An Ideal Husband

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An Ideal Husband
Oscar Wilde
in Argentina, which will make her rich. If he doesn’t do this, she threatens to tell the newspapers about the letter. Chiltern at first resists, but eventually agrees to do as she wishes. Act 1, Scenes 4 –6: Mrs Cheveley tells Lady Chiltern that she has persuaded Sir Robert to change his mindabout the canal project. Lady Chiltern is shocked and finds it hard to believe that an honest man like her husband would do such a thing. After Mrs Cheveley leaves, Mabel, Sir Robert’s sister, finds a brooch on the sofa. Another guest, Lord Goring, takes the brooch and asks Mabel not to tell anybody that he has it. He says he had given it to somebody many years earlier. Lady Chiltern confrontsher husband and asks him not to do what Mrs Cheveley wants. Sir Robert gives in to his wife and writes a letter to Mrs Cheveley refusing to support the plan in the House of Commons. Act 2, Scenes 1–3: Sir Robert tells Lord Goring about the difficult situation he is in. He explains that he sold the government secret because he was poor and wanted to be rich and successful. Lord Goring advises SirRobert to tell his wife everything, but he refuses saying that she wouldn’t love him anymore. Sir Robert decides to write to Vienna, where Mrs Cheveley normally lives, to see if he can find out any secrets about her. Lord Goring then speaks to Lady Chiltern and he tells her that a man can do anything to become successful, but she does not believe her husband could do anything dishonest. Act 2, Scenes4 –5: Mrs Cheveley visits Lady Chiltern and mentions a brooch she thinks she lost at the Chilterns’, but no servant has found it. Lady Chiltern asks Mrs Cheveley to leave her house because she is dishonest, but Mrs Cheveley argues back and tells Lady Chiltern that her husband is a dishonest man who made his money by selling a government secret. She insists that Sir Robert must help her bysupporting the canal project. Lady Chiltern confronts her husband and he admits that it is true. She is bitterly disappointed that her husband is not the perfect man she thought he was. Act 3, Scenes 1–2: Lord Goring receives a letter from Lady Chiltern. She says she trusts and wants him and that she is going to visit him that evening. Then Lord Goring’s father arrives, wishing to speak to him about theimportance of marrying soon. Goring tells his servant that when a woman arrives, to show her into the sitting room to wait for him. When Mrs Cheveley arrives, the servant thinks that this is the woman Goring was referring
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About the author
Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in 1854 in Dublin, Ireland, the second of three children born towriter Jane Francesca Wilde née Elgee and surgeon Sir William Robert Wills Wilde. Wilde’s mother was a prominent poet, journalist and nationalist and his father was a successful surgeon and noted philanthropist, knighted in 1864. Wilde first entered Trinity College in Dublin and then continued his studies at Oxford University in England. He excelled in his studies, winning many prizes and awards andhelped found the Aesthetic Movement, ‘art for art’s sake’ at Oxford. Known for his biting wit, he became one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day. Several of his plays continue to be widely performed, especially The Importance of Being Earnest. An Ideal Husband (1895) was first performed at the famous Haymarket Theatre inLondon.

Summary
An Ideal Husband is about a group of rich people in London during the 1890s. Sir Robert Chiltern is the ‘ideal husband’, who works in the government’s foreign office and is happily married to the beautiful Lady Chiltern. When Mrs Cheveley arrives on the scene, however, a secret about Sir Robert’s past is revealed and important life-changing decisions must be made. Act 1, Scenes...