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Kim, Yoonji. “Why is Being Earnest Important to Victorian Women?: New Woman and Social Geography of Victorian Culture in Oscar Wide’s The Importance of Being Earnest.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 40.1 (2014): 1-24. In The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde portrays female characters who comically contest over the name Ernest. Such comical adventure highlights idiocy of Victorian social decorum and gender hierarchy. Wilde’s portrayal of women in the play suggests that he celebrates the idea of New Woman who expresses her own thoughts and values the autonomy in choosing her own husband. As an editor of women’s magazine, the Woman’s World, Wilde challenged distorted representation of New Woman in mainstream magazines and he also attempts to popularize positive images of New Woman by creating Gwendolen and Cecily as women of opinions who habitually write. This paper examines how Wilde portrays New Woman in Earnest in relation to the modernity that reorganizes the social geography of Victorian society. (Korea University)