Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde, Oliver Twist, Victorian Comedy

The Victorian comedy

After the Elizabeth’s times, we haven’t great authors that written plays. This is because the rich middle classes did not consider drama as a form of art and actors were considered like vagabonds with little respectability. However, a new theatre was built in London. The new playhouses were small but comfortable and luxurious, and the new painted scenery with gas-lit stages produced realistic effects.

Types of theatrical performances

We have some types of theatrical performances:

• Music hall: Dancers, singers, and acrobats performed in turn.
• Pantomime: The narrator told a story with gestures.
• Farce: Actors provoked laughter.
• Melodrama: Had a romantic plot.

Oscar Wilde has some Victorian comedy’s features: brilliant dialogue, humor for talking about upper classes' hypocrisy, a provocative form for discussing human experience and social problems, detailed stage directions including descriptions of characters and their personality, music, gesture, and actions.

Oliver Twist, the plot

He was born in a workhouse after his mother's death. For 9 years, he lived in a parish orphanage but was brought into the workhouse by Mr. Bumble, a parish official. In the workhouse, Oliver shocks everyone because he asked for more food. The consequence was that he was sold for 5 pounds to an undertaker, but Oliver ran away to London. He meets Dodger, a pick-pocket boy that brought him to his house in the slums of London, Fagin’s den. Fagin teaches boys how to steal for him, helped by a brutal burglar, Sikes, and his girlfriend Nancy, a prostitute.

One night, Oliver was ordered to steal from a rich family, but the lady of the house, Mrs. Maylie, decides to take care of him. She and her husband discover Oliver’s identity and adopt him. Nancy was murdered by Sikes for helping Oliver, but also, he died and Fagin was captured by the police. Oliver’s innocence was saved, and the villains were all punished.

The Importance of Being Earnest

It is a Wilde’s famous play. The story is about two young aristocratic men, Ernest and Algernon, who fall in love with two young women. Ernest is now called Jack, the name assigned to him when he was adopted. He is the guardian to his granddaughter, Miss Cecily, who lives in the country. Jack has invented an alter ego, a younger brother called Ernest, who lives in the City because he was in love with Algernon’s cousin, Gwendolen.

Even Algernon pretends to have a friend, called Bunbury, whose invalidity requires frequent attention, ensuring his departure to the country because he was in love with Cecily. The story develops around the two young men’s attempts to marry Gwendolen and Cecily. They have to overcome a lot of obstacles, but in the end, both men discover they...