An Ideal Husband, By Oscar Wilde

To give the devil his work is fiction Wilde brilliantly uses the opportunity to authors comments (remarks), which gives explanations to the text of a dramatic work, containing a description of the situation, the exterior of the actors, the behavior of the characters in the play and some other information.

From them we get the information and impressions, which are unlikely to have been able to get when watching the play, and to understand that we have and what the author says in his remarks, hidden meaning, you must have knowledge of the realities of the time, location, social stratum, in which the action. You must decide the amount of tasks to solve a set of puzzles that we offer Wilde.

Puzzles start from the beginning of the text. The persons of the play opens The Earl of Caversham, KG What does it mean K.G.? This is a Knight Companion of the Garter. The Most Noble Order of the Garter is an order of chivalry, or knighthood, originating in mediæval England. Membership in the Order is strictly limited and includes the monarch, the Prince of Wales, not more than 24 companion members, and various supernumerary members. Only 24! Interestingly, as we know it, if we look only stage action? What will the director, if it considers that these two letters – the author’s name to him? Would put the actor in the mantle and hat of the Order? This will give a completely unnecessary comic effect, the Earl of Caversham is a very serious person and not clothe them in inappropriate time and place setting. You can decorate the costume hero Badge of the Order of the Garter, but whether the public understands what it is? Especially from the back rows.

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No, this is only a literary device, it is a sign for the reader who understands the reader who immediately allocate a statement and say to himself, after reading the following line -, his Son: «It is clear with whom we work.” For audiences the premiere, which were also to some extent, the readers, as acquainted with the play before a performance at the theater program that is an indication of Wilde’s spoken a lot more than us, the inhabitants of the 21 century. For them it was an allusion to specific individuals, who could imagine that it was possible to correlate what is happening on stage. Only 24 people in England. And certainly few of them actively participated in political activities, close to the prime minister, as the Earl of Caversham.

No, not the family of the Knights of the Garter were not among the noble, but impoverished families, and Viscount Goring will live in Curzon Street, next door to Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Oscar Wilde (and not only he) likes to put his characters at that address. In The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, Lord Henry Wotton lives on Curzon Street. In Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray, Rawdon and Rebecca Crawley live in a very small comfortable house in Curzon Street, Mayfair.

The protagonist, Sir Robert Chiltern, Bart., Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs has lived in Grosvenor Square. It’s also quite a respectable place, first, but not top grade. Wilde in two plays, mentions this area, and we can understand how at that time lady of high society (or think they are) assessed its residents. In Oscar Wilde’s play “Lady Windermere’s Fan”, the Duchess of Berwick says, “I think on the whole that Grosvenor Square would be a more healthy place to reside in. There are lots of vulgar people live in Grosvenor Square, but at any rate there are no horrid kangaroos crawling about. ” Grosvenor Square appears in the play “The Importance of Being Earnest” when Lady Bracknell makes the comment about violence in Grosvenor Square because of the lower classes receiving education.

In addition, there is a special type of copyright remarks that Wilde introduces specifically to the actor could convey the idea of a hidden plot in the form in which he conceived himself a playwright.

By means of constituting the content of the copyright remarks, which flank the plot node (whether in the plan, anticipating his introduction to the text of the drama, whether in terms of interrupting the development of the episode, whether in the plan, following it), we can distinguish certain forms of external behavior character play. The most widely represented in the texts of the drama group of non-linguistic means are directing gestures. The main function of such gestures lies in focusing the attention of the audience at the events, phenomena, objects to which the playwright in the course of the play again and again returns the viewer. Among the guiding gestures can be identified:

1. associative gestures (gestures, typical behavior of a person belonging to a particular social group, which reveal his origins and upbringing). This kind of gesture is especially important in drama. For example, early in the third act:

[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 mod ¬ ern life, makes it indeed, and so masters it. He is the first well-dressed philosopher in the history of thought?]

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.]

Of course, literary characteristics Phipps’a, given Wilde a bit earlier – it is not only an indication of the director and actor, is the image of the ideal servant of the Victorian era. Generally in the play, Wilde’s all perfect. Not only the ideal husband Sir Robert Chiltern, a perfect wife Lady Chiltern, perfect friend Lord Goring, an ideal butler. Wilde and wrote: «Phipps, the butler, is arranging some newspapers on the writing-table. The distinction of Phipps is his impassivity. He has been termed by enthusiasts the Ideal Butler. The Sphinx is not so incommunicable. He is a mask with a manner. Of his intel ¬ lectual or emotional life, history knows nothing. He repre ¬ sents the dominance of form. »

2. touching gestures:

Mrs. Marchmont. (Pressing Lady Basildon’s hand.) My poor Olivia. We have married perfect husbands, and we are well punished for it.

At this statement Mrs. Marchmont direct link with the name of the product – “An Ideal Husband.” This kind of gesture – in this case, clenching his hands – said the significance of this episode.

3. rhythmic gestures:

Lord Goring. (Tapping his boot with his cane). And public scandal invariably the result. To the comment by Robert Chiltern, the mystery – the very source of wealth, Lord Goring comes to the conclusion that every mystery ends in scandal. Saying Lord Goring is supported by forceful pressure on the partner. Contrasting his view the positions of Robert Chiltern, he drew the attention of the interlocutor not only in words but also their deeper meaning in the subtext. This episode is a semantic unit storyline, denoted

4. gestures of silence:

In the scene where Lord Goring reveals the fact of his acquaintance with Mrs. Cheveley, it is not configured to show this side of his life to end, therefore, by anticipating a recurrent Center remark playwright, he begins to correct the tie by switching the attention of the interlocutor with the subject of the material object, and expressing thus their relevance to the topic as something supposedly not of particular interest. That this is the main value of the episode, namely: to focus the viewer’s attention on minor points of action, capable of subsequently developing the storyline play. Additionally, a playwright used the dots only underscores understatement:

Sir Robert Chiltern. Did you know her well?

Lord Goring. (Arranging his necktie). So little that I got engaged to be married to her once, when I was staying at the Tenbys’. The affair lasted for three days … nearly.

Range of non-verbal tools that accompany the appearance in the text of the key episodes of the drama, complement also:

1. facial expressions of characters:

In the 3 rd act plays Lord Goring promised to hand over Mrs. Cheveley police. Author’s remark, which introduces an important episode in the plot-line thematic conspired to Mrs. Cheveley, that marks the collapse of plans insidious woman gives a detailed description of her reaction to this threat, accompanied by the following set of nonverbal means:

Mrs. Cheveley. (Is now in an agony of physical terror. Her face is distorted. Her mouth awry. A mask has fallen from her. She is, for a moment, dreadful to look at.) Don’t do that. I will do anything you want. Anything in the world you want.

2. other forms of behavior associated with the reflection:

Lord Goring. I can’t tell you how at present. I have not the smallest idea. But every one has some weak points. There is some flow in each of us. (Strolls to the fireplace and looks at himself in the glass.) My father tells me that even I have faults. Perhaps I have. I don’t know.

In a conversation with Robert Chiltern’s question of how to deal with Mrs. Cheveley, Lord Goring drops the phrase that everyone has weaknesses and that everyone makes mistakes. At a time when Arthur Goring said this, he, according to the author’s remark accompanying the episode, goes to the mirror and stares at him as if trying to look inside themselves. His thoughts appear in the unformed state. Later, the idea of a dark past, sounding in this episode, will be developed in a scene exposing Mrs. Cheveley.

4. See especially:

The last scene of the third act of the play by O. Wilde “An Ideal Husband.” The actress, who plays Mrs. Cheveley, should follow the author’s remark to show how smart her character stole the letter Lady Chiltern. Therefore, guided by the author’s remark, she says goodbye to Lord Goring, overlooking the victor:

Mrs. Cheveley. (After a pause). Lord Goring merely rang that you should show me out. Good-night, Lord Goring!

(Goes out followed by Phipps. Her face is illumined with evil triumph. There is a joy in her eyes. Youth seems to have come back to her. Her last glance is like a swift arrow. Lord Goring Bites his lip, and lights a cigarette.).

Detailed analysis of the author’s remarks lead to a conclusion about the importance of repeating the gesture, acting on the principle of the conditioned stimulus. So, once used a gesture embodying one unspoken hint that it is necessary for the subsequent perception of the plot serves as a catalyst of the escalation of tension, arising in subsequent episodes of all new semantic nuclei, pass into the central link, and finally culminating in a general semantic site play:

Sir Robert Chiltern. A political life is a noble career!

Mrs. Cheveley. Sometimes. And sometimes it is a clever game, Sir Robert. And sometimes it is a great nuisance.

Sir Robert Chiltern. Which do you find it?

Mrs. Cheveley. I? A combination of all three. (Drops her fan.) (Wilde O. 2004, P.13).

In terms of expressiveness, the key moment, the viewer focuses on the importance of a play on the stage of the episode can be considered as a gesture of Mrs. Cheveley, if accidentally dropped a fan during a conversation with Robert Chiltern is about politics.

Next move to the episode, when Robert Chiltern offers his interlocutor to view several paintings by Corot, but Mrs. Cheveley is going to talk about the case:

Mrs. Cheveley (Shaking her head.) I am not in a mood tonight for silver twilights, or rose-pink dawns. I want to talk business. (Motions to him with her fan to sit down again beside her.).

On the inevitability of a serious conversation indicates a gesture of Mrs. Cheveley, who she with fans, had already been present in previous episodes of the same plot-line and received a thematic update in the last episode, makes Sir Robert once again to take a seat beside her.

And finally, the last of this series of scenes, all three of which are a series of successive episodes related to one of the storylines, which can be arbitrarily labeled as “conspire Mrs. Cheveley. It is this key moment in the play is a major milestone in the composite plot and must be disclosed later in the story line perspective. So, as a result of the growing strength of psychological pressure Mrs. Cheveley convicts Robert Chiltern is a crime of national importance:

Mrs. Cheveley. (Detains him by touching his arm with her fan, and keeping it there while she is talking.) I realize that I am talking to a man who laid the foundation of his fortune by selling to a Stock Exchange speculator a Cabinet secret. (O. Wilde 2004, P.26).

The final interpretation of a literary work comes only after reading the entire text of the play. Assess the title as one of the text, a code of all work, can only be coming back, reread or remember the whole play in general. Neobhodtmo emphasize that the most intimate contact with the viewer must be installed exactly in key episodes, whose synthesis and creates a semantic unit of a dramatic work.

Guided by the task, the playwright introduces into the text episodes are in the form of distant location in the text of the play allow the viewer to comprehend the very specific piece of an intricate plan, delaying a final denouement plot production.

Consequently, such an episode, concluding a partial information about one or another side of the story is not just one component of the meaning encoded in the play and its leading component, deliberately concealed to a certain point in development activities.

Often, as one of the methods of introducing the most relevant information for the viewer quietly appears aphorism. For example turn to play:

Evening party in full swing. On the stage there is a figure of Sir Robert Chiltern. He speaks with Lady Markby and inquired from her, who is the charming woman, whom she brought with her. Lady Markby calls her name – Mrs. Cheveley – and makes the assumption that she is from dorsetshirskih Cheveley, although he admits that might be wrong, because, as a rule, everyone is someone different:

Lady Markby. Her name is Mrs. Cheveley! One of the Dorsetshire Cheveleys, I suppose. But I really don’t know. Families are so mixed nowadays. Indeed, as a rule, everybody turns out to be somebody else.

Ultimately, Lady Markby far from the truth: we later learn from the episodes, which in the course of action has repeatedly returned to the viewer to the witty comment made by Lady Markby that the main characters of the “rich” history, and provided that certain biographical facts to emerge surface, each of them will appear before your eyes as other members of the play, and the reader / viewer an entirely different manner.

So, long before Mrs. Cheveley able to persuade Sir Robert Chiltern at his side, Lord Goring, exchanging with Lady Basildon meaningless phrases about the political salons and the debate in Parliament, expressed the view that listening to – a very dangerous thing because you can convince the one who can convince himself by reason – is very unwise to create a:

Lord Goring (in his most serious manner.) Of course. You see, it is a very dangerous thing to listen. If one listens one may be convinced; and a man who allows himself to be convinced by an argument is a thoroughly unreasonable person.

Given episode in a veiled form outlines follow directions in the development of the plot, namely: a line repeated attempts to persuade Mrs. Cheveley Robert Chiltern is to decide on financial fraud, resorting to psychological manipulation, and open to blackmail the facts of his past.

The most interesting from the standpoint of building a plot to use the playwright overlapping or thematically convergent nodal points storylines. An example of this type of intersection of nodal moments like these, taken to illustrate the comedy O. Wilde’s Ideal Husband. ” Lengthy tirade Mrs. Cheveley, Lady Chiltern telling the consent of her husband’s support is very questionable project to build the Argentine channel (which, in essence, is the focal point for a thematic story-line as “conspire Mrs. Cheveley), suddenly punctuated by the statement of Lady Chiltern in which she emphasizes the absurdity of the enterprise and the inability of her husband, a man from her point of view, honest in all respects, to give a positive response (nodal point, reporting to the disclosure of the theme of the ideal):

Lady Chiltern. There must be some mistake. That scheme could never have my husband’s support.

Mrs. Cheveley. Oh, I assure you it’s settled … (O. Wilde 2004, P. 32).