Social Criticism in Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2 (B), University of Tubingen (English Philology), course: Proseminar I: Introduction to Drama, language: English, abstract: Today almost everything is accepted in modern society. It does not matter if a person ishomosexual, bisexual or transsexual. Further, everyone can do even almost everythingthat pleases him. So, a lot of men try women the more, the more they are famous,rich or successful. And even today s women have broken free from their traditionaltasks: raising a family, staying at home and doing the cooking. Instead, it is fashion tolive a man s life: going to parties, having a lot of affairs and neglecting the morals. Today s women are as bad as their masculine fellow men. And even they have becomeworse- if you want to believe in what the older generation says about our youth. Maybe,this is true. If you compare it to the Victorian Age, so much seems to have changed. Thinking of Oscar Wilde, you will soon realise that he could have lived a much easierlife in today s world. He was an enfant terrible of his time. Not only that his artisticand theatrical views did not fit into society at all, but it were especially his sexualpreferences that caused his main problems. In contrast to the latest tendency of acceptancefor homosexuality, it was a real crime about the year 1900 and so he had to spenda certain time in prison. The double life that it entailed was by no means a simple matterof deceit and guilt for Wilde: it suited the cultivation of moral independence and detachmentfrom society that he considered essential to art. 1(Small:1999,xiv/xv). Withhis behaviour he offended the leaders, institutions and press of his Philistine country. Yet, he always tried to be accepted by Society, but his attempts were mostly answeredwith exclusion.As Wilde lived for art, his works are a mirror of his own disappointmentand frustration about the contemporary value system. So it is certainly very interestingto examine his play Lady Windermere s Fan in regard to social and moral views. 1 Ian Small, Introduction, Ian Small (ed.), Lady Windermere s Fan. A Play About a Good Woman(London: New Mermaids,1999) xiv/xv.