Through His Eyes

A Critical Approach on Oscar Wilde’s Views on Society through Satires and Children’s Stories

Rechelle Jimenez

English 12 Honors

Stoll

per.5/7

8 December 2017

Prompt: Oscar Wilde was an Irish-born author who lived in the Victorian Era. He was as a

flamboyant and humorous person and he used those traits in his works to write about society.

Since Wilde was known for writing about his societal views, use a sociological approach to

analyze how he used his works to get his messages across to the reader. How and why does

Wilde tell certain messages about society through light-hearted works such as satires and

children stories?
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Anyone who watched family shows like ​Saved by the Bell ​or ​Full House ​had at least seen

one “very special episode”. The purpose of very special episodes is to inform their viewers about

serious topics such as violence and substance abuse. For example, “Silence is Not Golden,” a

Full House episode, is about Stephanie finding out her classmate’s father beats him and the

conflicting thoughts calling or not calling the police. In the original airing, the actors who played

Stephanie and Uncle Jesse directly talk to the audience to contact law enforcement if they

suspect or experience child abuse (“Silence Is Not Golden”). The concept of a very special

episode has been done in the last few decades, but people have presented similar ideas before.

Oscar Wilde is the creator of the 1800s version of a very special episode from a family show. He

used his witty humor to put a twist on his writing to convey serious messages about society. His

story ​The Happy Prince​ exemplifies the simplicity and imagery of a children’s story while

maintaining a deep meaning on how the characters are affected by society. The prince statue and

the bird are both humble characters, yet who they are and what they do in society reflects what

Wilde saw in the real world. In addition, his play ​The Importance of Being Earnest ​has comedic

characters that help tell the meaning of the story in a way that is funny, yet true. The characters

in the play all represent different societal values in Victorian England in which Wilde wanted to

bring light to in the real world. Overall, Wilde tells messages about society through light-hearted

stories by inputting humorous, whimsical characters to give out comprehensible and analytical

messages about the world he saw around him.

Oscar Wilde was born on October 16, 1854, in Dublin and lived most of his life in

England. Ever since his younger years, he was known for being highly intelligent as he was

received high awards and praise and even received a scholarship to study at Oxford. His Oxford
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days were also the time when he started to “attempt creative writing.” After graduating Oxford,

he continued to make his career in writing as he was writing poems, books, and plays. Almost all

of his works were based on the culture and society that Wilde lived in (“Oscar Wilde”).

To further understand the context behind his societal views, Wilde lived in the Victorian

era in England where society was “class based” and known for its “hierarchy based social order”

(“Victorian Era Life in England”). Because of this, the lower classes suffered a great deal as they

struggled to find stable jobs. Many factors like the Industrial Revolution and immigration made

it hard for families to bring in money. Child labor was starting to become popular to bring in

more money, or simply because their parents were sick or dead and the family needed to have

enough money for food. The families who could not support themselves lived in public housings

which were overcrowded and filthy which led to many people of this class being extremely sick.

On the other hand, people who were not in the lower classes had a great amount of money that

was either passed down to them from wealthy families or royalty. There was a great divide

between people in the Victorian era because “there were very few families that had relatively

nice homes, enough to eat on, and a decently successful career. You either had the money or you

didn’t” (“How Was Victorian…”). The horrible lives of the lower class would later form Wilde’s

views on poverty and inspire him to include it in his writing.

Even though the Industrial Revolution was an advancement for women as they were able

to work, they still had a societal expectation to become a wife and a mother. It has been argued

that their wedding day “in Victorian times was considered to the most important day in the life of

a Victorian girl.” Ever since they were young, the girls were taught to believe that their main

purpose was to “marry and to take of the family” (“Victorian Era Life in England”). The
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importance of marriage and role of women in Victorian society would also inspire Wilde to

create his plays that focused on the nature of relationships between men and women. Because of

this, it caused many people to analyze him and his work based on the people he was surrounded

with.

One message Wilde puts in his stories is that sacrificing something for the better of the

community can worsen the bigger problem of society. In his essay ​The Soul of Man Under

Socialism​ he discusses the idea of “unhealthy and exaggerated altruism.” When an individual or

group of people see many struggles within their community, they are moved by it and decide to

help the group of people who are being oppressed. Trying to solely help the oppressed were

remedies and those “remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it. Indeed, their

remedies are part of the disease.” Wilde claims that the best way to help the oppressed is to “try

and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible” (“The Soul…”). This

idea about society is heavily portrayed in his short story “The Happy Prince.” The short story

involves a dead prince who now lives as a statue of himself and a bird who meets him on his way

to Egypt. The prince becomes upset about how he realizes his city is depressing because poverty

fills its streets. There is one moment in the story where the prince sees a girl crying because she

was going to get beaten by her father because she could not bring any money home. The prince

said to the bird, “Pluck out my other eye, and give it to her, and her father will not beat her”

(Wilde, “The Happy Prince” ). The statue of the prince is full of gold and embezzled with jewels.

He wants to give his jewel for an eye to the girl because he is sympathetic to her. This is a great

example of Wilde’s explanation of unhealthy altruism. The fact that a father would beat his child

if they did not make enough money shows how the prince failed his city in eliminating poverty.
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The only thing he can do as a statue is to give a little bit of his gold and jewels to please his

people; it explains how it only gives remedies to cure such a cruel disease.

In “The Happy Prince,” Wilde portrays unhealthy altruism through a children’s story by

using a prince as a symbol. He uses figures of high class such as a prince to represent a hero to

his people. In children’s stories, the prince is supposed to protect his kingdom, to save the

damsel in distress, and to inspire the reader to be just like a prince. Ideally, the prince is

supposed to help their people in order to build a safe and happy community. On the other hand,

princes in history only brush off their people by giving them bits and pieces of “remedies”

instead of reconstructing their society as a whole. He uses the prince to address a serious issue in

a light-hearted story because it opens the eyes to all ages that they need more than a prince to

promote social change. They need more people of authority to be responsible for it.

Wilde emphasizes the real-world problems of socio-economic status in many pieces of

his writing by making it the problem in the stories he writes. One powerful quote from him was:

“There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is

the poor. The poor can think of nothing else” (“Oscar Wilde’s Religion…”). People of higher

class see money as a way to keep their status, but it is a thing they do not have to worry about.

People of lower class see money as a means of surviving; they constantly worry if they have

enough to take care of themselves and their family. Overall, money is the main thing that keeps

people satisfied. In “The Happy Prince,” the statue still wants to help the poor. Doing what he

can, he tells the bird “‘I am covered with fine gold...you must take it off, leaf by leaf, and give it

to my poor; the living always think that gold can make them happy’” (Wilde, “The Happy

Prince”). This further proves how the poor are so worried about the money to the point it
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becomes their source of happiness. It is the only way the poor people move on with their lives,

and they think it brings them further to wealth. This also goes back to the idea of thinking the

prince can solve poverty by giving every poor person gold. At the same time, he says people

think gold can make them happy because he is aware that gold does not fix the city’s problem,

but he gives it to them anyway. And once he had no more gold or jewels on his body, the art

professor at the city’s university said, “‘As he is no longer beautiful he is no longer useful’”

(Wilde, “The Happy Prince”). The statue of the prince is no longer this symbol of luxury, so the

townspeople, even the poor, throw him away since he is no longer what they need. The prince no

longer gives them happiness.

Wilde uses the idea of a person of wealth to show the socio-economic status issue in “The

Happy Prince” to make the situation present in the story and in the real world. He uses a prince, a

wealthy figure, in his story to emphasize how they can control how society functions. The

people’s power is taken over by someone that stands for status and hierarchy. Wealth is the only

way that the lower class can turn into a “somebody.” It is the only way that it would bring

happiness to people’s faces. Wilde sees this problem in his everyday life, and he wants to bring it

to people’s attention because it has become the norm; the poor​ ​envy the rich’s wealth, and the

rich look down among the poor. Telling this message through a children’s story makes people of

all ages understand that there is a problem with society and they should come together to make a

change.

In ​The Importance of Being Earnest​, Wilde uses characters and scenes to portray this idea

of living a life of pleasure was peculiar in Victorian society. In ​The Soul of a Man Under

Socialism,​ Wilde briefly discusses the idea of how ownership of private property can give people
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false happiness. He believes that by terminating the idea of private property, “nobody will waste

[their] life in accumulating things, and the symbols for things. One will live. To live is the rarest

thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all” (“The Soul…”). This strongly connects to the

purpose of why Jack and Algernon live another life to be more free in a society that is intolerable

with a life of leisure. Both Jack and Algernon create fictional people in order to excuse

themselves to either seek a life of pleasure or to escape a social engagement. It is also known as

Bunburying, based on Algernon’s fictional sickly friend, Bunbury, who Algernon has to

constantly “visit.” Chasuble asks Jack if Ernest, his dead fictional brother if he was ever married,

and when Jack said no, Miss Prism bitterly says, “People who live entirely for pleasure usually

are [unmarried]” (Wilde, ​The Importance of Being Earnest ​66). Miss Prism is the type of person

that Wilde says that exist, but do not live. She is making a judgment on how the free lifestyle is

also a messy and problematic one. They are indeed living in a time where everything is run by

orderly fashion; everyone’s lives are so busy because of family matters, business, and money.

This moment is supposed to be humorous and ironic because Jack creates Ernest to be this

mischievous person to constantly look after, yet Jack ​is​ Ernest and going out of town to do

whatever he pleases. Although this is taboo in Victorian society, Jack and Algernon simply want

to live life to the fullest, and the idea of Bunburying is a way how they pursue Wilde’s idea in

living rather than existing.

It is clear that ​The Importance of Being Earnest​ is full of comedic content and characters,

and Algernon is the man who represents the artistic way of life. He has no intention of being

funny, yet his idiosyncrasies make him unique in the play. Algernon is the embodiment of what

the Victorian society despises. Near the end of Act I, Jack says, “You never talk anything but
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nonsense,” and Algernon responds, “Nobody ever does” (Wilde, ​The Importance of Being

Earnest ​55). Even though Jack and Algernon are alike in the sense of wanting to live their life

through Bunburying, Algernon is completely more aware of Victorian society and finds it too

mundane and regulated. He does not take anything seriously and allows himself to become the

whimsical and witty person that he is. When Gwendolyn and Cecily find out about their double

lives, Jack and Algernon take their anger out on muffins. Jack questions why he is eating muffins

while Algernon simply replies, “Well I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would

probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly” (Wilde, ​The Importance

of Being Earnest 8​ 8). Algernon’s opinions on muffins only enhance his character as being

ridiculously peculiar. Wilde’s purpose in creating such a character is to represent the people who

are different in society. People always question Algernon, or view him in a certain way, because

he does not go by the social norms. He is the best character in representing the idea of how living

is a rarity and existing is a normality.

Wilde creates characters and scenes to represent the idea of the socio-economic status

and how it determines one’s value in ​The Importance of Being Earnest.​ As said before, Wilde

lived in a society where everything was run by traditional values and socio-economic status.

Wilde views society “as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals” (“Oscar

Wilde’s Religion…”). The only reason why there is such distinction of groups is that it

implemented in people’s minds that they have to be a certain way to be powerful, or that they

have to be certain way to achieve the same status to have value. Jack is destined to have the

blessing to marry Gwendolyn, but Lady Bracknell, Gwendolyn’s mother, was filled with shock

and anger when he admitted that he did not know his parents. When Jack confesses to Lady
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Bracknell that he was found in a handbag at a railway station, she claims that his background

could “hardly be regarded as an assured basis for a recognized position in good society” (Wilde,

The Importance of Being Earnest​ 48). Lady Bracknell holds him up to high expectations and

only sees him for his social status instead of his character and devotion to Gwendolyn.

Unlike Algernon, Lady Bracknell is the character that represents the stereotypes of

Victorian society. She clearly represents the pretentiousness of the upper-class society by

disapproving Jack and his family’s background, therefore, she refuses to allow Jack to marry

Gwendolyn. She even goes to great lengths in finding the right husband for Gwendolyn by

having a “list of eligible men”, and she even has “the same list as the dear Duchess of Bolton”

(Wilde ​The Importance of Being Earnest​ 45). She even asks him a set of questions of what his

habits and investments are to find if there is something out of the ordinary. A marriage is

expected in Victorian society, so finding an eligible suitor is being treated like business. Lady

Bracknell represents the older people of society who want to maintain their socio-economic

status for power for many generations. Wilde creates this character to bring light to this idea of

how people are materialistic and only focus on obtaining things such as money and property. If

Algernon is the person who lives, then Lady Bracknell is the person who exists.

“The Happy Prince” and ​The Importance Of Being Earnest​ have distinct ideas, and they

have similar themes the characters represent such as the emphasis on perfection. In the end of

“The Happy Prince,” when the prince runs out of gold, an upperclassman of the town​ notices that

“‘the red stone has disappeared, his eyes are not there, and he is not golden. He looks like a

beggar.’” (Wilde, “The Happy Prince”). According to the people, the prince is only viewed as an

idol. Everyone wants to be him, mothers want their sons to be like him, sad people want to be as
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happy as him, he was the idea of perfection. Since the prince is no longer golden and filled with

jewels, the public no longer needs him because he is no longer their idea of perfection. In ​The

Importance of Being Earnest,​ Gwendolyn and Cecily walk away from Jack and Algernon in

anger because they lied about their names being Ernest. They represent the high expectations and

perfection that Victorian society values. Gwendolyn and Cecily are so obsessed with the name

Ernest because it “inspires absolute confidence” (Wilde, ​The Importance of Being Earnest 4​ 1). It

put so much pressure on Jack that he no longer wanted to reveal Ernest not being his name

because he fears that Gwendolyn will no longer have affection for him. Gwendolyn and Cecily

are not only upset because Jack and Algernon lied, but they were no longer have the idea of their

perfect gentleman. The idea of perfection in both stories reveal how society only relies on how

someone is presented; they only value beauty and aesthetics more than the values and personality

of individuals.

Wilde also creates characters that uniquely twist the phrase “ignorance is bliss”. In the

beginning of ​The Happy Prince,​ the bird asks why the prince is crying and he weeps, “‘I lived in

a palace where there was no sadness… I was called the Happy Prince. I was pleased with my

little world. Now I am dead, and they have put me up here. I can see all the unhappiness of my

city’” (Wilde, “The Happy Prince”). He grew up in an environment where luxury was always

around him. Because of that, he did not feel the need to explore the city since everything he

wanted was in his palace. The prince not wanting to explore the outside world makes his people

suffer and makes himself unhappy from watching them struggle. The prince specifically

represents the ignorance of the higher class. In Victorian society, “​you either had the money or

you didn’t” which creates a social divide between the upper and lower class (“How Was
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Victorian…”). The more ignorance from the upper class, the more hardships the lower class

faces. In ​The Importance of Being Earnest,​ Lady Bracknell was interviewing Jack as a possible

suitor for Gwendolyn, and Lady Bracknell claimed that a man should either know everything or

nothing when they want to marry. Jack responds with “I know nothing…” (Wilde, The

Importance of Being Earnest 45). Jack represents the ignorance of the people who were against

Victorian society. The ignorance comes from people who are pressured into society’s

expectations and decide to live another life where they feel “alive” and “different”. However, the

ignorance leads Jack into trouble as it shows dishonesty to the people he was close to. His deceit

causes others to be angry and confused which causes more drama. Jack and the prince are

genuine examples how ignorance is bliss; they do not think about the problems they face,

therefore, they do not worry about them. Lady Bracknell even poetically states the meaning of

the phrase by saying “Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone”

(Wilde, ​The Importance of Being Earnest 4​ 5). Wilde’s twist on this phrase is that their ignorance

negatively affects them and the people they are surrounded by which also shows that ignorance

is ​not​ bliss.

Wilde expresses his societal views in his “less serious” work through the unique

characters he develops to represent a bigger idea. By doing this, he shows that expressing the

most complicated ideas can be told in a simple way. Despite “The Happy Prince” is a story for

children, it definitely shows the clear divide in the upper and lower class. The prince represents

Wilde’s opinions on how others value altruism and money. Even though ​The Importance of

Being Earnest​ is a comedic play, it pokes fun of the stereotypes of the Victorian society. Wilde

creates characters who are uptight and pretentious like Lady Bracknell, who represent the social
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norms of Victorian England, while characters who are witty and outgoing like Algernon,

represent the people who stand out from society. Wilde even brings up perfection and ignorance

in both works to show that his society revolves around those ideas. Even when Wilde writes in a

serious manner, like in ​The Soul of a Man Under Socialism,​ he still creatively expresses how he

feels towards Victorian society and socialism as a whole. The versatility in Wilde’s writing never

fails to make the reader question humanity in the past and in the present. Through his eyes,

society was and will always be complicated, but viewing them in a facetious manner makes life

easier and worth living.

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Works Cited

“How Was Victorian Poor and Middle Class Life?” ​Victorian Era Life in England. Victorians

Society & Daily Life​, ​www.victorian-era.org/victorian-poor-and-middle-class.html​.

“Oscar Wilde.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 28 Apr. 2017,

www.biography.com/people/oscar-wilde-9531078​.

“Oscar Wilde’s Religion and Political Views.” ​Oscar Wilde's Religion and Political Views |

Hollowverse​, hollowverse.com/oscar-wilde/.

“Silence Is Not Golden.” ​Full House​, fullhouse.wikia.com/wiki/Silence_is_Not_Golden.

“The Soul of Man under Socialism.” ​Oscar Wilde. The Soul of Man under Socialism,​

www.marxists.org/reference/archive/wilde-oscar/soul-man/

“Victorian Era Life in England. Victorians Society & Daily Life.” ​Victorian Era Life in England.

Victorians Society & Daily Life,​ ​www.victorian-era.org/​.

Wilde, Oscar. ​The Young King and Other Stories​. Essex, Penguin Books, 2000,

ec.europa.eu/employment_social/2010againstpoverty/export/sites/default/extranet/news_

documents/188_The_Happy_Prince.pdf.

Wilde, Oscar. ​The Importance of Being Earnest: an Authoritative Text Edition /Oscar Wilde ;

Critical Material Selected and Introduced by Henry Popkin.​ Avon Books, 1965.