Summary
of the play
“AN IDEAL HUSBAND” by Oscar Wilde
“An
ideal husband” is a play written by Oscar Wilde. The story is set in London, at the end of XIX
century. The events start at a party at Sir Robert Chiltern’s house. Robert
Chiltern is a politician, who has a good career and is happily married with
Gertrude, a woman who loves him and idealises him. He has got a sister, called Mabel. She falls in love with Lord Arthur Goring, a rich
and apparently lazy man who always quarrels with his father, Lord Caversham. Lord Goring is a good friend of Sir and Lady
Chiltern.
At the party is invited also Mrs Cheveley, an English woman living in Vienna, who was married with Baron Arnheim. She asks Sir Chiltern what he thinks about the
project of a canal in Argentina,
because she knows that he has to report a speech about this subject at the
House of Common the following day. She’s interested in it because she’s bought
a lot of shares concerning this project, so she wants Chiltern to support the
scheme. Sir Chiltern answers that the construction of a canal in Argentina is a
swindle, so he doesn’t want to support this scheme in his speech to the
Government. Mrs Cheveley then blackmails him: in
fact, she has got a letter that Robert had written in his youth which can destroy
his career and his marriage. In that letter, Chiltern wrote to Baron Arnheim secret information concerning the intentions of
English Government about the Suez canal
(he had stolen this information from the office of Minister Radley,
where he was working as a secretary), giving the Baron the possibility of
making a lot of money. Sir Chiltern had received a great amount of money from
the Baron for this favour, becoming rich and popular. Mrs Cheveley
menaces Chiltern: if he doesn’t do what she wants, she’ll gave the letter to
the press, so there will be a great scandal and he’ll be ruined.
Robert doesn’t know what to do, so he talks to
his friend Lord Goring and tells him the truth. Goring says that Chiltern
should tell the whole story to his wife, but Chiltern doesn’t want her to know
anything about this detail of his past. Unluckily Lady Chiltern discovers the
situation because Mrs Cheveley tells her about the
blackmail. Gertrude is confused, she thought her husband was the ideal man, so
she gets very angry and chases him away.
Sir Chiltern goes to Goring’s
house. At the same time, Lord Goring receives a short letter from Gertrude,
where she says that she’s coming because she needs his help. Goring tell his butler, Phipps, that a woman will arrive soon, and
that she will have to wait for him in the drawing room. After her arrival,
nobody else must be accepted. But suddenly, before Gertrude’s arrival, Mrs Cheveley knocks at Goring’s door.
Phipps takes her in the drawing room, and when Gertrude arrives, he tells her
that Goring is not there. While Goring and Chiltern are talking, Mrs Cheveley makes a noise: Chiltern notices it and becomes
suspicious, so he gets into the drawing-room and finds his enemy there. He
thinks it was an agreement between Goring and Mrs Cheveley,
so he leaves the house in anger. Goring had been as surprised as Chiltern to
find Laura Cheveley instead of Gerturde
Chiltern, so he asks Mrs Cheveley what she had come
for. She answers that she had come to give him the compromising letter, but in
change he should become her husband. Goring doesn’t accept this blackmail, but
he accepts a bet: he will marry Mrs Cheveley if his friend support the scheme in his speech, but she will give
him the letter if Chiltern follows his ideas and does his initial speech. (Lord
Goring trusts his friend, that’s why he accepts such a bet).
At the crucial moment Chiltern shows his
honesty and tell the Government that the Argentina scheme is a swindle. He
thinks he’s ruined his life, because he doesn’t know that he’s safe thanks to
lord Goring, but then Goring and Gertrude tell him what had happened, and
Chiltern feels safe and grateful towards his friend Lord Goring. Mrs Cheveley doesn’t accept the defeat and tries a last
blackmail sending to Chiltern’s office the letter in which Gertrude announced
his visit to Goring: she had stolen it from Goring’s
house while she was waiting for Lord Goring in the drawing-room. Luckily, with
a game of words Goring, Lady Chiltern and Mabel make
Robert believe that the letter was addressed to him. In the end, Sir and Lady
Chiltern come back together, Robert’s career is safe and even better (he gets a
more important role in politics) and Goring marries Mabel,
while mrs Cheveley comes back to Vienna.
