The Serious and The Frivolous: Parodic and Thematic Dualities of Oscar Wilde’s The Canterville Ghost
The Serious and The Frivolous: Parodic and Thematic Dualities of Oscar Wilde’s The Canterville Ghost

Summary/Abstract: This paper examines Oscar Wilde’s “The Canterville Ghost” as his multi-layered satirical commentary on Anglo-American cultural tensions and on Victorian and Elizabethan patriarchy, as well as his critique of what he perceived as Victorian moral superficiality. As the story remains under-read, the existing critical approaches focus narrowly on its feminist or religious dimensions. This paper offers a new critical perspective by paying equal attention to the cultural tension between the British aristocratic traditionalism and American pragmatism-cum-expansionism. It does so through a literary analysis conducted in the context of historical research with regard to feminist conclusions. It demonstrates how, through the character of the ghost, Wilde portrays British aristocracy as theatrically entrapped in obsolete customs and values, while the Otis family embodies the no-nonsense practicality and pragmatism of a rising industrial powerhouse. It also shows how Virginia Otis serves as a vehicle for Wilde’s proto-feminist critique of both Elizabethan and Victorian patriarchal social structure and how she subverts traditional gender roles not through an open rebellion but through her emotional intelligence, courage, and compassion. This paper also examines the way Wilde reimagines the Christian doctrine of salvation by replacing the theological framework of sin, repentance, and divine judgment with a model rooted in empathy and emotional connection. This vision of redemption mirrors Wilde’s ambivalence towards organised religion, shaped, on the one hand, by his fascination with Catholic ritual and, on the other hand, by his lifelong struggle to reconcile aesthetics, moral freedom, and religious sensibility.

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