Oscar Wild's Society Comedies: From The Perspective Of Family Ethics

Oscar Wilde, the leading advocate of Aestheticism in the West, got his standing position in the contemporary society not for his astounding speech of "art for art's sake", but for the four society comedies finished at his late period, namely the Woman of No Importance, an Ideal Husband, Mrs Windermere's Fan, and the Importance of Being Earnest. Obviously different from his representative aesthetic works, which are obscure, surrealistic and out of traditionally accepted moral aim, these comedies are easily recognized by clarified and frank style of realism. Besides, common morality is not avoided here, but merged into the whole works, even stands a main inner positive factor to make value. This essay considers that in creating, the tip of the playwright's pen centers from 'family' and, through kinds of people's (roles') strolling about under certain significant domestic background, stretches to diversified aspects of the contemporary Victorian society. This may not be from the author's creative consciousness though, these works present certain means of artistic expression, that is, "from the inner to outside". And furthermore, the point that "family being important and in some sense even central for the works created and being created" should never be neglected. Considering the concrete factors, seldom of which unrelated to domestic subject, of these comedies, these works are shrouded in the atmosphere of common life, and on the other hand that "family" itself, either from its semantic or from it's performance in reality, is capable of expressing and applying sense to this atmosphere also strengthens the realistic style. It should be noted also that the relation and common between "family" and the " Victorian society", the blunt means that express and thus build a bridge between "domestic" and "social" are all accountable for the realistic effects of the comedies, moreover proving the importance of domestic set to create and serve the style of reality in these works.In fact, "family" is truly taking a noticeable position in constructing the comedies. This can be viewed from the subject, the basic and major scenes, both of the plot and content of these works. This essay probes into the social reasons why "family" is so important in the Victorian period, and on this basis assures the much effects made by family relation and awareness, both of which affirm the general support for the domestic subjects in these works.Making studies from a general view in the aspects related to family ethics in these works, this essay exemplifies around three chief points: the family females' self—awareness, the relation between husband and wife, and also the individual's relation with family. Seen generally in elucidating, this essay adopts both of cultural comment-and textural analysis simultaneously, inquiring into how these three points are clearly shown in the plays, further into the possible profound value of culture hidden underneath. Putting emphasis on females' performance outside particular family scope and their communicating with the people of non-family members, the first point mentioned here advances that family is essential to offer the females' much possibility to express their self-awareness. When discussing the second point, with the focus moving to how the relations between husband and wife perform and how this performance is reflected in the family scope of the reality, the attention to females also transfers to their expressing in the interior of family. In sum, female images are of major support for elaborating these two points. "Family" referred to in this essay is not just viewed as a conceptionally defined whole, offering this essay more convenience to probe into the roles' outward performance in relation to "family" of such a conceptual whole, but also casts light on kinds of concrete factors that make up the inner parts of family scope. So this essay makes attempt in particular role's complex family awareness as a mortal, the contacts between profound complexity and the outward performance, which unavoidably put effects on constituting a particular family scope and the component parts. These are the main about the third point. Furthermore, by summering certain ideas through the whole exposition, this essay makes a try to inquire, not very elaborately but deeply, into the playwright's own possible family awareness and ideology.