A woman of no importance- the ideal man discussion

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The ideal Husband essay

In this section the women are served with after dinner coffee in the drawing room, whilst the men are having their port. They speak here with much more frankness than when in the presence of men, they feel able to relax, and the conversation turns on to the topic of how to keep men under control.  They conclude that the middle classes have happier marriages than the gentry but are not certain why. The opening of Act II provides an amusing contrast to Act I and the tone is totally different. This scene establishes the women’s viewpoint of the struggle between the sexes, interestingly they all assume without question that there is in fact a struggle, this would highlight the issue to the audience and ensure they took in what Wilde subtly revealed through his character and reveals the main theme of the play.

Mrs Allonby sees marriages and relationships in terms of ownership, with men ‘always trying to escape from us’; Lady Caroline sees marriage as a tool to control men and to keep them ‘in their proper place’ and Lady Stutfield uses dependency in order to flirt ‘Men are so very, very heartless’, and Hester keeps out of this part of the conversation- perhaps emphasising her naivety in the world of men and women whilst Lady Hunstanton just seems to back up Mrs Allonby and Lady Caroline’s ideas.

The after-dinner separation of the sexes would be familiar to Wilde’s audience; not only does it create an opportunity for the women to speak amongst themselves about the men, thus highlighting one of the key issues of the play- sexual equality, but it is also part of an elaborate code of manners with it’s own conventions. For instance, none of the women are inhibited by the servants serving coffee and do not take any notice of them, although the stage would be alive with the servants bustling about. Mrs Allonby continuously challenges the boundaries of what is acceptable to be spoken about in polite society. Wilde himself is also challenging the boundaries, there is a subtext here of Mrs Allonby’s sexual boredom. She goes on about the size and shape of Earnest’s chin which almost makes it seem like the women are speaking in code about male sexual inadequacy. She complains of her own marriage; she finds it stale yet she cannot accuse her husband of anything worse than being calm, faithful and uninteresting. When she speaks of the Ideal man, she follows an old stage tradition in the comedy of manners; a witty drama grounded in the battle of the sexes within which the humour chiefly verbal; where the heroine spelt out to her promised what she wanted from the marriage in what was called a proviso scene. Here however, her demands for the ideal man are appropriate to a lover not a husband, and she states outright of marriage that ‘The institution is wrong’. The allusion to the comedy of manners would have been familiar to Wilde's audience and this modification would make them laugh and see Mrs Allonby is not articulating deep personal emotions about sexual frustration or the confinements of domesticity. Her preference for manipulating men rather than having blatant affairs as Lady Stutfield does implies that she won’t risk her status by getting ‘burned’. She acknowledges the pressures created on men and women by the conventions of aristotic marriage grounded in status rather than love. The audience know the pressures well and to here her charming and elegant figure mock the rules of society would amuse them without insulting them.

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Not one of the group of women has any interest in social change- although at the time the play was being shown, the fourth Married Women’s Property Bill was being debated, previously a wife could own nothing, not even inherited property or anything she earned herself; she was not seen as needing anything for herself, and Mrs Allonby’s topical allusion reminds the audience that these women live in a changing world- rich Englishwomen would soon have some of the economic power and liberty that Hester possesses.

Hester has remained quiet for all of the women’s talk about marriage and ...

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