Oscar Wilde: Conformity and Resistance in Victorian Society
Batiat talks in this article about the Victorian society and being homosexual. It states that Oscar Wild was gay in a society where that kind of behavior were punished. However, he did pretty well in his papers. Wild attacks the society in his texts however, he does it in a hidden way and this was because of the society he was living. It also says that Wild uses a “gender parody”, in this case he changes the gender role of the characters. It could be seen in the book The Importance of Being Ernest in the role girls do in the play and also the role of men.
The article mentions that in the play there is no important message to convey, nevertheless, Wild lets a message in his book. It is mentioned that Wild in the play talks about different topics such as marriage, hereditary privileges, education, the Church, sexual roles and others, in the play, we could see this topics developed with a change in the gender roles of the characters. For example, in the book, male characters has an effeminate personality while female characters has a masculine one. We can see this specifically in Lady Bracknell.