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Fallen Woman’ Motif in Two Plays by Oscar Wilde

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Fallen Woman’ Motif in Two Plays by Oscar Wilde 8th LUMEN International Scientific Conference Rethinking Social Action. Core Values in Practice | RSACVP 2017 | 6-9 April 2017 | Suceava – Romania Rethinking Social Action. Core Values in Practice The ‘Fallen Woman’ Motif in Two Plays by Oscar Wilde Nicoleta-Mariana IFTIMIE* https://doi.org/10.18662/lumproc.rsacvp2017.31 How to cite: Iftimie, N.M. (2017). The ‘Fallen Woman’ Motif in Two Plays by Oscar Wilde. In C. Ignatescu, A. Sandu, & T. Ciulei (eds.), Rethinking Social Action. Core Values in Practice (pp. 340-352). Suceava, Romania: LUMEN Proceedings https://doi.org/10.18662/lumproc.rsacvp2017.31 © The Authors, LUMEN Conference Center & LUMEN Proceedings. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of the conference 8th LUMEN International Scientific Conference Rethinking Social Action. Core Values in Practice | RSACVP 2017 | 6-9 April 2017 | Suceava – Romania The ‘Fallen Woman’ Motif in Two Plays by Oscar Wilde Nicoleta-Mariana IFTIMIE1* Abstract In order to place Oscar Wilde’s interpretation of gender stereotypes and gender roles in a proper context, we should view it against the doctrine of the ‘separation of spheres’, which was prevalent in Victorian England. According to this doctrine, a woman was restricted within the confines of the domestic or private sphere, being attributed the roles of wife and mother. Women who conformed to the ideal wife and mother stereotype were also eulogized on stage, while those who departed from the norm were regarded as outcasts and were shut off from fashionable society. The ‘fallen woman’ motif is apparent in Wilde’s society comedies. The characters that seem to embody this stereotype are Mrs. Erlynne in “Lady Windermere’s Fan” and Mrs. Arbuthnot in “A Woman of No Importance.” Each of them tries to hide a ‘shameful secret’: Mrs. Erlynne, the apparent homewrecker and seductress, wants to conceal her former abandonment of husband and child in favour of a lover who abandoned her later on; Mrs Arbuthnot, the stern woman and dutiful mother, tries to conceal the fact that she had been seduced by Lord Illingworth in her youth and had given birth to an illegitimate son. This study focuses on the two characters mentioned above in order to show the way in which Wilde exploited conventional gender roles and stereotypes, by playing the double game of conforming to and at the same time departing from expected conventions. Keywords: Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, the fallen woman, the shameful secret, motherhood. 1 “Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iaşi, Romania, [email protected]. https://doi.org/10.18662/lumproc.rsacvp2017.31 Corresponding Author: Nicoleta-Mariana IFTIMIE Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of the conference Nicoleta-Mariana IFTIMIE | LUMEN Proceedings 1 | RSACVP2017 1. Introduction In order to place Wilde’s handling of the well-known motif of the ‘fallen woman’ in a suitable context, it is important to view it against the of the pervasive Victorian England doctrine of the ‘separation of spheres’, which imposed clear gender roles and double standards for men and women. In this patriarchal family model, the two genders were traditionally attributed dichotomic characteristics: thus, men were regarded as “career- oriented, active, independent, dominant, strong, coarse, while women were considered home-oriented, passive, dependent, submissive, weak, delicate, even fragile” [1 p243]. Men, the breadwinners and providers for the whole family, were attributed the public/social sphere; on the other hand, women were restricted to the private/domestic sphere, responsible with household activities and childcare, being bestowed upon the roles of wives and mothers. Motherhood was regarded as the highest role a woman could have. Failure for the woman to conform to such standards - unmarried women bearing a child or wives that deserted their husbands for a lover - resulted in ostracism and banishment from high society. On the other hand, men who deserted the pregnant women they had seduced or who committed adultery received no punishment from society. Hence the existence of a double standard applied to the two genders, which was at work in the period both in real life and in the theatre. Out of Wilde’s comedies, Lady Windermere’s Fan (LWF) and A Woman of No Importance (WNI) place at their centre a woman trying to conceal a shameful secret from her past: Mrs. Erlynne, the apparent homewrecker and seductress tries to hide her abandonment of husband and child twenty years before, while Rachel Arbuthnot, the stern woman and dutiful mother wants to conceal the fact that she had been seduced by a man and had given birth to an illegitimate son. 2. Theoretical background: good and bad women The ‘fallen woman’ became a traditional motif in the 19th century theatre in her many facets: fallen mother, adulteress or adventuress. This motif should be seen against the framework of the social, political, moral and religious context of the time, in which the pure and good women, the ‘angels in the house’ were eulogized and were opposed to the women who deserted from the roles of wives and mothers. The requirements of women playing their long-established gender roles were moral purity, sensibility, kindness, submissiveness, dutifulness, 341 Nicoleta-Mariana IFTIMIE | LUMEN Proceedings 1 | RSACVP2017 devotion and self-sacrifice as can be seen from this idealized portrait made by William Acton, as quoted in Nead: a perfect ideal of an English wife and mother, kind, considerate, self- sacrificing, and sensible, so pure-hearted as to be utterly ignorant of and averse to any sensual indulgence, but so unselfishly attached to the man she loves, as to be willing to give up her own wishes and feelings for his sake [2 p18]. The dictum ‘A woman’s place is at home’ clearly established the role of women, considered fragile and pure beings in need for protection. The two genders were thus seen as separate, but complementary and interdependent as John Ruskin pointed out in Sesame and Lilies: Each has what the other has not: each completes the other, and is completed by the other…the man's power is active, progressive, defensive. He is eminently the doer, the creator, the discoverer, the defender. But the woman's power is not for rule, not for battle and her intellect is not for invention or creation, but for sweet ordering, arrangement and decision...Her great function is Praise: she enters into no contest, but she infallibly judges the crown of contest [3 p150-151]. The gentle, loving, innocent ‘good woman’ was counterbalanced in real life and in literature by the vulgar, selfish, impure ‘bad’ woman. Even in the passive version represented by the innocent young girl who had been seduced and then abandoned, the ‘fallen woman’ was seen as a danger to the whole society, as she disrupted the well-established gender roles of the patriarchal English society. Once lost, a woman’s good reputation could hardly, if ever be re-established: In those halcyon days the flirtations of a married woman assumed a horrendous significance; reputation seemed vastly more important than character; a woman with a past could not aspire to a future as well [4 p213- 214]. In La Dame aux Camélias, Marguerite Gauthier, the ‘fallen woman’ of Dumas’ novel speaks about the inescapable, terrible fate waiting for her: And so, whatever she may do, the woman, once she has fallen can never rise again. God may forgive her, perhaps, the world, never. What man would wish to make her his wife, what child to call her mother? [5 Act III p140-141]. Such a woman would lose her identity, becoming a ‘fallen woman’, a ‘lost woman’, a ‘woman of the streets’ or at least a ‘woman without character.’ Those who truly repented had to show their sincerity by going to a convent, doing good deeds for the poor (like Mrs. Arbuthnot in Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance) or making restitution for those they had wronged. 342 Nicoleta-Mariana IFTIMIE | LUMEN Proceedings 1 | RSACVP2017 Mrs. Erlynne, the ‘fallen woman’ in Lady Windermere’s Fan, mocks at these staple punishments 19th century literature thought proper for women who deviated from the established norms: I suppose, Windermere, you would like me to retire into a convent, or become a hospital nurse, or something of that kind, as people do in silly modern novels [6 p425]. 3. Argument of the paper In his society comedies, Oscar Wilde takes over the ‘fallen woman’ stereotype and questions its validity. This article will focus on two such plays, Lady Windermere’s Fan and A Woman of No Importance. The characters that seem to embody this stereotype are Mrs. Erlynne in the former play and Mrs. Arbuthnot in the latter. Each of them tries to hide a ‘shameful secret’. This study focuses on the elusive nature of Wilde’s plays, in order to show the way in which Wilde exploited conventional gender roles and stereotypes, by playing the double game of conforming to and at the same time departing from expected conventions. 4. Arguments to support the thesis: the double game 4.1 The fallen woman: homewrecker or homebuilder? Out of the different roles played by a woman, of prime importance was that of the mother. The fallen woman as a mother represented a specific threat for 19th century English society, because it aimed at the very foundations of the ‘happy English home’. If in the literature of the epoch the adventuress type could be forgiven and could in the end return to society, the deserting mother was allowed to return to her children’s lives again only by stealth. This is in fact what Mrs. Erlynne does when she returns to her child on her coming-of–age birthday in Wilde’s first successful play, Lady Windermere’s Fan that opened at St.
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