"The Other" In Wilde’s Social Comedies

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) is a talented and famous writer in Victorian era. His writing covers various genres. However, it is his social comedies that attract the most public attention and make him renowned in his time. Based on a relevant study on his social comedies, this thesis attempts to respectively analyze the images of different "Others" by employing the concept of "the Other" in feminism and post-colonialism.Apart from introduction and conclusion, the thesis fits into three chapters. Chapter One focuses on the marginalized women characters through feminist perspective, including the unmarried young lady and middle-aged women deserted by society. In the Victorian patriarchal society with the male as the center, the female is the subordination to the male, and inevitably "the Other." Chapter Two concentrates on the foreigners as "the Other" and the unfair treatment they receive from the London upper class through post-colonial perspective. During Victorian era, the Great Britain reaches its peak and establishes vast colonies overseas. Its people have an innate superiority, thus the foreigners from colonies certainly can not avoid their marginalized destiny. Chapter Three mainly analyzes Wildean dandies as "the Other." Different from the women and foreign "Others," these dandies actually marginalize themselves voluntarily to "the Other" status because of their dissatisfaction with the hypocritical and vulgar mainstream culture. Among those characters, except for quite a few silent "Others," most of "the Others" make active efforts to get rid of the marginalization. However, due to the deep-rooted patriarchal culture and the limitation of their strength, their efforts end with a failure.As a writer ahead of his time, despite the fact that Wilde is a person living during the Victorian era, he can creatively point out the subordinated position of women and the marginalized destiny of foreigners in London. He endows the dandies with the spirit of resistance to revolt against the mainstream society, deconstructing a series of dichotomies. Although there are some limitations in his modern thoughts due to the restriction of the era, Wilde is a Victorian writer with modern awareness and progressive thought.