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ABSTRACT
Drama A Woman of No Importance oleh Oscar Wilde menceritakan tentang sebuah lingkungan dalam suatu masa di Inggris. Terdapat empat karakter wanita yang memiliki bagian penting dalam drama ini. Keempat karakter tersebut berperan dalam memformulakan tema dalam drama ini. Tema dalam buku ini berkaitan dengan sebuah lingkungan sosial yang membantu pembentukan karakter wanita sebagai individu. Empat karakter wanita dalam drama ini adalah Mrs. Arbuhnot, Hester Worsley, Lady Hunstanton. Ketiga karakter tersebut memiliki karakter yang terbentuk oleh nila-nilai sosial yang berlaku pada masa tersbut.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT . . . i
TABLE OF CONTENTS . . . ii
ABSTRACT . . . iii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION Background of the Study . . . 1
Statement of the Problem . . . 3
Purpose of the Study . . . 3
Method of Research . . . 3
Organization of the Thesis . . . 3
CHAPTER TWO: ANALYSIS OF THEME THROUGH POTRAYAL OF FEMALE CHARACTERS IN OSCAR WILDE’S A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE . . . 5
CHAPTER THREE: CONCLUSION . . . 15
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . 18
APPENDICES: Synopsis of A Woman of No Importance . . . 19
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APPENDICES
SYNOPSIS OF A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE
The picture is set in an English country house, owned by Lady Hunstanton. At first, we are introduced to Lady Caroline. She is involved in
conversation with Lady Hunstanton’s American Puritan Guest Hester Worsley.
Lady Hunstanton holds a party and invites her acquaintances. The other characters are then introduced, such as Mrs. Allonby, Lady Stutfield and Lady Caroline’s husband, Sir John. They discuss frivolous matters and later join the powerful, charming and charismatic person, Lord Illingworth, who offers the post of secretary to Gerald Arbuthnot.
Gerald’s mother is invited to join the party. When she arrives there, she
realizes that Lord Illingworth is Gerald’s father. She had an affair with him twenty
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BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in 1854 in Dublin. He is the son of a surgeon named Sir William Wilde, who was also a writer. Oscar Wilde is a famous playwright and novelist. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and Magdalene College, Oxford. He has won some awards for his literary work, one of which is the Newdigate Prize for his poem Ravenna. In I88I, he published poems, several volumes of which are concerned children stories, and were originally written for his own sons.
Oscar Wilde was also famous for his comedy of manners in some of his plays. He wrote some plays such as The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), An Ideal Husband (1895), A Woman of No Importance (1893), and Lady
Wintermere’s Fan (1892). He also wrote a famous novel in 1891 The Picture of
Dorian Gray, his only novel. His great talent made him becomes a well-known writer in the literature.
He had a family but soon his relationship was ruined because of his relationship with the son of his closest friend. He was sentenced for having a relationship with man. As the punishment, he had to undergo two years of hard labour. After having the punishment, Wilde decided to move to France and spent his lifetime writing some poems and literary works. One of the famous ones is Salome, also known as his last play.
Source:
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854. He is known as a famous playwright, poet, and essayist. He is also famous for his involvement in bringing aestheticism to England. Nearly all of his plays are comedy of manners in Victorian period. That is what makes him unusual in comparison with other playwrights. According to Christopher Russel Reaske’s How to Analyze Drama, comedy of manners relates to an artificial social life in the Victorian period:
Comedy of manners usually concerned themselves with manners and customs of a very synthetic or artificial highbrow society; the comedy of manners is a satirical thrust at the mores of the so-called establishment and thus the manners of the upper-crust and the conventions of “social” people are hold up for ridiculous (Reaske 11).
2 Maranatha Christian University I decide to analyse his work not only because of his great sense of comedy but also for his worth reading play. In my thesis, I choose A Woman of No Importance, one of his plays. I find the play interesting because he explores all the characters, especially women characters. In one of his biographies, Wilde says: “I took the drama, the most objective form known to art, and made of it as personal a mode of expression as the lyric or the sonnet; at the same time I widened its range and enriched its characterization” (“biography”). As Wilde states above, especially about the enriched characterization, I perceive that he as playwright has his own purpose of making the characters unusual and of keeping a close distance between his characters and his readers.
A Woman of No Importance discusses some female characters that lived in a Victorian Period. Based on Reaske’s How to Analyze Drama, “there is no narration or description in drama. Because this is so the playwright must present his ideas and his pictures of the characters almost entirely through dialogue and action” (Reaske 13). Throughout the three female characters’ dialogue and action of this play, I believe that I can find the theme as the meaning of story. “The theme of a piece of fiction is its controlling idea or its central insight. It is the unifying generalization about life stated or implied by the story. To derive the theme of a story, we must ask what its central purpose is: what view of life it supports or what insight into life it reveals” (Perrine 102). I can also identify the
writer’s point of view. The message from this play can be found from the female
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Statement of the Problem
The problems are stated as follows: 1. What is the theme of the play?
2. How do the portrayals of the female characters help to reveal the theme?
Purpose of the Study
Based on the statement of the problems above this study is done: 1. To show the theme of the play.
2. To reveal the theme through the portrayal of female characters.
Method of Research
I use library research in my analysis and I start reading A Woman of No Importance as the primary text. I also read and compile some texts that are taken from books and the internet to support my analysis. Then I analyze the novel and draw some conclusions.
Organization of the Thesis
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CHAPTER THREE
CONCLUSION
After reading the play and analyzing the female characters in Oscar
Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance, I conclude that the female characters
support the revelation of theme of this play. The theme itself has a connection with social life of Victorian period because this play was written at that time. The
theme of this play is, “society plays a very important role in how a woman thinks
and shapes herself as an individual in the society”.
Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance has formulated a theme that I believe
has a correlation with real life, because until today, every human being still lives in the society which can bring a certain impact to them. Taken place in 19th century, Wilde tries to display a generalization of how women conduct their lives. This is revealed from the three female major characters in the play.
16 Maranatha Christian University characteristics are shaped because she has already seen and compared both
American’s and English’s society. The third female character is Lady Jane
Hunstanton. She is a shallow and conceited woman. Her characteristics are constructed by the society that believes in social barriers and the idea that appearance is everything. After analyzing the play, I can see clearly that the three female characters are influenced and shaped by the society.
From the way Wilde creates these three female characters, I discover a theme which reveals an embodiment of certain people in society. I believe all the characters are very effective in supporting the theme. The theme has given a very good picture that society can produce different kinds of effects to women. I also learn from this play that society can give either good or bad influences toward an individual; therefore one has to consider one’s surrounding and environment in the society.
I find from this play that society is a part of human being that cannot be separated because wherever people stand they are always connected with the society’s values or custom. Yet, the society does not always give good effects in shaping a person. Sometimes a person experiences the bad effect. The bad effects can occur when the society is not healthy. A person’s choice between the bad and the good is also the important lesson that I can get from this play.
17 Maranatha Christian University gives them some pressure. They could bear the society custom who forbids them to do a lot of things according to their wills.
The other message that I get from this play is that society ruled by man
sometimes treat women unjustly. In Mrs. Arbuthnot’s characterization, for
instance, I reckon that the unjust society makes her feel not comfortable to herself.
Men’s thoughts also become an important thing to count because what their
thoughts are what is ruled in the society.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Reference
Perrine, Laurence. Story and Structure. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983.
Reaske, Christioher Russel. How to Analyze Drama. New York: Mornach Press, 1966.
Gillie, Christopher. A Companion to English Literature. London: Longman Group Ltd, 1972.
Internet/Websites
Enotes.com. 2007. Summary of A Woman of No Importance. 30 Mar. 2010. <http://www.enotes.com/synopsis/A Woman of No Importance/>. Wikipedia.org. 2007. Biography of Oscar Wilde 11 Mar. 2010.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Biography of Oscar Wilde/>
Wikipedia.org. 2006. Victorian Women. 23 Mar. 2010.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Victorian_era/> Manybooks.net. 1997. The Project of Gutenberg, A Woman Of No Importance. 10
Mar. 2010. <http:www.manybooks.net/play/A Woman of No Importance/>
