An Ideal Husband Critics Flashcards
(13 cards)
Eltis English high society
SOS:: “The play reviews, English, high society and government has enthralled to wealth and birth, hypocritically veiling its feelings with the supposed adherence to high moral ideas”
Masks critic society
NEAL: “Insincere society that refuses to acknowledge its reliance on secrecy and public masks”
SOS unrealistic standards
SOS: “Sir Robert’s marriage and the country’s financial integrity are rendered vulnerable through an insistence Lon unrealisable standards of morality”
LC’s Idealism critic
SHAW: “the mechanical idealism of [Sir Robert’s] stupidly good wife”
Conclusion aih critic
Liverpool Mercury Reviewer: Sir Robert was “rescued by his wife”, the play concluded with “the success of the wife in preserving her ideal husband’s honour”
morality critic
ELTIS: “Sir Robert varies his moral standpoint according to circumstances”… “unshakeable English integrity” to “resentful self pity”
appearance and art critics
Wilde: “All art is at once surface and symbol…“Art never expresses anything but itself…One should either be a work of art or wear a work of art”
SOS: “Outward appearance is all that counts”
women ethics critic
SOS: Women are the “natural guardians of society’s higher ethical standards”
society critic AIH
SOS: A society “founded in corruption or complacent privilege”
LOVE CRITIC AIH
ELTIS: Set against the corrosive effects of wealth and power is the potentially redemptive force of love; not in idealising love but humane and charitable love, accepting of human frailty and weakness.
HERO VS VILLAIN PARALELL critic
ELTIS: The difficulty of determining inner moral truth is exacerbated by the deliberate parallels established between the play’s supposed villain and heroes.
goring critics
ELLMANN: “In matching his philosophy of tolerance and forgiveness with action, the perfect dandy is in the end in danger of earning the serious title of ‘An Ideal Husband’.”
MOORE: “Lord Goring as the moral arbiter of his society.”
comment of women - chev and lc
BOSE: ‘Mrs. Cheveley’s wrongdoing is obvious: she invades male power.’ Lady Chilterm as “husband’s helpmeet and moral arbiter”
