‘An Ideal Husband’ Context Flashcards
(14 cards)
Ruskin on The Nature of Woman
see also The Angel in the House: Conventry Patmore
from ‘Of Queen’s Gardens’
John Ruskin was both the leading Victorian critic of art and an important critic of society. His essay Of Queen’s Gardens (1865), published in Sesame and Lilies, has been taken as an eloquent statement of the conservative ideal of Victorian womanhood. However, the essay also urges women to abandon trivial feminine pursuits in order to act as a moral force in countering
The Aesthetic Movement and its values
Rooted in the Aesthetic Movement’s credo of “art for art’s sake,” An Ideal Husband embodies aestheticism through Lord Goring’s cultivated wit, ornamental style, and detachment from conventional morality, challenging the earnestness of Victorian virtue with elegant irony.
“Realism is a complete failure” = art shouldnt merely imitate life “utterly boring”…”art was superior to life”…”be as artificial as possible”
In the fine arts, the Aesthetic Movement was the philosophy behind the Pre-Raphaelites, whos trove to create beauty
The Upper Classes
THe Victorian Era began with the elite control of society, under 300 families who valued history, heritage and family lines, with a paternalistic view of society. Noblesse oblige was their belief that it was the e;lite’s duty to take care of society, hoping to maintain the status quo with institutions like the law of primogeniture]BUT attitudes were changing with the growth of the middle class
Wilde makes comment on the materialism of the upper classes, clearly in SRC and Mrs Cheveley, but also in Lady Chiltern, whose materialistic values are obscure but certainly present in her dedication to her husband’s publ;ic image – social status and opinion define her husband and their marriage does not reach a happy conclusion until she accepts true love
In the costly splendour of the tapestry representing **Boucher’s fleshly “Triumph of Love’ and the procession of bejewelled aristocrats, Wilde exploited to the full the high production values and costly sets which were part and parcel of fashionable society drama at theatres like the Haymarket and the St James’s. **
Dramas set among the social elite entertained the lower ranks with a supposed glimpse into how the other half lived, while simultaneously acting as a shop-window for the luxury goods which formed an intrinsic part of the theatrical display.
Haute-couture costumes on stage could set the fashion off stage, while the expensive trappings of society drama could reduce the theatre, in Bernard Shaw’s despairing words, to a luxurious marketing opportunity in which ‘a tailor’s advertise- ment mak[es] sentimental remarks to a milliner’s advertisement in the middle of an upholsterer’s and decorator’s advertisement?’
The high-class audiences taking up the Haymarket’s most expensive seats were both con-sumers of its products, potential customers for the fashions it promoted, and a part of the spectacle itself, there both to see and be seen.
Newspaper accounts of the Haymarket’s opening nights commonly began by listing the notables in the audience, who in the case of An Ideal Husband included the Portugese Minister, Mr and Mrs Asquith, Lord and Lady Ribblesdale, Lord and Lady de Grey, and Sir Frederick Leighton.
It “was left to individual audience members to decide how far the corruption beneath Wilde’s gilded society reflected the reality in the theatre’s stalls.” = SOS ELTIS
Wilde’s own experience with the press / blackmail and scandal
Written on the cusp of Wilde’s own exposure to blackmail over his sexuality, An Ideal Husband uses Mrs. Cheveley’s threats to dramatize the danger of public disgrace in a society obsessed with reputation and governed by hypocrisy.
Preparing the play for publication in 1899, Wilde wrote to his friend Reginald Turner that ‘some of its passages seem prophetic of tragedy to come’. Certainly Wilde’s own trials and conviction and the orgy of journalistic outrage which accompanied them demonstrated the accuracy of the playwright’s analysis.
Homosexual acts were a capital offence until 1861
Wilde’s own apparent attitudes towards women
Though Wilde’s public rhetoric could be patronising or idealising toward women, An Ideal Husband presents a range of female characters—from the domineering Lady Chiltern to the scheming Mrs. Cheveley—who challenge simple binaries and assert complex moral and social agency.
Wilde’s own feminist sympathies were made clear by his editorship of the Woman’s World magazine. “As editor of Woman’s World in the late 1880s, Wilde provided a platform for women to construct a new image of themselves for themselves”… he “intended the magazine to be ‘the organ of women of intellect, culture and position’” and “encouraged his contributors to disregard conventional ideals of femininity and gender” - Richard Ellmann
The position of men and women in society (morality / virtue and corruption – look at Ruskin)
Influenced by John Ruskin’s vision of feminine moral purity, the play ironically reverses gender expectations, portraying men like Sir Robert as morally fallible and women like Lady Chiltern as guardians of virtue—until this ideal is itself shown to be dangerously rigid.
Women’s campaigns for improved legal rights, access to the professions and higher education, and for the parliamentary vote, were gathering weight in the early 1890s, and the theatre largely responded by mocking their demands.
Gertrude Chiltern’s active interest in politics and her membership of the Women’s Liberal Association lead her to support ‘Factory Acts, Female Inspectors, the Eight Hours Bill, the Parliamentary Franchise’ (II, 399-400) - a set of humanitarian legislative reforms in line with Wilde’s own political sympathies
The inherent absurdity of women aspiring to political activism or interfering in intellectual matters beyond their meagre abilities was a popular theme for a number of contemporary playwrights. In Pinero’s The Weaker Sex and Grundy’s The New Woman, for example, contemporary feminists were satirised as feeble-minded and ridiculous in their demands for further political and social rights, and both plays’ plots end with the revelation that these self-deceiving women are really only in pursuit of a man, and will abandon their feminist crusade as soon as a prospective lover is in sight
Ruskin formalised the idea of men and women’s hierarchy in his ‘Of Queen’s Gardens’ Essay, popular in Victorian Society, using the phrase ‘The Angel in the House’ from a poem by Coventry Patmore
Wilde was under Ruskin’s supervision at Magdalen College, Oxford
Victorian morality – highly religious / underlying poverty and depravity
Wilde satirises the rigid surface of Victorian morality, which proclaimed Christian piety and order while concealing the social inequalities and corruption that underpinned its institutions, particularly through the double lives of its male elite.
Victorian fixation on wealth and power is highly ironic, in contrast to the very moralistic standpoint in that era. Wilde thus draws attention to this hypocrisy.
Lady Chiltern maintains a posture of moral rectitude but struggles with the concept of forgiveness, but the play seems to reward characters who learn and improve their moral imperfections, with SRC succeeding due to sticking to his principles and denouncing the canal scheme
‘VIctorian’ was first used as a term during ‘THe Great Exhibition’ in London 1851 where VIctorian inventions and morals were shown off to the world = PRIDE
A period marked by CONTRADICTIONS: widespread cultivation of outward appearance of dignity and restraint BUt also the widespread presence of many deplorable phenomena, including child labour, prostitution, and imperial exploitation
Political corruption and hypocrisy
Sir Robert’s rise through insider trading embodies the political hypocrisy of the age, revealing how Victorian ideals of honour and duty are often upheld by men whose public morality is built on private vice.
Relevance both past and present with political greed and corruption
MODERN: PartyGate
PAST: Scandals regularly destroyed talented politicians, including Sir Charles Dilke, a radical reformist and Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, who was dropped from the Liberal government for being named as co-respondent in a divorce case, though never found guilty.
PAST: Charles Stewart Parnell, leader of the Irish Nationalist parliamentary movement, was similarly thrown aside when he was named in a divorce case, though his relationship with the woman in question was longstanding and commonly acknowledged.
Liberator Building Society, Royal Baccarat 1890, Panama (canal) Scandal!
Queen Victoria herself – ‘Mother of the Nation’
By gently mocking the idealised domestic virtues embodied by Queen Victoria, Wilde destabilises the notion of perfect national motherhood, suggesting that no one—man or woman—can live up to such impossible moral expectations.
The Victorian Era was considered the height of the Industrial Revolution in Britain and the apex of the Empire, between 1837-1901 when Victoria reigned
Wilde’s critique of idealism allies him close to Ibsen and his plays Ghost (1881) and The Wild Duck (1884)
Marriage and its purpose – inheritance and procreation / Ruskin
In keeping with Ruskin’s view of marriage as a sacred institution tied to inheritance and social duty, Wilde critiques the transactional nature of marital alliances, as seen in the play’s negotiations of status, legacy, and political survival.
Wilde was under Ruskin’s supervision at Magdalen College, Oxford
Unmarried girls signalled they were ready for marriage by projecting their ‘body image’ and had very strict rules of conduct which, si not followed, could mean their name was struck of guest lists and the chances at a good marriage ruined
Even when engaged, she could not drive alone in a carriage with her fiance,and was expected to remain innocent and virginal
Young girls came out in the London Summer Season, May to August, with invitations coming out in February from the King and Queen at the First Court for their presentation = ‘Coming Out’
The New Woman
Mabel Chiltern, with her independence, wit, and refusal to moralise, hints at the emerging “New Woman” of the 1890s, who sought personal freedom and intellectual equality in defiance of conventional female roles.
The Conservative writer Mrs Eliza Lyn Linton criticised the New Women as modern man-haters ‘unsexed by the atrophy of their instincts’ and many cartoons portrayed them “as affectedly mannish in dress and appetites”with an association “in the public mind with immorality and decadence” because of New Women poets and novelists like Sarah Grand and Constance Naden - Richard Ellmann
The Speaker proclaimed at the time of Wilde’s trial that the New Woman, along with New Criticism and New Poetry were all ‘more or less the creatures of Mr Oscar Wilde’s fancy’
GOVERNMENT REFORMS: Factory Acts (women and children couldn’t work for more than 10 hours in a factory), Female Inspectors, HIgher Education of Women (EDucationActs of 1870 and 1878) required compulsory education for all girls)
Stock Characters
The femme fatale character
Mrs. Cheveley embodies the femme fatale trope, using beauty, intelligence, and social grace as weapons to manipulate men, exposing the vulnerability of male power structures to female ambition.
The term “femme fatale” was coined in nineteenth-century French literature and she was presented as cold-hearted, deceitful, and violent, often using her powers of seduction as a means to destroy her enemies. A famous example from that time is John Keats’ La Belle Dame Sans Merci, who puts men in her “thrall” by luring them into her arms. See also Salome in the play of the same name by Oscar Wilde
The Dandy
Lord Goring, Wilde’s dandy alter ego, uses fashion, irony, and philosophical detachment to undermine the moral pretensions of society, proving that aesthetic elegance can coexist with genuine ethical insight
Beau Brummell: Often cited as the “father” of the English dandy, Brummell was a renowned figure in the early 19th century for his impeccable style and refined manner.
Wilde’s characters in The Importance of Being Earnest often embody dandyism, particularly Algernon Moncrieff, with his playful and sometimes frivolous approach to life and fashion.
Wilde’s Experience in Society
As a figure both celebrated and scrutinised within elite London society, Wilde channels his insider-outsider (Irish birth) perspective into the play’s drawing-room settings, where charm and performance mask insecurity, ambition, and moral compromise.
Wilde himself moved into rooms at 9 Charles Street, Grosvenor Square in 1883
He worked his way up into the London Upper Classes, adhering strictly to Victorian rules of etiquette such as “The hours for walking and sitting in the Park are from 4 to 7pm during the Summer months and “when bowing, a gentleman should raise his hat”
Genre in ‘An Ideal Husband’
The French Well-Made Play
An Ideal Husband adopts the conventions of the French pièce bien faite—with secrets, mistaken identities, and climactic confrontations—but infuses the form with social satire and moral ambiguity rather than neat resolution.
Farce
Through exaggerated misunderstandings, comic reversals, and witty repartee, Wilde incorporates farcical elements to mock the superficiality and moral rigidity of upper-class respectability.
Melodrama
Though the plot features melodramatic conventions—blackmail, hidden sins, and moral crises—Wilde subverts the genre’s emotional earnestness with irony, balancing serious themes with comedic detachment.
Paradox and epigrams
Wilde’s style is defined by paradox and epigrammatic wit, using sharp inversions of logic—“Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike”—to destabilise conventional thinking and critique social pretensions.
Wilde’s Hester Worsley was another stern puritan, forced to revise her moral absolutism in response to human frailty like Lady Chilterm
Comedy of Manners
Generally a satire upon social attitudes, often attacking superficiality and materialism
Roots in Restoration Comedy, with the more romantic 18th & early 19th century works presenting the triumph of truth and virtue over vice and hypocrisy, while the darker perspectives (like Wilde) suggest true virtue is dead, or confined to the lower classes
