An Ideal Husband

Lord Goring’s agony over which buttonhole he should wear is full of the short, philosophical quotations Wilde is well known for. Though worrying about which buttonhole one should wear is seemingly frivolous, this is in part the point; Lord Goring’s concern that his buttonhole is not “trivial enough” reflects his commitment to Life as Art—that is, his commitment to beauty for its own sake, divorced from any deeper meaning. That said, Lord Goring’s monologue also implicitly critiques society and explores self-fulfillment. This scene reveals that though Lord Goring is seen as caring only about appearances, he is a more acute observer of society than most. He tells Phipps, for example, that “fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear” (268). Throughout the play, marriage and professional pursuits are also a matter of “fashion.” Therefore, this line refers to more than just clothing, suggesting that an individual should determine what is fashionable for themselves; what others are doing should have no bearing on it.

This is not a sentiment the other characters share. For example, Lord Caversham visits to tell Lord Goring that he needs to marry because being a bachelor is no longer “fashionable.” Similarly, when Mrs. Cheveley turns up unexpectedly, she critiques Lady Chiltern’s use of pink paper for writing letters, saying it “looks like the beginning of a middle-class romance” (276). In each circumstance, the characters examine marriage and romance as social institutions rather than as expressions of love—something with which both Lord Goring and Wilde disagree. Lord Goring, for example, remarks, “It is the growth of the moral sense in women that makes marriage such a hopeless, one-sided institution” (270). This sentiment critiques the Victorian conception of women as the moral guardians of both their homes and (through their influence on their husbands and children) society at large, suggesting that such “morals” leave little room for humanity. It thus dovetails with the exploration of Fashionable Morality Versus Authentic Marriage.

Mrs. Cheveley’s unexpected appearance at Lord Goring’s, and the dramatic irony that ensues, instigates a key conflict in the play while providing fodder for the eventual resolution. Her hidden presence while Lord Goring and Sir Robert talk, and Lord Goring’s ignorance of her arrival, build conflict in the play and drama for the audience. That Sir Robert views Lady Chiltern as faultless even as he begs her to allow for his own humanity lends the scene a further level of irony. Notably, he does not extend the same grace to Lord Goring once he discovers that Mrs. Cheveley is hiding in the drawing room. Though Lord Goring does not know the true nature of events, he still attempts to persuade Sir Robert to hear him out—something he has generously done for Sir Robert and that he does not get back in return. The same pattern recurs in Act IV when Lord Goring plans to wed Mabel and Sir Robert initially denies him. It is only on the word of his wife, Lady Chiltern, that Sir Robert obliges. Though Sir Robert and Lady Chiltern grow as characters in the play, they never reach the same level of societal awareness that Lord Goring possesses.

Lord Goring’s conversation with Mrs. Cheveley continues to offer societal critique, as Mrs. Cheveley uses marriage the same way she uses letters—for her own advancement. He tells her that her “transaction with Robert Chiltern may pass as a loathsome commercial transaction of a loathsome commercial age; but [she] seem[s] to have forgotten that [she] came here tonight to talk of love, [she] whose lips desecrate the word love” (289). Mrs. Cheveley seeks to marry Lord Goring, but he reveals to her that she is no more moral in love than she is in politics and thus simultaneously critiques the notion that the two are any different in the current social landscape. The brooch becomes an article of ensnarement, preventing Mrs. Cheveley from continuing forward with her plan to ruin Sir Robert or marry Lord Goring. Much like the Triumph of Love tapestry, the diamonds represent not love but what threatens to destroy it—in this case, scheming and manipulation—as well as the justice that ultimately prevails. In this circumstance, love does in fact conquer Mrs. Cheveley’s schemes, as Lord Goring rejects her false conception of love in rejecting her proposal.