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Essay 2 - Victorian Era
Essay 2 - Victorian Era
Essay 2 - Victorian Era
Mrs Gatfield
12 February 2021
fairly recent. It became a very big topic of interest in Western Europe and British literature.
During the time that it first arose, the idea was that men created society, ruled society, viewed
through the eyes of men, and was judged by men. The feminist movement was first introduced
into literature in the 1960’s. Women had been writing and publishing literature for centuries, but
it was during this time that the feminist literature thoery arose. Up until this idea came alone, all
of the writing of women, or about women, were from the viewpoints of men. Women were
accepting of the ideas that men had on them, such as being unintelligent or less educated than
men. It wasn’t until the feminist movement that women started to re-evaluate these standards and
ideas on how women were portrayed in literature and start to develop the concept of “modern
women”. “The feminist approach is based on finding suggestions of misog- yny (negative
attitudes toward women) within pieces of literature and exposing them. Feminists are interested
in exposing the undervaluing of women in literature that has been accepted as the norm by both
men and women”(Richardson 2021) Many of these feminist ideas were shown in British
literature mulitlple times. One of these books being The Importance of Being Earnest. This is
shown with Algernon’s views on marriage, the relationship and engagement between Jack and
life are very strange. One of these being his view on love and marriage. Algernon does not like
marriage. He hates it when married people flirt in public. He feels you need a way out of
marriage before your partner gets one first. Algernon views marriage as business instead of
pleasure. He feels that proposing is pointless and most people view this as unromantic and
demeaning. He feels that the most alluring aspect of marriage is the physical aspect. This is very
demeaning towards women, because they are more than just their looks.
ALGERNON-“In the third place, I know perfectly well whom she will place me next to,
to-night. She will place me next Mary Farquhar, who always flirts with her own husband
across the dinner-table. That is not very pleasant. Indeed, it is not even decent . . . and
that sort of thing is enormously on the increase. The amount of women in London who
flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing
one’s clean linen in public. Besides, now that I know you to be a confirmed Bunburyist I
naturally want to talk to you about Bunburying. I want to tell you the rules” (Act 1).
This shows that Algernon believes that when married people flirt in public, especially the
women, it is scandalous and not pleasant for anyone. He feels that no one should be doing it, and
it reflects bad views on their marriage towards people. He says that you need a way out of
marriage or your relationship, and you need to think of one before your partner does. And he can
Gwendolen and Jack both want to marry each other but neither of them have any real reason to
marry them. Gwendolen only likes Jack because his name is Ernest. Jack has more of a physical
“JACK. My own one, I have never loved any one in the world but you.”
GWENDOLEN. “Yes, but men often propose for practice. I know my brother Gerald
does. All my girl-friends tell me so. What wonderfully blue eyes you have, Ernest! They
are quite, quite, blue. I hope you will always look at me just like that, especially when
Gwendolen is showing how much of a flirt she is to Jack. She clearly won’t take her marriage to
him seriously unless he is continuously giving her attention. She will flatter and compliment him
to get what she wants. She wants public adoration and everything to be about her. She is taking
the feminism aspect and doing a complete one-eighty to give her power over Ernest.
A final way that feminism is shown in this story is between Lady Bracknell and Lady
Harbury. After Lady Harbury’s husband dies, Lady Bracknell is quick to give her opinion on it.
But, she is very fake and passive aggressive when stating it. She hints at some of the situation
when talking to Algernon. But it also reveals a lot about how Lady Harbury feels about her
marriage. It also can show us how some other women viewed their marriages at the time.
LADY BRACKNELL.- ”I’m sorry if we are a little late, Algernon, but I was obliged to
call on dear Lady Harbury. I hadn’t been there since her poor husband’s death. I never
saw a woman so altered; she looks quite twenty years younger. And now I’ll have a cup
of tea, and one of those nice cucumber sandwiches you promised me” (Act 1)
This is showing that she didn’t really care about her marriage and wanted a way out of her
relationship. She has moved on too fast. Lady Bracknell says that she looks twenty years
younger because she is jealous of her, and wants that in her own life. This can also show us a
little bit about Lady Bracknell’s marriage, and how she sees it. She doesn’t want to be in a
relationship, and feels anger. Lady Bracknell is very fake and oppressive towards Lady Harbury.
Feminism is a very important and well known idea, and it has been around for a long
time. Some of the views and definitions of feminism have strayed from the original idea of
women wanting to be equal with men. But, we can still look back on older literature to help us
see how it was used and represented. Feminism was shown many times throughout The
Importance of Being Earnest. I feel that it was a very good reflection of what was happening
during this time, but being that it is a satire, it was a little over-exaggerated. But, the main ideas
still stayed the same. Feminism was shown through Algernon’s views on marriage, the
relationship and engagement between Jack and Gwendolen, and Lady Bracknell’s comments on
Lady Harbury. This can help us today to understand how an author’s point of view or literary
criticism approach can affect their writing and give personal opinion to it. It can also affect the
reader and how the reader is going to read it and view it.
Citations
Richardson, Eva. “Prestwick House Multiple Critical Perspectives™.” Teaching Oscar
Wilde, Oscar, et al. The Importance of Being Earnest. Pearson Education, 2010.