Subversion of Victorian gender roles in Oscar Wilde's selected plays / Basak Cun.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cun, Basak, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Literature and society--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Literature and society.

Sex role in literature.

Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900.

Wilde, Oscar.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (183 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Newcastle upon Tyne, England : Cambridge Scholars Publishing, [2024]

Summary:

This book elucidates how the late Victorian author, playwright and artist Oscar Wilde both mirrors and subverts the artificial gender roles of Victorian society in Lady Windermere's Fan, An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest, eventually introducing morally tangled definitions of womanhood and manhood. Apart from the common literature concerning Wilde's homosexual identity, it examines the invalidation of morality through a specific reading of the two established genders, and hence, brings in a particular dimension. Wilde destroys all moral balances while creating a new perception where no strict borders exist to separate the proper gender traits from the improper. The book is a reference source for undergraduate and graduate students, academics, and anyone interested in Wildean studies and the moral codes of Victorian society.

Contents:

Table of Contents

Preface

I: Introduction

Gender roles in the Victorian period

Domesticity and the concept(s) of womanhood

Women and marriage

Challenging separate spheres

Masculinity in public, masculinity at home

Religion and gender roles

Fatherhood

Boys becoming men

Social construction of gender in Wilde’s plays

II: Lady Windermere’s Fan

Morality and its impact on the perception of gender

Gender as a social design

Parents as the directive to form children’s genders

Revelation of gender constructs via marriage

III: An Ideal Husband

Societal influence on the creation of gender roles

Impossibly perfect gender expectations

Marriage and social customs in gender construction

The parent-child relationship and gender

Women and supposed inferiority

IV: The Importance of Being Earnest

Marriage as a requirement for gender performance

The “underrated woman” as an ideological product

Women’s expectation of ideal men, men’s of ideal women

Wilde’s pejorative approach to morals

V: Conclusion

Bibliography Generated by AI.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Part of the metadata in this record was created by AI, based on the text of the resource.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references.

Other Format:

Print version: Çün, Başak Subversion of Victorian Gender Roles in Oscar Wilde's Selected Plays

ISBN:

9781527556751

1527556751

OCLC:

1419061625