Oscar Wilde (1845-1903) - An Ideal Husband

Wilde adds insult to injury by constructing robert as being a very lucky man in life. He is an attractive man who lives in Grosvenor sqaure, (an upper class area) with his adoring wife. After finding out the origin of this wealth, the audience is annoyed as they know (due to the plays realistic style) that he aquired it all through crime. Sir robert's character is more insulting to a victorian audience because not only is he wealthy and unpunished as a result of the crime, but he is a well respected man with a job in politics as theunder-seceratary for foreign affairs, later to be offered a coveted and highly respected seat in the cabinet. The audience assumes that people in the real world as lucky and benevolent as this are so becuase they worked hard and are earnest. By creating a character like this who took the easy money and built a marriage and friendships around lies, wilde has challenged the earnestness of the many victorian people because there were many poeple in a social position like robert's who may have done a similar thing to get there.

In An Ideal Husband Wilde presents a view (the least flattering view presented in the play)that victorian society is viciously hypocritical. This is acheived through the characterisation of Lady Gertrude chiltern, as her ridiculously high morals (an important factor of earnestness) almost cost her her marriage. she demanded to be told if robert had done some shameful thing, in which case they would separate. This irony shows the hypocrisy of being too earnest.

Morality is an important factor of earnestness which is mocked in An Ideal Husband by the dialogue of the play, especially the characterised dialogue of Mrs. Chevely. Through her dialogue"Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.", wilde, through Mrs. Chevely, shows morality as an attitude we adopt as opposed to an earnest quality we possess. This suggests that people with high morals are only posing to make themselves appear more earnest than another person, and that really by posing as moral they are not being earnest at all, they are wearing a mask of high morals.

Masks, (poses, appearences and attitudes) are a key theme in An Ideal Husband. one of wilde's obvious impressions of society was that everyone is wearing a mask (false) and calls themselves earnest (honesty). In relation to this idea, wilde also presents victorian society as laughbly pretensious as either nobody has noticed that no-one is truly earnest and that they are all wearing masks, or no-one will admit to it. This challenge of earnestness is presented through actions, costumes, hyperpole, paradox and dramatic irony.

On page 184 Mrs. Chevely is asked if she prefers to be natural rather than an optimist or a pessimist, she comments that natural is "such a very difficult pose to keep up." This ironic comment exposes the audience to the idea that even people who appear to be natural in their stance on life are posing that way. She exposes the hypocrisy that people who seem to be natural are posing that way, like she is. In this was, wilde, through chevely, challenges victorian earnestness as even the seemingly natural people in society are not earnest because their "natural" stance is a pose.

Lord caversham is one character constructed to be earnest in that he says what he thinks, and does not wear a mask, which makes him an effective tool in exposing victorian earnestness as pretentious and hypocritical. He upholds the ideals of london society, but exposes the people in it as "a lot of damned nobodies talking about nothing." (pretentious) It is evident that wilde intended this to be paradoxical as they are at a political party and so far have only talked about trivial things and "people don't talk politics." (hypocritical)

An ideal person is an earnest person, and ideals are another theme of the play. Mrs. Marchmont and Lady Basildon are two married ladies who, while talking about their "hopelessly faultless" husbands expose earnestness (an "admirable" quality) as 'unendurable' and "tragic".These ladies, through dramatic irony, expose the earnestness of searching for an ideal husband as laughably pretentious and hypocritical. This is because many women at the time were searching for an earnest husband to spend their lives with when there is, as Mrs. Marchmont puts it "not the smallest element of excitement in knowing him." Yet they keep searching for an earnest and ideal husband.

It is in these ways Wilde challenges Victorian earnestness.