Her disagreement with Elizabeth over this idea reveals another reason for marrying. Elizabeth has a more romantic view and claims that Charlotte’s opinion ‘is not sound’. It should be noted, however, that the desire to marry for no other reason than financial security is shown in the novel to be held by men as well as women. Colonel Fitzwilliam, Darcy’s cousin, states that he has to marry with some attention to money’. This is because the family estate will pass to his brother.
The four main characters in this play are John Worthing, Gwendolen Fairfax, Algernon Moncrieff, and Cecily Cardew. With the plot mainly focusing on the love stories of the two couples, the play mocks Victorian society as a whole. Wilde does a good job of hiding serious issues with great comedy. The topic of marriage, for example, was a very controversial and debated subject during the Victorian Era. The Importance of Being Earnest questions whether marriage proposal is based on “business” or “pleasure”.
So is marriage really a result of love or can it be possible that it is simply just a business contract? Marriage during the Victorian Era, for the Aristocrats that is, required intense interrogation of the potential husbands before any consideration was made. It was viewed as a way to better one’s social status. In order to do that, a proper husband required a good and steady income as well as some kind of title. No aristocrat wanted to marry below themselves.
This is what Wilde’s play pokes holes at through his use of satire. The question he raises is, essentially what do we marry for? To give us a bit of context, rewinding back into the Victorian era, it was really not that uncommon for people to marry solely for financial reasons. While this was the main reason for marriage, it also happened due to a sense of social obligation. People didn’t marry because they were in love.
Shakespeare's use of literary techniques and content assist in portraying the presence of power in the text. The famous love bid scene is the extract of the play in which the tragedy begins to unfold. King Lear, instead of utilizing his power and authority responsibly, abuses it arrogantly and naively. Lear feels the need “to shake all cares and business from his age; conferring them on younger strengths." In saying this, Lear suggests he believes himself to be too old to run the roles and responsibilities of King and wants his daughters and son's in law to take charge instead.
In the Renaissance, the humility of the Middle Ages was completely thrown out, only to be replaced with people wearing extravagant clothing and consuming themselves in their image. Machiavelli stresses this point in The Prince. He repeatedly describes how a prince does not necessarily have to be a compassionate or loving prince. As long as he can act the part, he will do well, and therefore succeed as a prince. In his book, Machiavelli writes that the politics of the royals were mostly showmanship, and not genuine concern for the title.
This reflects the patriarchal society at the time. Therefore, Browning uses literary techniques to reflect and challenge the accepted gender roles in society during the Victorian Era. Similarly, this concept is also explored in “The Professor”. The narrator, William Crimsworth’s condescending tone when describing women, “their dresses were pleasing enough to the eye but their conversation was meaningless”, portrays how he believed they were only physically attractive. He considered them inferior in terms of their intellectual capacities.
Socio-political context of Courtly Love “Now it is the effect of love that a true lover cannot be degraded with any avarice. Love causes a rough and uncouth man to be distinguished for his handsomeness; it can endow a man of even the humblest birth with nobility of character, it blesses the proud with humility; and the man in love becomes accustomed to performing many services gracefully for everyone. O what a wonderful thing is love, which makes a man shine with so many virtues and teaches everyone, no matter who he is, so many good traits of character!” (Capellanus, De Amore) Love, in the courtly manner, is an attitude. It is art that needs to be practiced. The experience of desire and heartache is taken to the utmost extreme, beyond of what is considered to be ordinary.
It can be based upon the parents decision, and even sometimes it can be based on things related to money. This research paper is on Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. The Nature of Marriage is shown through many ways other than love in this play, and in the world that we live in. In Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, the Nature of Marriage is not shown through love, but instead it is shown through social position, wealth, and character. The Nature of Marriage is shown through many different ways in Oscar Wilde’s farce, but one of the main ways it is shown is through social position.
In this regard Mr. Collins is a true production of this society. He wants to “make amends” to the Bennets girl for the entail on the property by marrying one of them. It is very ridiculous that in such a matter of marriage, he is considering only the “property” not his own prudence whether the Bennet girl is fit for him or the marriage will be a proper one. When we look at another character of this novel namely Charlotte Lucas, we see that she is also going on the same path of the society. The union between Charlotte and Mr. Collins is a good example of this marriage that brought about entirely for economic reasons.