Oscar Wilde's Plays: Double Lives and Social Satire, Dispense di Inglese

Scarica Oscar Wilde's Plays: Double Lives and Social Satire e più Dispense in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! OSCAR WILDE’S PLAYS In the 19th century the English drama was in decline since the best writers wrote poetry or novels. Those who devoted themselves to the theatre wrote stereo-typed comedies or melodramas which tended to resemble one another a great deal. The most popular plays at the time were produced by the French drama and the most imitated playwrights were the Frenchmen Eugéne Scribe (1791-1861) and Victorien Sardou (1831-1908). Both of them were very influential not only in France but also abroad. Scribe ruled the French theatre for 30 years reaching the apex of fame in the 1830s: he developed a five-act comic play full of movement. The story always followed the same outlines: there was an explanation of the opening situation, complications were introduced, the action reached the climax and finally everything was cleared up. The primary purpose of the theatre was entertainment, not teaching. The theatre was a place for being amused, a place where people could escape from their life’s problems. Victorien Sardou was of a later generation and his greatest success was in the field of melodrama, which is a play full of sad and violent happenings. Wilde’s plays certainly belong, in terms of technique, to the school of Scribe and Sardou. Oscar Wilde turned to writing for the London theatre in the last decade of the 19th century because he hoped that he would be able to make a lot of money. He was not interested in introducing innovations in form, language and characterization. It was his intention to write popular plays and therefore he took as his model those plays which seemed to have wide audience appeal. Like in the plays of Scribe, in Wilde’s dramas we find some standard ingredients: complex situations, vital secrets, compromising letters which fall into the wrong hands, intrigues and coincidences. Wilde handles these ingredients, this commonplace material very well and efficiently. His plays are stereo-typed and they have lasted then thanks to a special ingredient: the satire. Wilde’s wit and ironic humour aims at ridiculing the conventional morality of his characters. He usually introduces one or two characters who speak as Wilde himself did, who show his ability to inject absurdities into the conventional conversations of the characters that are in his plays. For example, in “Lady Windermere’s Fan”, Lord Darlington often sounds like Oscar Wilde himself. At one point he remarks: “I can resist everything except temptation”. In the same play the Duchess of Berwick and her daughter Lady Agatha are fine examples of Wilde’s great humour. The Duchess is a non-stop talker who is busy at the serious occupation of getting her daughter engaged to be married. Agatha says absolutely nothing in the course of the play except: “Yes Mama”. A high point is reached when the mother refers to her lovely daughter as “my little chatterbox”. In “The Importance of Being Earnest” what the author does is to make the entire situation ridiculous since the play is full of irony, sarcasm, nonsense, puns (play on words) and paradoxes. It is true that in Wilde’s plays there are no startling moral ideas and that the writer didn’t deal with high topics and problems; in spite of this, however, his plays are extremely interesting and they are not completely detached from the period and the social context of his time. In Wilde’s plays there are in fact several satirical references to the Victorian society, with its false and hypocritical notions of respectability and appearance. In “Lady Windermere’s Fan”, for example, Wilde deals with the question of the different sexual standards for men and women, making criticism of the most conventional Victorian notions. According to the Victorian way of thinking, a sexual relationship outside marriage was the worst possible sin a woman could be guilty of. Therefore, once a woman transgressed, she became a social outcast. At the beginning of the play the protagonist, Lady Windermare, is absolutely sure of herself and her ideas. As she has been strictly brought up by her aunt, she feels no pity for anyone who sins against the moral code. The sinner must be punished and she can feel no sympathy for a wrongdoer because she is really convinced that she herself could never do wrong. However, when a series of circumstances bring her near the point of becoming a sinner and an outcast herself she understands the lesson. So, by the end of the play Lady Windermere will make progress as a human being, learning to be more tolerant towards the sinners and more realistic in her judgements. Elements in Wilde’s style One element is the use of misapplied logic. This is found in dialogue that sounds reasonable but is actually nonsensical. (For example, in “The Importance of being Earnest” we have, at the beginning of the play, the conversation between Jack and Algernon. While talking, Algernon eats cucumber sandwiches all the time. But when Jack is about to eat one of these sandwiches himself, Algernon restrains him, saying that the cucumber sandwiches are reserved for his aunt Augusta who is about to arrive. Jack (or Ernest as he pretends to be) points out that Algernon has been eating them all the time. Algernon then points out with questionable logic that Lady Augusta is his aunt. He says exactly: “That is quite a different matter. She is my aunt:” Another element of style is the use of paradox or upside-down conversation. A paradox is a statement, a concept, an idea expressed in a very logic way so as to seem reasonable but it goes against the common sense, the traditional view and it is opposite to what we might expect. The characters of the play typically speak in paradoxes. They contradict themselves but these contradictions reveal a deeper kind of truth about them, which Wilde uses to criticize the world of false appearances they live in. In “The Importance of being Earnest” there are several examples of paradox. In the first scene of the play, for example, Lane (the butler) confides to Algernon that he doesn’t know much about marriage: he has only been married once. He doesn’t think about it very much because it is not an interesting subject. Algernon comments that if the lower classes do not set a good moral example, what is the use of them? We soon realize that we have heard such remarks before, only we have heard them the other way around. It is the upper classes to be supposed to set a good moral example to the lower classes. The scene in which Lady Augusta looks into the credentials of her future son-in-law, Jack, to find out whether he is a desirable suitor for her daughter Gwendolen, is one of the most famous and amusing in English literature. It is a superb blend of nonsense and light satire. The main element which makes the scene amusing is the upside-down/paradoxical conversation, characteristic of the entire play. Those answers which we would expect Lady Augusta to object to, she finds pleasing. Jack admits that he smokes and she is glad to hear it, because a man should have some occupation. Jack also admits that he knows nothing and she approves saying that nothing should tamper with (manomettere, interferire, danneggiare) ignorance. “Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit, touch it and the bloom is gone”. The comedy here arises from the substitution of “ignorance” for “innocence”. Normally, it is “innocence“ to be associated to a delicate exotic fruit that can be spoiled by touching. At a certain point Lady Augusta asks Jack: “You have a town house, I hope? A girl with a simple, unspoiled nature like Gwendolen, could hardly be expected to reside in the country”. What Gwendolen’s mother says is an example of paradox because, in reality, girls with a simple and unspoiled nature are of course usually expected to live in the country. and Cecily are similar in many respects: they are vain, silly and superficial and their main concern is to marry a man called Ernest. They have so many affinities that they will team up and call each other sisters by the end of the second act. Finally, both Miss Prism and Canon Chusable are serious, shy and respectful of the moral code. For their seriousness and moral duty they are opposed to the other two couples. The only character left without a counterpart is Lady Bracknell. There are four female characters in the play: Gwendolyn, Cecily, Lady Bracknell and Miss Prism. Gwendolen is an aristocratic and beautiful young girl who loves to be admired because she is very vain. She is described as very superficial and silly and this is particularly evident when she declares that her ideal is to marry a man called Ernest. In her opinion, the name Ernest is the most attractive thing about the man she loves and she states that she could never marry him if he had a different name. Obviously, her absurd concern for a name is a clear criticism to the Victorian society, more interested in appearance rather than the essence of things. Just as Gwendolen, also Cecily is described as stupid, superficial and obsessed with the name Ernest. She lives in the country and she is used to daydreaming: apparently she looks ingenuous and unspoiled but in reality she is intrigued by transgression and wickedness since she falls in love at first sight with her uncle’s wicked brother. Lady Bracknell is quite snobbish and she behaves in a very superior way. She is also stubborn and superficial and she is interested only in people’s social rank and economic conditions. In fact her main “job” is to maintain and strengthen her superior social position, by finding the most suitable husband for Gwendolen. Finally Miss Prism is obtuse, stupid and absent-minded and her behavior embodies the typical Victorian code of morality and duty. As regards the male characters the two protagonists are Jack and Ally. Both of them can be defined as bunburists since they lead a double life and tell many lies. Algy has invented an invalid friend called Bunbury in order to escape from a boring life, above all from his aunt’s control, and have fun elsewhere. Moreover, when he meets Cecily, he pretends to be called Ernest and be uncle Jack’s brother. Also Jack has a double identity. In the country where he lives, he is Cecily’s legal guardian so he is a very respectable and serious man. However, pretending to have a wicked brother, he often goes to London where he assumes the name of Ernest and leads a life of pleasure. Themes - The double: the two main male characters, Jack and Algy, lead a double life in order to escape from their boring routine life and enjoy life freely. The theme of the double is also conveyed by the title which is based on a word-play. The adjective “earnest”, which means honest, sincere or serious, has got the same pronunciation (but a different spelling) of the proper name “Ernest”. So the title can have a double meaning: “the importance of being called Ernest” or “the importance of being serious/honest”. The main obstacle to the marriage of the two young couples lies on the real names of the male characters and not on the fact that both Algy and Jack are liars. Therefore, to be called Ernest becomes of the utmost importance and the situation, as suggested by the title itself, becomes totally absurd. - Innocence: Innocence is presented through a group of adults who behave as children: their dialogues and behaviours are silly, nonsensical and absurd but however they are totally harmless. For example, both Algy and Jack have two identities, having invented an imaginary person. They finally “kill” them but, since Bunbury and Ernest are fictitious identities, their murder is actually unreal and therefore harmless. The general atmosphere of innocence in the play is reinforced by the nonsensical dialogue and behaviours of the various characters: “ The Importance of being Earnest” is fundamentally a nonsense play and this idea is connected with the world of childlike innocence. - Marriage as a social status: this theme is presented through Lady Bracknell. This character is interested only in people’s social rank and economic conditions and her main concern, during the play is to find a socially suitable husband for her daughter.