Question

Identify five instances in which Gender and Queer theory might apply to The Importance of Being Earnest (these can be lines of dialogue, stage directions, scene summaries, etc.). Review the two articles from 5.1 if needed. Quote and/or Paraphrase these instances including two lines of commentary for each that make clear why you think these are good examples and what they are saying about issues of gender/sexuality. Properly cite the instances from the play according to MLA 8 format, such as (Wilde, Act II) in-text. For your Work Cited: Wilde, Oscar. “The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People.” Project Gutenberg, 29 Aug. 2006, www.gutenberg.org/files/844/844-h/844-h.htm. Post your five instances, two lines of commentary on each

Answer 1

Here, Jack implies that women are too pampered, idealistic, and fragile to handle "the truth." Both Jack and Algernon truly believe they are protecting their women from a harsh society.

In Victorian society, after the death of her husband, a woman was expected to confine herself to grief for many years, wearing the only black and rarely leaving her house.

Wilde implies that gender and personality have very little to do with each other. Some women, like Gwendolyn and Cecily, cannot really seem to handle power, while Lady Bracknell is very comfortable with it.

The satirizing of gender roles contribute to the overall humorous tone of the play.

Wilde's original audience was used to a traditional role for both men and women, and seeing people outside their respective roles in varying degrees of comfort gave Wilde's audience a different perspective on society.

*The behaviors is found in Lady Bracknell, Algy’s aunt and Gwendolen’s mother, who sets herself up as guardian of the morality of the society and implying that she is the only reliable source of taste and probity. She is found to be a parvenu, a social climber, and not an aristocrat at all; “When I married Lord Bracknell I had no fortune of any kind. But I never dreamed for a moment of allowing that to stand in my way”. Lady Bracknell’s name is derived from a place in Berkshire where Lord Alfred Douglas’s mother had a summer home, which Wilde had visited.

-My thesis is that Wilde used the concepts of double identity as well as a dualistic theme in the play, revealed in the language and in the lying, in order to exploit the hypocrisy of the society, i.e. the ruling class, and in doing so he deconstructed Englishness. There is a deconstruction of gender roles, the church, the family, the education and the legal system in the play and these are exposed through the characters and their lying. All the main characters in the play, both men and women, are in a sense dandies since they have all “the mannerisms of the dandy – idleness, effeminacy [and] immorality” (Lalonde 664).Instead of a traditional patriarch, Lady Bracknell rules with authority and the other women are almost as assertive