The traditional view of gender relations in the Victorian era was that men were active, manly, assertive and economically independent whilst women were assumed to be passive, pliant and dependant. How far and in what ways does Oscar Wilde challenge th...

... The traditional view of gender relations in the Victorian era was that men were active, manly, assertive and economically independent whilst women were assumed to be passive, pliant and dependant. How far and in what ways does Oscar Wilde challenge these views in 'The Importance of Being Earnest'? Oscar Wilde does challenge these traditional roles in the Importance of Being Earnest deliberately to make humour out of these characteristics. In fact most of the intelligent wit that is in the play stems from the fact that the characters are doing or saying something that one wouldn't expect them to say, the opposite of what they are saying is what would be predicted e.g. "Divorces are made in Heaven". Oscar Wilde works in the same way with the characters. None of them are generally what a stereotypical Victorian man or woman would be. The two main male characters, Jack and

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