Dandyism and Moralism in Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband
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danzregal (student)
Dandyism and Moralism in Oscar Wilde's An Ideal HusbandOscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband Oscar Wilde wrote An Ideal Husband in 1895, during the decade known as the "Yellow" or "Naughty Nineties", a movement with its roots in dandyism and decadence, the twilight years of England's Victorian era, reflecting decay and scandal . Some biographers suggest that Wilde might have been inspired by a number of events which occurred in his private life, to write this play , as it is the case for the dandified character of Lord Goring, which one could say is the double of Wilde himself, and who will maybe incarnate the figure of the ideal husband. As the stage notes from Act III indicate, Lord Goring is in "immediate relation" to modern life, making and mastering it. An Ideal Husband emphasizes Lord Goring's modernity by opposing him to his father, Lord Caversham, who is still living the old fashion way, in a number of dialogues, which appear to be comic, when we notice the radical opposition of thinking of the two characters. The meeting of the two produces a clash between the old fashioned and the modern thinking. This is seen in the first part of the third act, in which there is a conversation between Lord Gorging and his father, who came to speak about the importance of getting married, and the fact he can not go one living only for pleasure. LORD CAVERSHAM: […] Want to have a serious conversation with you, sir. LORD GORING: My dear father! At this hour? LORD CAVERSHAM: Well, sir, it is only ten o’clock. What is your objection to the hour? I think the hour is an admirable hour! LORD GORING: Well, the fact is, father, this is not my day for talking seriously. I am very sorry, but it is not my day. LORD CAVERSHAM: What do you mean, sir? LORD GORING: During the season, father, I only talk seriously on the first Tuesday of every month, from four to seven. LORD CAVERSHAM: Well, make it Tuesday, sir, make it Tuesday. LORD GORING: But it is after seven, father, and my doctor says I must not have serious conversations after seven. It makes me talk in my sleep. LORD CAVERSHAM: Talk in your sleep, sir? What does it matter? You are not married. LORD GORING: No, father, I am not married. LORD CAVERSHAM: Hum! That is what I have come to you to talk about, sir. You have got to get married, and at once. Why, when I was your age, sir, I had been an inconsolable widower for three months, and was already paying my addresses to your admirable mother. Damme, sir, it is your duty to get married. You can’t always be living for pleasure. Every man of position is married nowadays. Bachelors are not fashionable any more. They are a damaged lot. Too much is known about them. You must get a wife, sir. Look where your friend Robert Chiltern has got to by probity, hard work and a sensible marriage with a good woman. Why don’t you imitate him, sir? Why don’t you take him for your model? LORD GORING: I think I shall father […] This scene is ironic in the way that, on one hand we have Lord Caversham, who comes to talk of a serious matter to his son, whom he wants to convince that he has gained an age were he ought to get married, and on the other hand, we have Lord Goring, the bachelor in his thirties, whose intention of getting married, is apparently inexistent. He exemplifies the exact attitude of a dandy, not worried about anything, rebelled against what the society would want him to do or think, and led by his moral and personal liberty. These two opposite ways of thinking seem generate irony in the way Lord Goring answers, with rather unusual and sarcastic replies. Whereas most people would hope to have something
substantial to talk about, Lord Goring loves to talk about non serious matters, which does not seem to make any sense, as when we speak we usually have something substantial to say of. This attitude makes us think that he is acting as if he was making fun of his father, without being rude, and by this he shows his non-interest in marriage. However, Lord Caversham has come to talk business, and is not led off by these nonchalant replies. He will indeed get to the point and be able to say what he has come to say, despite his ...
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substantial to talk about, Lord Goring loves to talk about non serious matters, which does not seem to make any sense, as when we speak we usually have something substantial to say of. This attitude makes us think that he is acting as if he was making fun of his father, without being rude, and by this he shows his non-interest in marriage. However, Lord Caversham has come to talk business, and is not led off by these nonchalant replies. He will indeed get to the point and be able to say what he has come to say, despite his son’s sarcastic attitude, which will not end till the end of their discussion. He even advises his son to do as Lord Chiltern, which seems to the reader to be a bad idea due to the scandal linked to him, but Lord Caversham, not knowing the background, will indeed take Lord Chiltern as an example. In this dialogue, Lord Goring shows a puerile attitude, ignoring all responsibilities. However, within the play, Lord Goring delivers a number of more sentimental speeches on love and marriage, as when he helps and saves the Chilterns marriage and tells the upright Lady Chiltern that life is not all about public position, and that one can not always be perfect. He continues by showing the importance of forgiveness and charity in married life, reconciling the Chilterns' marriage. However, his own union with Mabel Chiltern is far less conventional, they both have the same idea of mirage, where duty, respectability, and the ideal roles of man and wife are not part of the plan. As for Lord Goring and Mabel, we can say they are alike in what they want of a marriage. We can see that Lord Goring has, in this respect (by helping his two friends), left behind his dandy side, and is showing more of a philosopher kind of character, which brings us to think that there are two sides to this rebellious bachelor. As we can read in the fourth act, as he is speaking with Lady Chiltern about her husband, and their problems. LORD GORING. [Pulling himself together for a great effort, and showing the philosopher that underlies the dandy.] [… ] Now is the time when you have got to trust me, to trust in my counsel and judgment. You love Robert. Do you want to kill his love for you? What sort of existence will he have if you rob him of the fruits of his ambition, if you take him from the splendour of a great political career, if you close the doors of public life against him, if you condemn him to sterile failure, he who was made for triumph and success? Women are not meant to judge us, but to forgive us when we need forgiveness. Pardon, not punishment, is their mission. Why should you scourge him with rods for a sin done in his youth, before he knew you,before he knew himself? A man's life is of more value than a woman's. It has larger issues, wider scope, greater ambitions. A woman's life revolves in curves of emotions. It is upon lines of intellect that a man's life progresses. Don't make any terrible mistake, Lady Chiltern. A woman who can keep a man's love, and love him in return, has done all the world wants of women, or should want of them. LADY CHILTERN. [Troubled and hesitating.] But it is my husband himself who wishes to retire from public life. He feels it is his duty. It was he who first said so. LORD GORING. Rather than lose your love, Robert would do anything, wreck his whole career, as he is on the brink of doing now. He is making for you a terrible sacrifice. Take my advice, Lady Chiltern and do not accept a sacrifice so great. If you do, you will live to repent it bitterly. We men and women are not made to accept such sacrifices from each other. We are not worthy of them. Besides Robert has been punished enough. LADY CHILTERN. We have both been punished. I set him up too high. LORD GORING. [With deep feeling in his voice.] [… ]Failure to Robert would be the very mire of shame. Power is his passion. He would lose everything, even his power to feel love. Your husband's life is at this moment in your hands, your husband's love is in your hands. Don't mar both for him This is one of the parts of the play where, as it is said in the stage notes, Lord Goring the dandy gives his place to Lord Goring the philosopher, and holds an emotional and convincing speech, which could convince anybody to adhere to what his is saying. Putting aside the dandy, Lord Goring remains loyal to sentimental notions like love, saying he will to do all he can to help his friend and try to erase Lady Chiltern’s, usually inflexible, morality side. As Goring tells Lady Chiltern, love "explains" and determines the human world, and that she should stop her obsession of wanting an ideal husband. Lord Goring will show Lady Chiltern another way of perceiving love, whereby it represents a feeling based on charity and forgiveness, telling her that one can all make mistakes, but one should learn to forgive. It is possible to describe Lord Goring two minds in one person, living his life to a certain point. However, one dominates the other, living as a dandy, which could maybe seem to be the easiest choice, living without constraints. So he chooses the ‘dandy side of life’, which would reflect his less-sensitive side, the definition of a dandy, at that time, describes him perfectly, these people were said to be a subversive symbol of exaggeration, led by liberty, Wilde defined Dandyism as "the assertion of the absolute modernity of Beauty." He wrote that “in treating art as the supreme reality and life as a mere mode of fiction," in living for the pleasures of "senseless and sensual ease," he was" a dandy, a man of fashion." This definition fits Lord Goring very well, he takes care of his appearance, likes to look good, to seduce women, has no constraints. As in the first act, in the stage notes, we have a good description of how Wilde pictured Lord Goring. [Enter LORD GORING. Thirty-four, but always says he is younger. A well-bred, expressionless face. He is clever, but would not like to be thought so. A flawless dandy, he would be annoyed if he were considered romantic. He plays with life, and is on perfectly good terms with the world. He is fond of being misunderstood. It gives him a post of vantage.] Lord Goring is here described from his face, to his attitude, to how he wants to be perceived, to how he lives his life. Further in the text, after this passage, we still are at the party held at the Chiltern’s mansion, where Lord Goring speaks with many of the women present, such as Lady Basildon, Mabel, and Mrs Cheveley, always keeping a discourse which seems to have as goal to seduce. [Enter LORD GORING in evening dress with a buttonhole. He is wearing a silk hat and Inverness cape. White-gloved, he carries a Louis Seize cane. His are all the delicate fopperies of Fashion. One sees that he stands in immediate relation to modern life, makes it indeed, and so masters it. He is the first well-dressed philosopher in the history of thought.] Once again, we have a description of Lord Goring, this time combining his physical appearance to his intellectual features, the dandy has the upper hand of the more hidden part of himself, the moral side. As we can see appearances are important for a dandy In the first part of the third act, there is a dialogue between Lord Goring and Phipps during which we see Lord Goring, obsessed with his appearance, scared to seem old, as if a button hole would change a person. Phipps’ replies seem passive, and are not to be of any interest for Lord Goring, or the reader, he is only there to follow his master in his decisions. Lord Goring does not really pay any attention to him, he is more interested in what people are going to think of his appearance. LORD GORING. Got my second buttonhole for me, Phipps? PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. [Takes his hat, cane, and cape, and presents new buttonhole on salver.] LORD GORING. Rather distinguished thing, Phipps. I am the only person of the smallest importance in London at present who wears a buttonhole. PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. I have observed that, LORD GORING. [Taking out old buttonhole.] You see, Phipps, Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear. PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. LORD GORING. Just as vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people. PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. LORD GORING. [Putting in a new buttonhole.] And falsehoodsthe truths of other people. PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. LORD GORING. Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself. PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. LORD GORING. To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance, Phipps. PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. LORD GORING. [Looking at himself in the glass.] Don't think I quite like this buttonhole, Phipps. Makes me look a little too old. Makes me almost in the prime of life, eh, Phipps? […] Again Lord Goring is focusing on his appearance, we perceive a character which seems to be confident, or tries to make us believe so, saying for example that what one wear is fashion, but what other people wear is unfashionable. Lord Goring’s speech is full of narcissism, we can see in his speech that he always compares himself to the others. The vulgar is what others do, the unfashionable what others wear, and the false what others say, or believe is true. Phipps serves as a sort of mirror to Lord Goring's narcissism, just as if Lord Goring was speaking to himself, as Phipps only replies yes to all Lord Goring says. As Lord Goring is incarnating the figure of dandy in this play, it is appropriate to be against the values of the Victorian era as we know that the dandies erased their Victorian duties in the name of individual freedom and a self-centred concern. But lord Goring can be sentimental at times, and he does have moral rules. As we can see in the following quotation of the second part of the third act, we have an interesting dialogue between Lord Goring and Mrs.Cheveley. She is trying to seduce him, and make him marry, telling him about their past relationship, unfortunately for her, it is done without success. Lord Goring is categorical, and he seems shocked at the way she can act, without feelings, trying to destroy a man’s social, and private life. And for this, he says he will never forgive her. MRS. CHEVELEY : […]Well, Arthur, I suppose this romantic interview may be regarded as at an end. You admit it was romantic, don't you? For the privilege of being your wife I was ready to surrender a great prize, the climax of my diplomatic career. You decline. Very well. If Sir Robert doesn't uphold my Argentine scheme, I expose him. VOILE TOUT. LORD GORING. You mustn't do that. It would be vile, horrible, infamous. MRS. CHEVELEY. [Shrugging her shoulders.] Oh! don't use big words. They mean so little. It is a commercial transaction. That is all. There is no good mixing up sentimentality in it. I offered to sell Robert Chiltern a certain thing. If he won't pay me my price, he will have to pay the world a greater price. There is no more to be said. I must go. Good-bye. Won't you shake hands? LORD GORING. With you? No. Your transaction with Robert Chiltern may pass as a loathsome commercial transaction of a loathsome commercial age, but you seem to have forgotten that you came here to- night to talk of love, you whose lips desecrated the word love, you to whom the thing is a book closely sealed, went this afternoon to the house of one of the most noble and gentle women in the world to degrade her husband in her eyes, to try and kill her love for him, to put poison in her heart, and bitterness in her life, to break her idol, and, it may be, spoil her soul. That I cannot forgive you. That was horrible. For that there can be no forgiveness. Mrs.Cheveley is characterized by what are conventionally considered feminine vices. Even more, she is aggressive and ambitious like a man, her sex is an obstacle to her desires. She has no limits what so ever and nothing seems to get between her, what she wants. Unfortunately, things do not always go as she plans, as there are some people, like Lord Goring, she will be unable to manipulate. In this dialogue, her face-off with Goring gives us the opportunity to see how the dandy, figure of masculinity, might be associated with this femme fatale. Even though he seems to despise her, his female double, is Mrs.Cheveley. They both are artificial, amoral, cunning, irrational, and flamboyantly well dressed, but none the less, Lord Goring does have a moral side to himself, as for Mrs.Cheveley, one could doubt. To say a few more words on Lord Goring’s complicity with his creator, we can notice that Wilde made a copy of himself, and created a character to which he gave the features of a dandy type of a man. His speeches and his gestures, all remind us of this figure of the Yellow Nineties. He bears Wilde's aesthetic creed, stressing amorality, youth, pleasure, distinction, idleness, and onward in rebellion against Victorian ideals. However, he has two sides to his personality, as well as being a dandy. There is more to him than just a man living for liberties, he is also a sensitive person who, as we see in his dialogue with Mrs. Chiltern, has a certain number of qualities and moral rules to be followed. This side of himself, is the part of his person he tries to hide erase, or prevent from appearing, so that the others will not be able to notice it, but, as we can see, he will fail fails to do so a few times. Then his moral, or philosopher side, will come comes forward, and enables him to give good advice, and help his friends, i.e. Mrs.Chiltern from making a fatal mistake. Oscar Wilde has been presented as a profoundly religious man, for whom Roman Catholicism had great appeal his whole life long, culminating in his deathbed conversion. On the walls of his room at Oxford in the 1870s, Wilde hung pictures of Cardinal Manning of England and Pope Pius IX, two ardent defenders of Catholic orthodoxy. Wilde regarded both men as heroes. More impressive is a letter Wilde wrote as a young man to his friend W.W. Ward in which his Catholicism seems near to full blossom. He wrote about what he called the "beauty and necessity" of the Incarnation. That central belief of Christianity helped humanity "grasp at the skirts of the Infinite," Wilde declared. "Since [the birth of] Christ the dead world has woken up from sleep. Since him we have lived." There is therefore strong evidence of Christian moralism in Wilde’s texts. However, my reading of “An ideal husband” gives me a much stronger picture of Lord Goring as a “Dandy” although, throughout the text, there is this dualism between “dandyism and moralism”.