Shakespeare's Women Compared/Contrasted with Wilde's Women - Essay Example

The Wilde Women and Shakespeare’s Women English literature has many giants of drama but a few of them remain more popular than others. Shakespeare of course is the most famous and known playwright of the English language but the popularity of Oscar Wilde is also a recognized fact. When it comes to the various characters of their plays, women play a very important role for both and in some cases, female characters become significantly more important than male characters. The female characters often outshine their male compatriots in terms of strength, mental ability and even social worth in certain situations and it can be shown that both writers (even though they were separated by a vast number of years) considered women to be important players in their dramas. In fact, it can be generalized to show that females in British literature have been strong members of society and the respect British writers have had for the English lady has remained unchanged for centuries. It is interesting to note that both Shakespeare and Wilde were active in a time when the most powerful ruler in Europe was a woman. The Elizabethan era of Shakespeare and the Victorian era of Wilde both saw the heights of the British Empire since one queen founded the expansionist program of England while the other ruled it successfully. Even though the women of the time may be seen as weak, fragile and unable to do the things men should do, the writers considered the times they were living in to be mere trivialities. Of the two ages, the Victorian age is quite possibly unique in terms of the social hypocrisy it displayed towards women in society. While women were supposed to be given utmost respect by the men around them, they were not really able to take part in life as they would after the Victorian age. Repression in British society and culture became the norm and humor took the form of satire with which Wilde was intimately familiar with. That satirical humor is very well displayed in Oscar Wildes The Importance of Being Earnest and even though it is an excellent comedy it can also be understood as a social commentary on the times of Oscar Wilde. For example, the sarcastic and cutting tone which is often present in the dialog of the women in The Importance of Being Earnest is largely absent from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice where Portia waxes quite eloquently about the quality of mercy which is a Christian ideal. Even Jewish British women appear to be rated higher than Jewish British men since Jessica is converted to Christianity with the power of love while Shylock has to be forcibly converted (Douthat & Hopson, 2005). Of course the anti-Semitic nature of the play has been debated by many historians and literary critics such as Opie (2003) but it seems that Shakespeare made Jessica more independent and strong than other women who could not rebel against the will of their fathers even if they wanted to. Portia gives us the best example of what a woman should be in the eyes of Shakespeare and how a lady should act when presented with the various situations in the play. She is typical of the Shakespearian heroine because she is beautiful, intelligent as well as merciful and honest. Of course just as many other heroines of Shakespeare she is not afraid of dressing up as a man. However, it does that she presents a considerable contrast to Jessica simply because her moral values forbid her from going against her father’s will. This is certainly in opposition to some other heroines such as Hermia or Juliet who would rather be with someone their father dislikes than continue to respect the dictates of a father who died some time ago (Mabillard, 2000). This image of a ‘good’ woman is starkly contrasted with Jessica who hurts her father in more ways than one. She expressly goes against her father’s wishes and not only gets married against his will but also robs him of his precious ducats (Douthat & Hopson, 2005). The female Elizabethan ideal of Portia manages to defeat Shylock at his own game by using rules which are far stricter than the ones proposed by the initial contract. This is certainly a mark of intelligence which is not found elsewhere amongst the noblemen of Venice. It is no doubt strange to see that while Portia is able to win against Shylock, Antonio is comparatively a rather weak character as a Christian male. He is reported by Shylock to hate him and spit on him as he walked past yet he does not have much courage to face his enemies. He remains melancholic otherwise throughout the play but he does try to remain good to his friends as much Portia does. He does not even want to present his case to the duke for handling it in some other manner and appears quite willing to give up a pound of flesh of his for the repayment of the debt he owes to Shylock (Douthat & Hopson, 2005). At the end of the play when all is happily resolved for him he strangely forces the conversion of Shylock to add insult to injury (Opie, 2003). This behavior comes across to be completely different from the strength and resolve displayed by Portia or even Jessica who are strong women in their own rights. When Jessica discards and ‘disrespects’ her father she does so in a manner which is in complete contrast to Portia’s feminine and singularly Christian devotion to her father. Jessica on the other hand, rebels in a manner which is completely unlike the meek feminine character she might have presented herself as earlier since she discards family heirlooms as well as her father’s money in idle pleasures (Douthat & Hopson, 2005). Such weaknesses can be seen in the male characters from The Importance of Being Earnest since the men of Victorian times were supposed to be bastions of strength and honor. However, the social commentary made by the play gives us a look at how an individual can make an elaborate deception to fool all those around him/her and how the Victorian society is doing exactly that on a much larger scale (Hawkins, 2006). For example, Jack is not exactly the symbol of morality yet he wants to be exactly that and he succeeds in projecting that image of being overly virtuous. This weakness in the male character of the play is juxtaposed with the strengths displayed by the female characters that are able to take control of their lives without it being given to them in any real sense (Hawkins, 2006). For instance, some women in the play are shown to have reversed roles as they would have had in Victorian society at the time. The prime example of that is Lady Bracknell who interviews Jack while that task was a responsibility of the father of the bride rather than the ‘weaker’ mother. Similarly, the young ladies i.e. Gwendolen and Cecily are able to control their own fortunes in terms of their love lives, which was simply not done in real terms because arranged marriages and family based matches were more important for the Victorian era. Marriage as a social contract was conducted to ensure that families become united rather than individuals who could chose their mates depending on their own discretion. While the women in the play were certainly able to do that the men in the play become weak, sniveling and seem to be not very strong characters since their roles are mainly passive (Hawkins, 2006). The passive male who waits for things to happen is clearly evident in both plays since Antonio is the passive male figure for the Merchant of Venice. On the other hand, women such as Portia and Jessica as well as Gwendolen and Cecily become powerful players in a social setup which traditionally did not allow women to have any power at all. Without pointing fingers towards any particular group within society or using any directly insulting words towards social institutions, Oscar Wilde shows us that the sense of hypocrisy in society is dead simply because it is acceptable to be a hypocrite (Hawkins, 2006). However, his play leaves a sour taste since he does not give us any hope for a better, more earnest future where hypocrisy is a thing of the past. At the same time, the satire in the play means that appearances could be deceiving and what we think to be powerful and strong may not be so in reality or that at the end of the day, they may turn out to be just as foolish as the rest of the players. This is highlighted by the satire in the play regarding the reversal of the position of women and it becomes a part of Wilde’s commentary on the position of women who were largely marginalized by the Victorian era. Gwendolen is of particular interest since she is one of the few women that have some original ideas and this brings her to create certain images as being ideal. She goes to attend lectures and we know that she is always trying to improve herself. Sadly, we also find out that she remains a superficial being that has learnt very few lessons from life since she falls completely in love with Jack only due to his falsified name of “Earnest” (Hawkins, 2006). There are also other pieces of literary art from the same era that can be discussed in the context of their portrayal of women. For example, the Jew of Malta by Marlow also has a female daughter of a Jewish villain who rebels against her father and shows her strong side (Buchanan, 2005). Her father had asked her to feign a conversion to join the nunnery where his wealth was hidden. However, during the events of the play she realizes the villainy of her father and converts to Christianity as a defiance (Hopkins, 2001). The two conversions of Abigail present a very interesting parallel for the audience. In the first case, she pretends to convert since she loves her father enough to do anything for him even if he has ulterior motives for sending her to a nunnery (Hopkins, 2001). However, once she finds how the man she wants to get married to has been killed due to the plans of her father, she appears to have replaced earthly love with spiritual love. Instead of accepting Barabas as the dominant male figure in her life, or any other man, she shows her strength in faith by accepting Christ and becoming his bride for all time to come. Another example from the time of Oscar Wilde comes from Elizabeth Gaskells Cranford where the women are all dominant figures who are living their lives as Victorian society expects them to live and even though they have been placed under difficult circumstances they try their best to fulfill the demands of society (Billington, 2001). In conclusion, it is easy to say that women for most of British literature have been an integral part of the stories and the female characters often surpass male counterpart when it comes to inner strength, intelligence and even devotion to whatever ideals society held close at the time. Of course in some instances it can be said that the stories show them to be dishonest or shallow as in The Importance of Being Earnest, or that the characters are outright liars when they need to protect themselves or their friends but their mental skills and verbal wit can not be doubted by anyone. Works Cited Buchanan, C. “The Jew of Malta.” Spark Note. 2005. Drama Study Guides. 23 July. 2007. . Douthat, R. & Hopson, D. “The Merchant of Venice”. Spark Note. 2005. Drama Study Guides. 13 Dec. 2005. . Hopkins, L. "The Jew of Malta." The Literary Encyclopedia. 2001. Sheffield Hallam University. 23 July. 2007. . Mabillard, A. “Shakespeares Sources for The Merchant of Venice.” Shakespeare Online. 2000. shakespeareonline.com. 27 July. 2007. Opie, J. “Antisemitism in English Literature, The Shakespeare Case: Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew?” Jewish Christian Relations. 2003. JCrelations.net. 26 July. 2007. . Billington, J. "Cranford." The Literary Encyclopedia. 2001. University of Liverpool. 25 July. 2007. Hawkins, K. “SparkNote on The Importance of Being Earnest.” Sparknote.com. 2006. Spark Notes Study Guides. 23 July. 2007 Word Count: 2,079 Read More