Lady Windermere's Resistance in Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan

Abstract

This dissertation examines the anguish and shocks experienced by the protagonist, Lady Windermere in Oscar Wilde’s play Lady Windermere’s Fan. It reflects not only the suppression of this Lady in her traditional society butalso the emancipation of her in male-governed society. Lady Windermere, who realizes the humiliation to be a female and finds physical and mental torture upon her life, fails to find equal status with her husband. She is fed up with her conventional husband, and the systems set in the traditional Victorian society are not acceptable to her as an intellectual woman. The anguish and pain experienced by the protagonist awakens the senses of her precarious existence. However, this Lady is able to find her own self by resisting the patterns set by traditional Victorian society. This is the sublime- perception of her oneself in her society. There is a journey made by the protagonist in her society which is plotted by Oscar Wilde very cleverly. She starts her life from subjugation and ends with emancipation. This emancipation also reflects the emancipation of the entire world of women.