An Ideal Husband E-Book

Oscar Wilde

• Herausgeber: Wilde House
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

An Ideal Husband is an 1895 comedic stage play by Oscar Wilde which revolves around blackmail and political corruption, and touches on the themes of public and private honor. The action is set in London, in "the present", and takes place over the course of twenty-four hours. "Sooner or later," Wilde notes, "we shall all have to pay for what we do." But he adds that, "No one should be entirely judged by their past." Together with The Importance of Being Earnest, it is often considered Wilde's dramatic masterpiece. After Earnest it is his most popularly produced play.Many of the themes of An Ideal Husband were influenced by the situation Oscar Wilde found himself in during the early 1890s. Stressing the need to be forgiven of past sins, and the irrationality of ruining lives of great value to society because of people's hypocritical reactions to those sins, Wilde may have been speaking to his own situation, and his own fears regarding his affair (still secret).Other themes include the position of women in society. In a climactic moment Gertrude Chiltern "learns her lesson" and repeats LORD GORING's advice "A man's life is of more value than a woman's." Often criticized by contemporary theatre analyzers as overt sexism, the idea being expressed in the monologue is that women, despite serving as the source of morality in Victorian era marriages, should be less judgmental of their husband's mistakes because of complexities surrounding the balance that husbands of that era had to keep between their domestic and their worldly obligations. Further, the script plays against both sides of feminism/sexism as, for example, Lord Caversham, exclaims near the end that Mabel displays "a good deal of common sense" after concluding earlier that "Common sense is the privilege of our sex."A third theme expresses anti-aristocratic sentiments. Lady Basildon, and Lady Markby are consistently portrayed as absurdly two-faced, saying one thing one moment, then turning around to say the exact opposite (to great comic effect) to someone else. The overall portrayal of the upper class in England displays an attitude of hypocrisy and strict observation to silly rules.

Leseprobe

Oscar Wilde

An Ideal Husband

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Table of contents

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

THE SCENES OF THE PLAY

FIRST ACT

SECOND ACT

THIRD ACT

FOURTH ACT

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

THE EARL OF CAVERSHAM, K.G.

VISCOUNT GORING, his Son

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN, Bart., Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs

VICOMTE DE NANJAC, Attaché at the French Embassy in London

MR. MONTFORD

MASON, Butler to Sir Robert Chiltern

PHIPPS, Lord Goring’s Servant

JAMES }

HAROLD } Footmen

LADY CHILTERN

LADY MARKBY

THE COUNTESS OF BASILDON

MRS. MARCHMONT

MISS MABEL CHILTERN, Sir Robert Chiltern’s Sister

MRS. CHEVELEY

THE SCENES OF THE PLAY

Act I. The Octagon Room in Sir Robert Chiltern’s House in Grosvenor Square.

Act II. Morning-room in Sir Robert Chiltern’s House.

Act III. The Library of Lord Goring’s House in Curzon Street.

Act IV. Same as Act II.

Time: The Present

Place: London.

The action of the play is completed within twenty-four hours.

FIRST ACT

SCENE

The octagon room at Sir Robert Chiltern’s house in Grosvenor Square.

[The room is brilliantly lighted and full of guests. At the top of the staircase stands lady chiltern, a woman of grave Greek beauty, about twenty-seven years of age. She receives the guests as they come up. Over the well of the staircase hangs a great chandelier with wax lights, which illumine a large eighteenth-century French tapestry—representing the Triumph of Love, from a design by Boucher—that is stretched on the staircase wall. On the right is the entrance to the music-room. The sound of a string quartette is faintly heard. The entrance on the left leads to other reception-rooms. mrs. marchmont and lady basildon, two very pretty women, are seated together on a Louis Seize sofa. They are types of exquisite fragility. Their affectation of manner has a delicate charm. Watteau would have loved to paint them.]