How Does Oscar Wilde Present Women in 'the Importance of Being Earnest'

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Even though Wilde presents Gwendolen as a powerful character, he also presents her as being quite shallow. He does this again with Cecily, presenting her as equally shallow, as both consider the Christian names of their suitors to be a matter of extreme importance. Both women decide that Ernest is the most respectful name, and consequently decide that only a man named Ernest is suitable for marriage. While this applies to both Gwendolen and Cecily, Wilde focuses on presenting Cecily as particularly shallow and silly, for example when she states, “Oh, I don’t think I would care to snatch a sensible man. I shouldn’t know what to talk to him about.” However, Wilde uses her silliness and naivety as her strength – it makes her very forward and bold, especially when Algernon is concerned. When Algernon and Cecily first meet, a lot of the stage directions describe Algernon as being shocked or surprised by her, “(Algernon is rather taken aback)”, “(Algernon looks at her in amazement)”. Cecily repeatedly challenges Algernon’s advances, not accepting his compliments in the traditional way that a woman might have been expected to during the Victorian Era – she never giggles, or blushes, or accepts Algernon’s flirtations, she almost brushes him off. This makes her seem, if anything, sensible, mature, and confident, as opposed to the naïve little girl that Wilde simultaneously presents her as. We learn later in Act II that Cecily has been vividly imagining an engagement to Algernon for the past three months, including lots of little details in this fantasy of hers, such as the love letters exchanged between the two (that she wrote to herself) and the fact that the engagement was broken off for less than a week, the reason behind this being, “It would hardly have been a very serious engagement if it hadn’t been broken off at least once.” These imaginings of hers make her seem childish, and perhaps even a bit creepy, but Algernon doesn’t seem to mind at all. Cecily, as a character, has two distinctive sides to her: firstly, this cool, mature young woman who makes men who strongly believe that love is a lie fall madly in love with her, and secondly, this childish, whimsy little girl who writes her hopes and dreams down in a diary and who has an extremely vivid imagination.

To conclude, Wilde presents the women in his play in multiple different ways, some having more comic qualities than others, but the one thing that they all have in common is their power over men. They are all able to control the men in their lives in certain ways, and this is something that Wilde does to make the play a comedy – it builds up the farce. What is unclear however, is whether Wilde uses this comic instrument to mock society – laughing at the ridiculousness of the gender hierarchy – or whether he wants us to laugh at how ludicrous it would be if women were in charge, as if he is unveiling to us how absurd and silly the world would be if women were at the top.

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