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'An Ideal Husband' quotation bank + critics
Written for A-Level OCR English Literature Drama and Poetry pre-1900s For 'An Ideal Husband' by Wilde
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An Ideal Husband – Oscar WildeSRC: Sir Robert Chiltern
LG: Lord Goring
LC: Lady Chiltern
LB: Lady Basildon
MM: Mrs Marchmont
MC: Mabel Chiltern
C: Mrs Cheveley
LM: Lady Markby
VDN: Vicomte de Nanjac
LCv: Lord Caversham
Act I
(In Grosvenor Square.) – upper-class location
(The room is brilliantly lighted and full of guests.) – lavish and bold
(Triumph of Love.) – used repeatedly and ironically throughout the play
LB: I hate being educated.
MM: So do I. It puts one almost on a level with the commercial classes. –
dismissal of virtues, demonstrates twisted values in high Victorian society,
status, wealth, power
LB: The man who took me in to dinner talked to me about his wife the
whole time. – earnest marriages made fun of, cynicism, lack of depth in
society
(Mabel Chiltern is a perfect example of the English type of prettiness. She
has all the fragrance and freedom of a flower. There is ripple after ripple
of sunlight in her hair… like the mouth of a child… she has a fascinating
tyranny of youth, and the astonishing courage of innocence.) – modern
woman, independence of spirit
MC: London Society is entirely composed of beautiful idiots and brilliant
lunatics. – beauty and intelligence separated
(Mrs Cheveley: lips very thin and highly coloured, a line of scarlet.
Venetian red hair. Rouge. She looks rather like an orchid. She is extremely
graceful.) – femme fatale character introduced, Victorian audience
understands she will be the bearer of the secret for a well-made play,
woman with a past, corruption
LM: Nowadays people marry as often as they can. It is most fashionable. –
desire for marriage
VDN: You are younger and more beautiful than ever. – standards for
women
SRC: Brilliant Mrs Cheveley. – reference to brilliant lunatics?
,C: My prizes came a little later in life. I don’t think any of them were for
good conduct. – woman with a past
C: I don’t know that women are always rewarded for being charming. I
think they are usually punished for it. – women treated in society
C: The strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot
explain us. Men can be analysed, women merely adored. –
strength/weakness of women depending on interpretation
SRC: The problem of women. – negative connotations
C: Science cannot grapple with the irrational.
SRC: And women represent the irrational. – women considered irrational
C: Nowadays it not fashionable to flirt till one is forty, or to be romantic till
one is forty-five, so we poor women who are under thirty have nothing
open to us but politics or philanthropy. – youth and morality, romance
SRC: A political life is a noble career!
C: Sometimes it is a clever game. – taking subtle control over the
conversation
(C drops her fan)
SRC: Allow me! (picks up fan)
C: Thanks. – taking control and manipulating social convention
C: People are either hunting for husbands or hiding from them. – views on
marriage
C: You know what a woman's curiosity is. Almost as great as a man's! –
need for liberation
C: Intimately. – woman with a past, sexual undertones
SRC: Allow me to introduce to you Lord Goring, the idlest man in London. –
irony that he is critical of lack of purpose yet demonstrate lack of morality
himself, appearance vs. reality
C: I have met Lord Goring before. – woman with a past
LG: I leave romance to my seniors. – youth and old age conventions
MC: You're always telling me of your bad qualities, Lord Goring.
LG: I have only told you half of them as yet, Miss Mabel! – value honesty
in their relationship
LG: Quite dreadful!
MC: I delight in your bad qualities. – honesty, equal dynamic
, LG: A genius in the daytime and a beauty at night!
MC: I dislike her already.
LG: That shows your admirable good taste. – femme fatale character
LCv: You seem to me to be living entirely for pleasure.
LG: What else is there to live for, father? Nothing ages like happiness. –
hedonism, morality
LB: So much in women that their husbands never appreciate in them!
MM: Our husbands never appreciate anything in us. We have to go to
others for that! – unhappy marriages, unsatisfying
MM: My Reginald is quite hopelessly faultless. There is not the smallest
element of excitement in knowing him. – values, perfection deemed
unappealing
MM: We have married perfect husbands, and we are well punished for it. –
perfection as unappealing
LG: I should have thought it was the husbands who were punished. – irony
MM: They're as happy as possible! It is tragic how much they trust us.
LG: Or comic. – blindness, ignorance, dismissive of perfection
MM: Men are so painfully unobservant. – ignorant, blind
MM: Men are grossly material, grossly material! – values of society
SRC: I am sure you are far too clever to have done that.
C: I have invested very largely in it.
SRC: Who could have advised you to do such a foolish thing?
C: Baron Arnheim. – undermining women’s intelligence ironically since he
is being controlled
(C motions to him with her fan to sit down again beside her.) – controlling
conversation
SRC: I have no advice to give you, Mrs Cheveley, except to interest
yourself in something less dangerous. – undermining woman’s intelligence
C: I want you to… then I want you to… Will you do that for me? –
imperatives
SRC: You are talking to an English gentleman. – overestimates his
superiority
(C detains him by touching his arm with her fan, and keeping it there
while she is talking.) – dominating conversation with convention
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