![]() The narrator calls Lady Alroy a woman with a “mania for mystery. Oscar Wilde’s short story “A Sphinx Without a Secret” embodies the New Woman’s struggle for independence and self-definition. Late-Victorian English society fought over definitions for the New Woman, perhaps to limit her power to define herself. From Ouida to Sarah Grand, the New Woman was both dragged through the metaphorical mud and praised from the rooftops. According to Talia Schaffer, “As a mythic icon, the New Woman evokes an extraordinary range of emotional associations, a flood of feelings which can powerfully support whatever goal the writer has channeled it towards” (45). The New Woman, a symbol of the shifting aspirations of late-Victorian women, underwent scrutiny over her desires for life outside of the pre-established roles that nineteenth-century English society set for her. But Wilde’s short story “A Sphinx Without a Secret” is another work ready to be read as a New Woman text. Killing the New Woman – Defining “Self” in Wilde’s “The Sphinx Without a Secret”ĭiscussions of Oscar Wilde and the New Woman rightfully focus on his time editing Women’s World.
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