Gender and Sexuality in "The Importance of Being Oscar"
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2018-07-02
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en
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Abstract This thesis concerns the play “The Importance of Being Oscar”, a one man show devised by Micheál MacLiammóir about the life of Oscar Wilde, and focusses on the themes of gender and sexuality and how they are depicted in this play. The purpose of this thesis is to determine how MacLiammóir chose to incorporate and display both those themes, and how they correspond with the ideas about gender roles and non-normative sexuality of 1960s Ireland. Through the analysis of the biographical elements included in the play, the excerpts of Wilde’s work, and the performance of MacLiammóir it will be shown how the gender roles in this play conform to the traditional gender binary and how the, at the time, sensitive subject of homosexuality is portrayed to the conservative Roman Catholic Irish.
Key words: The Importance of Being Oscar, Michal MacLiammóir, gender, masculinity, effeminacy, Oscar Wilde, homosexuality
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