On The Images Of British Gentleman In Oscar Wilde’s Comedies

Oscar Wilde is a famous playwright,novelist,poet and aesthete in late Victorian England.Oscar Wilde’s four comedies,Lady Windermere’s Fan,A Woman of No Importance,An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest,achieve great success and contribute to the Britain literature.The image of the gentleman is an important factor in the success of Wilde’s comedies.The image of gentleman in Wilde’s comedies greatly influences the development of the plots and leaves a deep impression on the audience.Therefore,the study of the image of gentleman in Wilde’s comedies helps reveal Wilde’s comedies’ aesthetic and cultural values.Based on the close reading of comedies’ text,this thesis adopts the conception of British gentleman and Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital to classify and analyze the image of British gentleman in Wilde’s comedies.First,this thesis discusses Wilde’s inheriting of the traditional British gentleman in his comedies.Gentlemen in Wilde’s comedies inherit the polite manners,courageous chivalry and charity from the traditional British gentleman.Second,this thesis discusses the rewriting of traditional British gentleman in Wilde’s comedies.Wilde rewrites the traditional British gentleman by portraying Victorian gentleman,elegant dandy and cynical dandy in his comedies.Last,this thesis discusses Wilde’s creations of new image of British gentleman in his comedies.Wilde creates Bohemian intellectuals and cultural critics in his comedies.Through the analysis of Wilde’s inheriting,rewriting and creation of the traditional British gentleman,this thesis maintains that Oscar Wilde creates new images of gentleman for the British literature and gives his comedies the particular function of cultural criticism.The four comedies of Oscar Wilde perform dual functions of entertainment and cultural criticism.Under the mask of amusement,Oscar Wilde reveals the hypocrisy of Victorian society and the complexity of human nature,criticizes the conformity,vulgarity and strict morality in Victorian society,and expresses his thirst for the free development of individual and art.