“Wilde empowers his female characters but also undermines them”. To what extent do you agree with this view?
Wilde’s comedy of manners play, The Importance of Being Earnest, holds a satirical outlook on Victorian life. Wilde uses both satire and farce in his play written and set in 1895 to depict a slightly exaggerated version of society as it was, with all its forms of hypocrisy, double standards and repression of women. Wilde chose to invert the usual gender roles in Victorian literature by portraying the women with a position of power and influence in their relationships and the men as fairly passive. However, as Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff “Bunbury” about the women they love, they appear to dominate not only their facades but the women’s own lives and relationships. In addition, Wilde uses comedic effects throughout the play when presenting Lady Bracknell, Gwendolen Fairfax and Cecily Cardew, allowing them to be seen collectively as foolish and incredibly naïve.
Lady Bracknell is first and foremost a symbol of Victorian earnestness. Initially, we see that she is powerful, arrogant, conservative, and proper. In many ways, she represents Wilde's negative opinion of the Victorian upper-class, their power and conservative and repressive values. Lady Bracknell's authority and power are extended over each and every character in the play. Her decision about the suitability of both marriages in the play provides the conflict of the story. She tells her daughter quite explicitly, "Pardon me, you are not engaged to anyone. When you do become engaged to someone, I or your father, should his health permit him, will inform you of the fact.” This is an example of her domineering nature which would surprise a Victorian audience, as men at the time had greater influence than women, making the political decisions for their families, while women would work around the house, quietly taking care of the children; yet she clearly views herself as the head of the family. She interrogates both Jack and Cecily, bribes Gwendolen's maid, and looks down her nose at both Chasuble and Prism. Wilde has empowered Lady Bracknell as she is able to control which man her daughter marries, although her criteria predominantly revolves around their social status and wealth.
Contrastingly, Lady Bracknell is undermined as a character by her superficiality. Her shallowness and hypocritical attitude towards life shows her to be lacking substance as a character. Lady Bracknell shows the kind of ruthless ambition that was generally viewed as being the trait of men when she says that she “had no fortune of any kind” when she married Lord Bracknell, “But I never dreamed for a moment of allowing that to stand in my way.” However, in a move typical of the Victorian hypocrisy that Wilde lampoons, she does not offer the same tolerance to the match between Algernon and Cecily: she only warms to Cecily and consents to the marriage when she knows that she holds a fortune. Jack is clearly shown to undermine Lady Bracknell in Act 3 when he says, “the moment you consent to my marriage with Gwendolen, I will most gladly allow your nephew to form an alliance with my ward.” Ultimately this shows that Lady Bracknell is not in complete control of the situation and is subject to being characterised as an immoral and shallow character through her obsession with wealth and status, which becomes a recurring theme for an audience to laugh at.
On the other hand, Gwendolen and Cecily are both smart, persistent women and in pursuit of goals in which they take the initiative. Gwendolen follows Jack to the country — an atmosphere rather alien to her experiences and Cecily pursues Algernon from the moment she heard of his “unruly” character. Both women are perfectly capable of outwitting those around them. Gwendolen escapes from her dominating mother, Lady Bracknell; Cecily outwits Jack by arranging for Algernon to stay, and she also manages to escape Miss Prism to carry on a tryst with her future fiancé. The first moment Cecily meets Algernon, she firmly explains her identity with a no-nonsense reaction to his patronising comments.
We are shown Gwendolen‘s dominance from the her very first scene when she says to Jack, “But you haven’t proposed to me yet” and Jack replies by asking her permission for him to propose. Wilde has clearly inverted the gender roles here, with Gwendolen being in complete control of the situation. Wilde has created Gwendolen to be manipulative, who effectively uses her charm and wit to get what she wants.
Moreover, Wilde empowers Cecily by again showing her to be the more dominating partner in her relationship with Algernon. It is often comical how Cecily controls the engagement, for example, by arranging it before she had told Algernon about it, “why, we have been engaged for the last three months”. Women were believed to be incapable of dealing with such responsibilities in a patriarchal society. Wilde empowers other female characters in his plays such as Mrs Cheveley from An Ideal Husband who states that, “I am much stronger than you are. The big battalions are on my side. You have a splendid position, but it is your splendid position that makes you so vulnerable.” Mrs Cheveley is a powerful and independent woman who is unafraid to contradict or belittle a man. She inverts the norms and expectations of women at the time.
However, both women produce shallow qualities, with appearances and style being of the utmost importance. Gwendolen must have the perfect proposal performed in the correct manner and must marry a man named Ernest simply because of the name's connotations. Cecily believes Jack's brother is a wicked man, and though she has never met such a man, she thinks the idea sounds romantic. She toys with rebelliously and romantically pursuing the, "wicked brother," but she has full intentions of reforming him to the correct and appropriate appearance. The respectable name of Ernest for a husband is important to her. Both women, despite their differences, are products of a world in which how one does something is more important than why. This has the desired effect on the audience of providing light hearted humour at the women’s expense. In contrast, an audience at the time of 1895 would not regard this behaviour as trivial as we would today due to their chauvinist views of women. In addition, Gwendolen’s constant contradictions make her the perfect instrument for Wilde to provide humour and to comment on inane Victorian attitudes.
With this, many can argue that the male and female characters in The Importance of Being Earnest do all fulfil Victorian gender stereotypes. Jack, in the guise as Ernest, and Algernon are Victorian dandies, bachelors who indulge freely in the good life. With Gwendolen as the very paragon of Victorian femininity; so superficial that she declares she refuses to marry a man whose name is not Ernest. Wilde did this to heavily satirize and mock the society he lived in, exploiting their narrow-mindedness.
Throughout The Importance of Being Earnest Wilde spends most of his play satirizing Victorian ideals of courtship and marriage; however he gets the last laugh with his female characters. Although constantly empowering and undermining them, and despite their positions in society as inferior to men, the women are the strong characters who are firmly in control. Wilde provides two female characters who lack Lady Bracknell's ruthlessness, but who have the strength and practical sense that the men lack.

Word Count: 1360
Bibliography
1. Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest 2. Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband 3. http://www.shmoop.com/importance-of-being-earnest/gender-theme.html 4. http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/earnest/context.html 5. http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/i/the-importance-of-being-earnest/play-summary

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[ 1 ]. Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Seattle WA, Printed by Amazon.co.uk, p.23
[ 2 ]. Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Seattle WA, Printed by Amazon.co.uk, p.86
[ 3 ]. Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Seattle WA, Printed by Amazon.co.uk, p.86
[ 4 ]. Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Seattle WA, Printed by Amazon.co.uk, p.89
[ 5 ]. Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Seattle WA, Printed by Amazon.co.uk, p.22
[ 6 ]. Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Seattle WA, Printed by Amazon.co.uk, p.57
[ 7 ]. Oscar Wilde ,The Major Works, An Ideal Husband, United States, Printed by Oxford University Press, p.408