Victorian Relationships

"And from this gutter we're still staring at the stars".. the feeling of eternal hope even when the world starts collapsing around you... the sense to hold on to bonds, by brute or bliss, is well displayed in "Lady Windermere's Fan".. a play i recently happened to read. Not a very big fan of classics.. however, I found this one very intriguing and was given a good peak by Wilde in the superficial and uptight relationships of the Victorian era.

The fictional suspense of the entire story is built around a fan! It's presence or absence has the authority to control Lady Windermere's future.. what seems ironical is that the decisions effected by logical sense of judgement and the compassionate understanding needed in a relationship are seem to be brought about a 'Fan' and not by the lady herself.

Coming to Lady Windermere and her fellow members of the High Society, they exude an unnatural aura of elegance and pretence, drawing up social boundaries of right and wrong. They define their own world, defining the behavior, conduct of those who are priviledged to live in them, the story draws on from the gossips of such 'royal gossip-brewers' which go on to poison the mind of young and effluent woman, Lady Windermere, who blinded by hr self-esteem, treads on to defy and run away from her husband for a better, ye a flirtatious prospect. The cause...the husband is held accountable for holding an objectionable relationship with an immoral woman.

The striking point of the play is deception through character sketches. The play very cleverly builds up the immoral woman's characer as being someone who is attracted to money and men. But just as you begin disliking her and pitying Lady Windermere, the plot twists to conradict your immaculately calculate ending, altering your exclamations at the end of the story.

The mentality of the Victorian Era towards relationships, husbands and retaining relationships was more commanding and preset as compared to a mutual bonding. The practice of treating men as a busboy at your beck-and call, to my view, could be responsible for the men straying towards greener pastures. I think what they just wanted was a woman who would listen to them, treat them with respect and honour them with dignity,as they did unto their wives.

If you look around you, the Victorian Era comes of age in this modern era too. Ultra-modern as one could call it. The society remains the same, the marriage remains the same, partners remain the same... more so even the genders and the roles they play!! Have we been able to change anything? Rest being a fixture by nature, haave we empowered purselves to change the way were are in a relationship? I don't think so. Demands remain the same. People do take each

for granted, misunderstanding their actions. people are still expected to behave as per the other's whims and fancies.

It isn't wrong to expect out of a relationship. but, impractical expectations are unjustified. when we bond, it is about two different lives pairing together. not just your own life attaching to the other. Your own wish to be independent, wish for some space or simply an expectation is mirrored into the other person as well. Where we fail is in acknowledging someone else's identity above us. And most of this happens subconsciously. None of us are bad, we just behave

unlike ourselves when we are bonded. From a third view, itis just another relation, like a brother-sister or a parent-son relation. The meaning changes when you delve deeper in.

Well... 'Lady windermere's Fan', on the surface a witty comedy, there is subtle subversion underneath- "it concludes with collusive concealment rather than collective disclosure"...