Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wild, oh excuse me, I mean Wilde was to me a slickster. He was one of the kind guys you could not leave your girlfriend with ( or in his case guy friend), because of his smooth talking and flashy style. Despite his persona he has put out several great works. In the words of Oscar “I have put only my talent into my works. I have put my genius into my life.” I mean something is to be said about a man who is low on money and finds that the solution is marriage. To me he was a liar others and himself. I guess this is why I found “The Decay of Lying” and “The Importance of being Earnest,” to be some of his most intriguing plays. I mean how can this man talk about the importance of telling the truth, let alone how bad it was to lie. “The Importance of being Earnest,” tells a story of man who has a secret identity and how that identity gets him into a lot of trouble. He lost love, family, and if I read correctly life. All of these things were very similar to Oscar’s own life I might add. By losing his children and freedom over the love of a young man, one could say that he too had a secret identity that know one knew about until then.
3 comments:
Wilde was poking fun at the hypocrisy in Victorian society. He was married, but just to conform to society's expectations. He was very flamboyant and obviously gay, but during that time, "coming out" was not an option. Homosexuality was a criminal offense. From what I understand, his private affairs were pretty much common knowledge, and society put up with it, until his lover's father exposed him in court. Maybe he did push his luck a little too far with that one. But in his writings, he focused on the morality and social views that he saw as the opposite of what they should be - and the opposite of how people actually behaved. He switched things around - saying that earnestness was important - but he was actually pointing out how fake and superficial people were.
Antoine,
I guess I would tend to agree with Brenda's comments on Wilde. He was slick, and did have a secret life, and his works reveal that, but he is more concerned with satirizing the hypocrisies in his society (which prided itself on its earnestness). You definitely seem to write better posts on authors whom you like!
I liked your post but I think his slickness was more in regard to the cautiousness at which he had live away from his real family to indulge in the life to which he desired.
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