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Oscar Wilde's Influence In The Victorian Era

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Oscar Wilde wrote at levels far more advanced than the time period he lived in. Oscar Fingal O 'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on October 16, 1854 in Dublin, Ireland. Wilde 's father was an acclaimed doctor and his mother was established poet. After attending an ivy league school it is easy to see how he became one of best play wrights of his time. Oscar Wilde is relevant in the Victorian era and is also highly revered today because he spoke about human qualities. In Oscar Wilde 's short life he grabbed the attention of the Victorian audience and his works still have people fascinated now. Oscar Wilde expressed his words through novels, plays and even poetry. Once he began to write in different forms as he became a rising star in the early 1890 's. During the Victorian era the morals and standards posed by the society affected his writing. Victorians believed in values such as low tolerance of crime and a strict social norm (Dixon 34). Wilde on the other hand was a apart of the aestheticism movement. This simply means "art for art 's sake". He did not have the intentions of becoming an author with the purpose to entertain an audience but, to express his ideals and feelings (Clayworth 85). A large group of people flocked to his works because he was able to show the beauty of life and that one does not have to follow a strict rule book to thrive in life. Oscar Wilde cared more for himself than following others. Additionally, he chose to ridicule the people who conform
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Oscar Wilde wrote his plays against the backdrop of the Victorian English society. It therefore helps to discuss the salient aspects of the Victorian society. Victorian England is known for many paradoxes -- glaring contrasts between the rich and the poor, insistence on morality on the one hand and the practice of cynicism on the other, blooming creativity pitted against blatant constriction, imperial grandeur since Britain was then ruling almost one fifth of the total surface of the earth and domestic squalor since the majority of people did not have decent means of livelihood, and finally collectivity dictated by tradition opposed to the rapidly developing individualism. The class system denied the talented members of the lower classes access to social and economic advancement. The upper classes alone had the privilege of working in the government, the armed forces, and the church, while trade was monopolized by the rising middle class.

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Oscar Wilde’s Victorian melodramatic play The Importance of Being Earnest opened on February 14, 1895. Wilde used this play to criticize Victorian society through clever phrasing and satire. Throughout the play The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde displayed the themes of the nature of marriage, the constraints of morality, and the importance of not being earnest. One of the themes that Oscar Wilde includes in the play is the nature of marriage.

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Another theme illustrated through Wilde’s use of motifs and symbols is the theme of superficiality. The theme of superficiality can be understood as a sense of the superficial view of outer beauty that is shown in the work. It relates to the concept of remaining young, which is an important factor of what is shown in the novel. This is an important part of the novel because outer beauty plays a bigger role for Dorian, than inner beauty does. In the beginning of the novel, Lord Henry and Dorian have a conversation that focuses on the topic of youth and Dorian 's outer beauty – Lord Henry mentions the fact that Dorian has a beautiful face, and later during this conversation, Lord Henry states that: “youth is the only thing worth having…”

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Wilde is greatly influenced by the societal movements in the Victorian Era, therefore the theme of hedonism is prominent displaying the influence of Aestheticism in The Picture of Dorian Gray and further explaining the consequences of selfishness and self-pleasure. The Aestheticism movement shockingly challenged all past standards of love, pleasure, and sexuality. Specifically this Victorian movement “promotes sexual… experimentation. ”(Burdett)

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Relatively all authors are very fond of creating an underlying message to criticize society. Authors do this through social commentary. The book “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is no exception. The author, Oscar Wilde, criticizes the upper class through the consistent underlying idea that people are often deceived by one's beauty and are unable to understand the poison that fills the world is corrupting it. From the beginning of this book, the social commentary towards the upper class begins with the structure of the novel.

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