Oscar Wilde

Everytime I read The Importance of Being Earnest, it seems absurd to me that the socialites of Wilde’s day were not at all outraged by the mockery of themselves and their society which makes up essentially the entirety of the tragicomedy. There was, I’m sure, some blowback from those who watched the play, but it seems that Earnest did very well, as it is widely considered to be Wilde’s best, and most famous production. I suppose it is likely because the play is rarely biting or direct in its criticism of the upper class that it gets away with all of its mockery, and I imagine a good bit of it went over many of the audience members’ heads at the time it was first put to stage. 

Despite this play clearly being a parody of the ridiculous restrictions and expectations of upper class life in England, I believe that Wilde also intended to poke fun at himself with The Importance of Being Earnest. I think this can be seen in his insert character, Algernon Moncrieff, who, like most of Wilde’s other insert characters, relentlessly mocks the society he is living in, much to the general confusion of those around him. A line that stands out to me is, after Algernon states his apathy concerning societal standards, Aunt Augusta retorts, “Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that.” While Augusta as a character is clearly a mockery of high society, I feel there is some truth that can be extracted from her words here, and it may be that Wilde is admitting a bit of hypocrisy on his part, that he openly mocks high society while taking an active part in it on a regular basis. Overall, while The Importance of Being Earnest serves to mock the social elite of Wilde’s day, it would seem that Wilde is not completely ignorant to the fact that, by most definitions, he himself belongs to that group himself. 

I’ve read Oscar Wilde’s play The Importance of Being Earnest three times. The first was in high school for a drama class. We read the play, and then were put into pairs to prepare and perform a scene for the play. The second time was for a theatre class at Notre Dame. We both read and watched a recording of the play to talk about staging and costumes. The third time was for this class, and it’s the only time that I’ve read the play with a specific focus on Oscar Wilde.

If I’m being totally honest, I have a hard time with this play. The first time I read it, I knew that it was considered a great comedy and I didn’t understand what I was missing because I did not find it funny at all. There were witty lines, but nothing that made me laugh out loud and, if anything, I was more annoyed by Wilde’s witticism than amused by it. I had a similar reaction the second time that I read it, and, at this point, think that that is just the way that I react to reading this play.

However, I loved watching the play. That was when the comedy really clicked with me, and I understood why people love The Importance of Being Earnest so much. The Importance of Being Earnest is so farcical and a lot of the comedy is physical. Even though it’s not slapstick, moments like when Cecily gives Gwendolen the opposite of what she asks for at the tea party thrive when you can see the actors make the decision or react to what has happened.

The difference in my reaction to reading versus watching (or even performing a scene) The Importance of Being Earnest made me think about theatre in general and the way in which we approach studying plays. I act in my free time, and there is a lot of value with sitting with a script and really thinking through the language. I think it requires you to move slowly and notice things you might otherwise skim over. However, I think it is equally important to consume art as it was designed to be consumed. Plays are written to be watched and performed, and it is in that setting when they really soar. Plays come to life when they are put onstage, so in order to develop a full opinion of a play, I think it is most fair to watch it and then to go back to the script to read through key moments.

My outlook on this question is shaped by the fact that I have been involved with theatre for most of my life, and the setting in which I have read The Importance of Being Earnest has always–until now–been in a drama class. I may be missing a key element of reading plays that a person coming at it from a different perspective may see.

Throughout Dorian Gray, I found the presentation of art to be incredibly interesting. Basil and Harry seem to fight over Dorian as opposing artistic forces. On a larger scale, Basil and Harry’s work and its relationship to Dorian may reflect Wilde’s larger body of work. 

For example, Basil’s relationship with Dorian emphasizes meaning. Basil worships Dorian’s appearance and recreates his image in his artwork. Against his better judgment, Basil reveals himself completely in his work. Just by looking at his painting, his feelings towards Dorian are apparent. One can look through the exterior to find depth without trying. Basil may represent one aspect of Wilde’s creative process and philosophy, which yearns for meaning.

Meanwhile, Harry’s influence on Dorian shows a conflicting artistic urge. Harry’s quick quips are impressive on the exterior but contain nothing of value. He insists that the book he gives Dorian is nothing but a well-written book, with no true meaning or message. The artist puts nothing beyond the surface, yet Dorian takes Harry’s remarks and the book he recommends incredibly seriously. After Harry gives Dorian the book, Dorian obsesses over it, buying copies in different colors to suit his mood. He views the work as predicting his own life and often accuses Harry of poisoning him. 

This difference between Basil’s style of providing art and Harry’s style of providing art resembles the range of Wilde’s work. When we talked about Wilde’s Happy Prince tales as outliers in Wilde’s work, we considered that they may not mean anything at all. Like Dorian’s reaction to Harry’s influence, those trying to find meaning in these stories may be digging for something nonexistent and providing their own meanings instead. This would mirror the “Harry” style of art. Meanwhile, works like Dorian Gray are transparent. The story holds meaning beyond the surface, and Wilde’s focus on meaning in art provokes the reader to search for these meanings. Similar to Basil, he puts himself in the work. Wilde divorces the urges in his creative process and personifies them in Harry and Basil. One urge is to create clever and outwardly beautiful work, while the other is to create work that conveys meaning.

Marriage is undeniably inescapable in Wilde’s play, An Ideal Husband. It seems that there are as many perceptions of marriage as there are characters in the play, as each main character views the prospect (or reality) of marriage completely differently. Though the institution is mocked constantly throughout the play, its importance is never understated, even by those desiring to be life-long bachelors. Even Lord Goring, one of Wilde’s more obvious insert characters, says to Robert, “No man should have a secret from his own wife.” Though he immediately follows this statement up with the qualification, “She invariably finds it out.” Even Goring is ultimately unable to avoid married life, as the play concludes to his marriage to Mabel, though their wedding is itself a parody of marriage itself, as Mabel expresses disgust at the very idea that Goring would be an ideal husband to her. 

It seems that, through heavily parodying the idea of marriage, but never reducing it to absurdity, that the play is recognizing that all things worth parodying must have at least some level of importance in society. In this way, An Ideal Husband is far from anti-marriage, just as The Importance of Being Earnest is far from being anti-posh, rather both seek to point out the absurdity of real life, without reducing real life to mere absurdity. 

This is not to say that An Ideal Husband is pro-marriage or even neutral on the subject, but rather that it is able to make its criticisms of marriage more effectively by recognizing its importance, something that would not be possible if Wilde painted the institution as wholly undesirable and negative. Overall, I think it is clear that there are a lot of moving parts in An Ideal Husband, and if you read past the incredibly rich and witty dialogue, you can see Wilde toeing the line of what can and cannot be said, or performed on stage. 

After reflecting upon on our class discussion, I wanted to think more deeply about Dorian’s death at the end of the novel. The ambiguity surrounding this event is very interesting to me, and I would argue that Dorian is really committing suicide rather than attempting to destroy his painting. Lord Henry’s final words to Dorian really help to contextualize Dorian’s thought process at this critical moment in his life. He tells Dorian that “art has no influence upon action…, [and that] the books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” (163). This statement seems to refute much of the textual evidence (i.e., the painting whispering murderous ideas to Dorian) for the corrupting power of art, which was often suggested to originate from the power of the yellow book or the painting itself. This shift away from external corruption implies that the culpability for the dark deeds in the novel belongs to Dorian and his own misguided choices. Here, the word “books” could easily be replaced with “paintings,” and, in either case, the second clause would symbolize how the art form is merely reflecting the immorality of Dorian’s actions – not directly causing them. In this way, Dorian is confronted by the duty to take responsibility for his own actions, which he has been trying to avoid doing during the entire plot (i.e., he refers to Basil’s corpse as “that thing” to make the murder seem less real and personal). Later on, we see that Dorian “began to think over some of the things that Lord Henry had said,” so the fact that Dorian was reflecting on these ideas shows the reader that he is really grappling with guilt (164). As art “shows the world its own shame,” Dorian may have originally attempted to destroy his portrait (in another attempt to avoid responsibility) before it reminded him of his agency and culpability, which results in him stabbing a “knife in his [own] heart” (potentially) to finally punish himself for his crimes ( 167).

The Picture of Dorian Gray leaves us with a rather tragic ending. In a sense, there is no real sense of an ending other than the relatively expected demise of Dorian Gray. We are left with most of the main characters of the novel either dead or corrupted morally beyond fixation. Both Sybill and Basil Hallward are left dead by the corruption and degradation of Gray; they both end up as victims of his demise. In a sense, the ending of The Picture of Dorian Gray is quite bleak and without much of anything close to a happy ending. But perhaps Wilde was insinuating much more with the ultimate death of Dorian Gray. While his character does end up dying at the end of the novel, we are given an image of the untainted picture. The text reads, “When they entered they found, hanging upon the wall, a splendid portrait of their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his exquisite youth and beauty. Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage” (Gray 159). The physical Dorian Gray, who had corrupted beautifully and completely, confronts the realization of his sins and his wrongdoings; he attempts to destroy the painting in a burst of horror and regret over just how far his soul has corrupted. While such ultimately leads to his death, perhaps Wilde was utilizing this demise to show that the only true way Gray could return to his untainted, beautiful state, was through death or even, through death by his own hands. Although there is not many signs that point to anything other than a tragic ending for this work, there is respite among the fact that Gray accounts for his sins and ultimately, through his own passing at his own hands, his soul returns to the pure state it once was.