The Importance of Being Earnest/Victorian Research

In Victorian English times, women were treated unfairly with fewer opportunities than men. This started at a very young age. While the boys learned math and law, the girls were taught French, drawing, dancing, and music. Girls might also learn sewing or needlework. In most cases, their entire schooling was at home with a governess. Job opportunities for lower-class women were limited as well. Some job possibilities for a lower-class Victorian woman might be baking, seamstressing, being a domestic servant, working in a textile and clothing factory, or being a laundry worker. Even though upper-class women didn’t work, they were still treated poorly.

This poor treatment of women is reflected in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Victorian women had little or no say in their life choices. One such woman is Gwendolen, who expresses, “Few parents nowadays pay any regard to what their children say to them” (53). Not only did parents not listen to their children, these parents offered their daughters no choice in whether or not to get engaged. On page 44 of the play, Lady Bracknell scolds Gwendolen, “Pardon me, you are not engaged to anyone. When you do become engaged to some one, I, or your father, should his health permit him, will inform you of the fact.” It is completely up to Gwendolen’s parents to choose her husband, and once a husband is chosen, it will be up to him to make the rest of her life choices. Although upper-class women were free of the hardships of working, they still were unequal to men.