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ALIENATION - Coggle Diagram
ALIENATION
(W) AN IDEAL HUSBAND
SOCIALLY NON-CONFORMIST
REJECTING SOCIAL CONVENTIONS
- Lord Caversham condemns his son's hedonism and expounds the Victorian social conventions: "There is property at stake. It is not a matter for affection.", "You have to get married at once." Thus, the antagonism between father and son is a metaphor for Lord Goring's, and by extension, Wilde's rejection of social norms and proprietary.
- Mirrored in his choice of partner, Mabel Chiltern, who asserts her desire for food, "Is it a morbid thing to have a desire for food?" in spite of social convention
EGALITARIANISM & UTILITARIANISM
- Lord Goring's egoism and (as a dandy) adherence to feudal, classist principles contradicts the philanthropic and egalitarian movement of the Victorian age: "To love ones self is the beginning of a life long romance.", "Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself.", "Public charities? Dear me? what a lot of harm you must have done, Robert!"
(Charles Baudelaire, refers to material items being no more than a "symbol of the artistocratic superiority of mind.") UTILITARIANISM
- Lord Goring's epigrammatic speech and excessive use of paradox is distinctly anti-utilitarian. (Emerging theory of the time, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mills (1862) and the efficiency of industrialism) (Byzantine
- the byzantine plot is also anti-utilitarian?
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CLASSISM - Power imbalance between Phipps and Lord Gorning - Phipps’ “impassivity” as the interlocutor (“Yes, my Lord”) meaning the interaction between the two of them at the start of Act 3 is more of a monologue (or even soliloquy? which would suggest Phipp's presence to be so insignifigant as to not exist) (critics point???)
- reflection of Victorian English snobbery and concerns surrounding miscegenation? Or class integration in which case a marxist approach could be taken?
- Lady Markby and Mrs Cheveley remarking and lamenting how “Society has become dreadfully mixed.”
Lady Markby expresses her contempt for Lady Brancaster’s daughter having got engaged to a curate (a member of the clergy, assistants to vicars) whom, in her day, they “never took any notice” of. Regards this marriage as “irreligious”Take a Marxist Critical Approach. Reflection of Victorian English snobbery and concerns of racial and class integration?
(W) CONTEXT
Dandysim
- stood in opposition to gender stereotypes
- contradicted egalitarianism of the time by adhering to pre-industrial, feudal and classist principles
- (Lord Goring) epigrammatic speech is evasive and anti-utilitarian (emerging theory of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mills in 1861)
- heavily associated with homosexuality due to subversion of traditional notions of masculinity and as it became synonymous with homosexual public figures such as Wilde himself
In light of his homosexuality an eccentricities Wilde always felt this sense of impending societal judgement
- Outcast as of 1895 following his trial, initially suing the Marquess of Queensbury for libel (3rd April 1895)
- 26th April 1895, tried for homosexuality
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(R) POEMS
SOCIAL LIMITATIONS AND ISOLATION ON ACCOUNT OF GENDER:
- "It's a weary life, she said" - 3rd person narration and publication after death in 1894, encapsulates sense of being unable to contribute to socially signifignt discussions through her literary work. (Robert Southey, "Literature can not be the buisness of a woman's life and ought not to be.")
Only able to do so in by covert and figurative means:
e.g, Goblin Market - exploration of the Opium epidemic of the 1800s
Tries to console self by criticising society, insinuating it is not a world worth contributing to or being associated with; "still the world would wag on the same" (Different from A.I.H where characters are in the thick of it.)
Good Friday
Non-conformist:
- "I only I"
- "I am a stone and not a sheep"
- not like "those women...Peter...the thief...the sun and moon"
Redemption:
- "And smite a rock" - faith in salvaition through religion
(TWICE TOO)
TRANSGRESSIONS RESULT IN SOCIAL OSTRACISM:
- Maude Clare (fallen woman?)
- No Thankyou, John - need to preseve positive relations, "Why will you haunt me with a face as wan/ As shows an hour old ghost?" Hence, martial imagery, "Strik[ing] hands", "open treaty", and need to placate men, "I'll wink at your untruth"
- "Twice", "I smiled at the words you spoke"
(R) CONTEXT
Impending sense of Religious judgement as having not fulfilled certain religious obligations, e.g, being a mother and a wife
Rejecting 3 marriage proposals:
- James Collinson (1848)
- Charles Cayley
- John Brett
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