concerning those of gender roles. In “The Importance of Being Earnest” Wilde is able to express chiefly through the complex and varied female characters present in both implicit and explicit ways that there is a general lacking need for gendered roles to be so heavily present in the makeup of society. In doing so, Wilde also advocates for a more well-rounded view of women that was not common to perceive during the Victorian era.

The 1895 arrival of “The Importance of Being Earnest” occurred during a time of shift in English society where the rights of women were concerned, particularly their right to vote (Burnett). Just a year before the publication of the play a quarter of a million women signed a petition for the right for women to vote in England (Burnett). This organized movement for women’s equalization was a commonly discussed topic of the years leading up to when Wilde penned the play, and by including his opinion on the matter he was only “conforming to the fashionable discussion of his time” (Bastiat 259). The Victorian relevance of women’s suffrage and equality is why Wilde’s choice of including four female main characters in “The Importance of Being Earnest” all of which are associated with their own important, and individualizing qualities is worthy of analyzation.

The character of Gwendolyn Fairfax represents the shift in the modern Victorian woman that was occurring, which is first made apparent through her dignified sense of self. She quickly declares that she is “always smart” (Wilde 371) and whether she means this in a mental or physical sense, she is still sure of herself in a manner that would be considered uncommon for the time. She is also assertive, as she says things like “I am very aware of the fact” (373), sounding definite in a way that might have been as viewed as too forward before women began obtaining more freedoms. However, Gwendolyn still adheres to the traditions of the upper-class world in which she was brought up, causing her to appear in a limbo between being oppressed and liberated. She does not accept anything but fact, asserting that “most metaphysical speculations [have] very little reference at all to the actual facts of life” (374). Gwendolyn also expects the tradition associated with marriage as she says “I am afraid you have had very little experience in how to propose” (375). The aristocrat is a woman subjected to tradition but nonetheless proves that duality in expected gender roles can and does exist, as she does not subscribe to all of society’s cavalier but is her own individual instead.

Cecily Cardew is a representation of the entirely modern woman and has a similar sense of dignity to Gwendolyn’s on which her characteristics heavily rely. She immediately declares that she is “not little” as Algernon had called her, but instead is “more than usually tall for her age” (387). Cecily is told to have a “capital appetite” (380) and is studying various subjects that include that of political economy, which seems a pointed detail about her unconventionality and symbolic of her awareness of her own personal worth. Cecily shows a mastery of language and is adamant about how one should “speak fluently and not cough” (395), and often uses her wit to include untraditional remarks such as the idea that engagements are not serious “if it [hasn’t] been broken off at least once” (397). These traits are traditionally viewed as “male”, but Cecily practices them with such ease and grace that it thereby implies that Wilde is telling viewers not to be deceived by Cecily’s hyper-feminine characteristics and instead realize that these characteristics exist as one with the inherently male traits she exhibits.

Cecily’s caretaker Miss Prism is in a unique position that also mimics traditionally male roles in society’s structure. She is “remotely connected with education” (416), which she utilizes to educate Cecily. She is unmarried, and manages Jack Worthing’s estate without much help otherwise. However, because she is of a lower station and is a woman, she receives little appreciation for her efforts. She appears overlooked until the end of the play both in the characters and their views, and in Wilde’s writing of her otherwise. This blatant ignoring of her efforts in completing male duties seems to be included intentionally on Wilde’s part in order to highlight the fact that despite all she takes on; Miss Prism is not esteemed in her efforts.

Lady Bracknell, perhaps the most prominent and resolute female character is also the most explicit example of the lack of need for strict gender roles in Victorian society. Bracknell fully conforms to the rules of the aristocracy as she believes in customs such as arranged marriage (375), dress in accordance to societal import, and location of property (377). At the same time however, Bracknell defies typified female roles in society by standing in for her blatantly absent husband Lord Bracknell throughout the play while at the same time performing as a mother to Gwendolyn. Bracknell interviews Jack about his eligibility to marry Gwendolyn and through this interaction it is learned that she appears to be in control of familial finances, asking about Jack’s money being in “land or investments” (376). Moreover, in this interaction and in several other instances throughout the play Bracknell asserts her dominating nature, declaring such things as “modern education is radically unsound” (376) and expects for said statements to be accepted without question. As stated by Brigitte Bastiat “Lady Bracknell […] has the power of decision, the power of money, and the power of language” (259). Her character, while rooted in greed and cruelty, exemplifies an empowered woman who took on unorthodox roles of her era only to handle them devoutly.

If Wilde’s defiant female characters were not enough evidence of his attempt to comment on the unimportance of gender roles in this societal comedy, he also directly comments on the matter and gets away with the questions he raises through exaggerated dialogue. In one instance Gwendolyn says “how absurd to talk of the equality of the sexes! […] men are infinitely beyond us” (409). The declaration is laced with a perceivable amount of irony and dramatics as both Gwendolyn and Cecily fall into the men’s arms. Toward the end of the play Jack then exclaims “why should there be one law for men, and another for women?” (418), which serves as perhaps the most direct example of Wilde’s “questioning and mockery of both social and gender orders” (Bastiat 260). There is hardly reason to explain why Wilde would choose to include such explicit commentary on the subject of gendered roles in society had he not intended to plant the idea into the minds of his Victorian audience to make them question their own societal systems.

In “The Importance of Being Earnest” Oscar Wilde intentionally sets out to turn the norms and customs regarding women and their gendered roles on their head. While it may not be fair to consider the work purely feministic, Wilde nonetheless challenges the notion that women are only creatures to admire and pass off as exempt in benefitting society in any manner of actual substance. Instead, the notorious Wilde inadvertently implores the need to question societal standards and roles, an ideal that will continue to be relevant far beyond the century that has passed since the plays debut.