Opus 30: Oscar Wilde as a Satirist: Part VI
Conclusion
Despite the fact that Wilde does not consider himself as a satirist, I have shown that The Importance of Being Earnest can be read as a powerful satire on Victorian high society. The play contains the three elements of satire that are readily traceble with a deconstructionist reading. I have attempted to demonstrate that all of the characters in the play are representatives of a group of people within the Victorian society, and that each of them is profoundly influenced by the dominating capitalist ideology, from an economic, social and gender viewpoint. I have also attempted to show that Wilde's play is an exaggerated mirror of the Victorian's game of marriage. Wilde, by exaggerating the elements of the Victorian institution of marriage, implies the business-like style of the Victorians' approach to marriage. Finally, I proposed that Wilde explicitly satirizes the dominating triviality of the Victorians, their obssess focus on food consumption and unimaginative and unartistic entertainment.
While this satirical reading of Wilde's play is supported by the text, there are problems to this reading. I've already mentioned that Wilde does not necessary see himself as a satirist: while one can satire, it does not necessary make one a satirist, for the satirist has satire as an end, while other artists, like Wilde, will use satire only as a means to achieve his aesthetic goal. However, authorial intention is hardly a significant problem to both modern literary criticism and Wilde himself. The bigger problem is Wilde's realism: Wilde has no explicit moralization anywhere in the play. This is unlike neo-classical satires, like Pope's The Rape of the Lock, where the explicit statement of the author is made in somewhere in the poem, even if that statement is ridiculed. Nor can we be sure not to take Wilde's play seriously, like Swift's A Modest Proposal or Gulliver's Travel. We know that we are not supposed to eat babies to solve famine problems or believe in Gulliver, who, at the end of his voyages, goes insane and talks to horses. In Wilde's play, every character is just so believeable; every action (with the exception to the ending, where Jack finds out his real name, which "miracleously" coincides with the name he desires) not without justification to realism. How can something so real be called satire? It would be like watching a conversation between a few modern university students and calling that a satire. But satire or not, Wilde's play is definitely a masterpiece, for its serious reflections as well as light (but never trivial) play on language.
Despite the fact that Wilde does not consider himself as a satirist, I have shown that The Importance of Being Earnest can be read as a powerful satire on Victorian high society. The play contains the three elements of satire that are readily traceble with a deconstructionist reading. I have attempted to demonstrate that all of the characters in the play are representatives of a group of people within the Victorian society, and that each of them is profoundly influenced by the dominating capitalist ideology, from an economic, social and gender viewpoint. I have also attempted to show that Wilde's play is an exaggerated mirror of the Victorian's game of marriage. Wilde, by exaggerating the elements of the Victorian institution of marriage, implies the business-like style of the Victorians' approach to marriage. Finally, I proposed that Wilde explicitly satirizes the dominating triviality of the Victorians, their obssess focus on food consumption and unimaginative and unartistic entertainment.
While this satirical reading of Wilde's play is supported by the text, there are problems to this reading. I've already mentioned that Wilde does not necessary see himself as a satirist: while one can satire, it does not necessary make one a satirist, for the satirist has satire as an end, while other artists, like Wilde, will use satire only as a means to achieve his aesthetic goal. However, authorial intention is hardly a significant problem to both modern literary criticism and Wilde himself. The bigger problem is Wilde's realism: Wilde has no explicit moralization anywhere in the play. This is unlike neo-classical satires, like Pope's The Rape of the Lock, where the explicit statement of the author is made in somewhere in the poem, even if that statement is ridiculed. Nor can we be sure not to take Wilde's play seriously, like Swift's A Modest Proposal or Gulliver's Travel. We know that we are not supposed to eat babies to solve famine problems or believe in Gulliver, who, at the end of his voyages, goes insane and talks to horses. In Wilde's play, every character is just so believeable; every action (with the exception to the ending, where Jack finds out his real name, which "miracleously" coincides with the name he desires) not without justification to realism. How can something so real be called satire? It would be like watching a conversation between a few modern university students and calling that a satire. But satire or not, Wilde's play is definitely a masterpiece, for its serious reflections as well as light (but never trivial) play on language.
posted by Tristan at 6:25 p.m.
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