Saturday, September 28, 2013

Are there any similarities between the play Mrs Warren's Profession and The Importance of Being Earnest?

Both plays are from the same period and use comic
techniques hinging on issues of false identities. More importantly, both plays address
the "woman question." For both Wilde and Shaw the issues of women and careers were
twofold. First, there was the practical issue of how women could earn their livings
outside marriage, and second was the issue of how rich women who did not need to work,
could employ their intelligence productively. Mrs. Prism shows the limitations of the
traditional female occupations of novelist and governess, albeit humorously. Cecily, in
Earnest, is potentially a "New Woman" like Vivie, but relegated to use her education in
the trivial arena of high society. Although Mrs. Warren succeeds in amassing wealth
froim her brothel, she fails to model a viable option for the new woman because
ideologically she remain mired in the conventional role of supporting herself by
pleasing men, and in the end proves less willing to break gender role conventions than
her daughter Vivie.

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