Oscar Wilde And His Dandy Masks

Oscar Wilde (1854—1900) was one of the leaders of the aesthetic movement in the late 19th century in England., a famous writer, port, dramatist and artist. After his death in 1900, much research work has been on him and his works. His writing styles were colorful, from novels and dramas to fairy tales and poetry and made great contributions to the whole world. However, critics have focused more on his comedies. In his life he wrote four comedy plays, including Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). These works had made a great success. In these works, Wilde had built some dandy images, revealing and bitterly criticizing the hypocrisy and degeneration of the bourgeoisie upper class. The previous research work has mainly paid more attention to his life and thoughts and the structure and creativity of his works. This article will explore the four comedies and find out Wilde's method and purpose when creating these characters. Finally we will see the truth of these dandies from a different angle.This article is divided into four parts. The first part mainly introduces Wilde's lifetime and the social background of the late Victoria when Oscar Wilde lived and wrote. The second part takes the dandy images in the four comedy plays for example and analyzes these dandies, including their lifestyle, attitude, value. The third part deals with the anti-social thoughts presented by these dandies. The fourth part concludes that dandies are the most attractive characters created by Wilde. On the surface, they are immaculately dressed and incomparably graceful, merely pursuing all the beautiful things in the world. They are Wilde himself. Through their different languages and behaviors, cynical lifestyle and disparate moral value, Wilde intended to reveal the shallowness, narrowness, vulgarity and hypocrisy of those so-called orthodox men and women in the late Victoria. Actually, Aestheticism and dandyism represented by dandies are tools used by Wilde to confront utilitarianism and pragmatism of the capitalist class and challenge certain social and moral values of the society.