Oscar Wilde - Gender

Question 1

Sir Robert Chiltern

Answer 1

“I had not the courage to come down, show you my wounds”

Question 2

Mabel Chiltern

Answer 2

“Then I suppose it is my duty to remain with you”

Question 3

Lord Goring

Answer 3

“And those are the views of the two ladies who are known to have the most admirable husbands in London”

Question 4

Lord Goring

Answer 4

“A woman who can keep a man’s love, and love him in return, has done all the world wants of women, or should want of them”

Question 5

Alvin Klein (Critic)

Answer 5

“Robert is a spokesperson for every man who is presumed, and pressured, to be more than he is”

Question 6

Peter Raby (Critic)

Answer 6

“Wilde, with one eye on the dramatic genius of Ibsen, and the other on the commercial competition in London’s West End, targeted his audience with adroit precision”

Question 7

Sarika Bose (Critic)

Answer 7

“The conservative rendering of women in the play suggests a subservience to the conventionality that Wilde mocks elsewhere”

Question 8

Roger Ebert (Critic)

Answer 8

“Women in the plays of a century ago were technically powerless but at the same time, the plays were really about them, and everything the men did was designed to win their love, admiration, or forgiveness”

Question 9

Fin de siècle (Context)

Answer 9

• Arts, politics, science, and society were revolutionised, and this effected mainly women, as new educational and employment opportunities became available, as well as the fact marriage and motherhood had started to be disregarded as being the only way to guarantee financial security.
• The ‘new woman’ undermined the traditional view of the feminine.
• “The cultivation of separate sorts of virtues and separate ideals of duty in men and women has led to the whole social fabric being weaker and unhealthier than it needs to be” - Oscar Wilde

Question 10

Politics (Context)

Answer 10

Despite the struggle against the Contagious Disease Acts of the 1870s which proved that women were able to effect policy making at a national level, they were still excluded from administrative posts and seats in Parliament. They were forced to exert their influence in a private or domestic environment.

Question 11

Speranza (Context)

Answer 11

• Early advocate for women’s liberation.
• Held a weekly, candle-lit Salon, attended by the best and brightest of Dublin’s artists, writers, scientists, and miscellaneous intellects. Oscar Wilde was, from a young age, encouraged by both his parents to sit amongst the visitors