Mrs. Warren’s Profession: Genre 1 key example

Both Mrs. Warren's Profession and The Importance of Being Earnest are "drawing-room plays" that contend with the complexities of social life, including common restrictions and conventions. In Wilde's play, characters must deal with the problems that arise from choosing to live a "double life." The resultant conflict is one between personal desires and the demands of society—a common source of tension in comedies of manners. In Mrs. Warren's Profession, the nexus for this conflict is Mrs. Warren herself. Formerly a sex worker, Mrs. Warren's personal desires and attitudes heavily contrast those of other characters, Vivie included.

Mrs. Warren's Profession, in addition to being a comedy of manners, is a prime example of early Modernist literature. The play examines changing attitudes towards women and issues of women's financial independence extensively. Such topics featured prominently in social discourse during the late Victorian and early Modernist eras, coinciding with early feminist movements and women's voting rights advocacy. Questions of women's changing role in society were contentious; hence Mrs. Warren's Profession's place in the history books as a censored, controversial play.