An Analysis of the Play an Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde Using the Marxist Critique - Essay Example

DD Month YYYY AN ANALYSIS OF THE PLAY ‘AN IDEAL HUSBAND’ BY OSCAR WILDE USING THE MARXIST CRITIQUE The core of Marxism is the concept of class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie oppress the proletariat by maintaining their payment charges at a minimum. The proletariats on the other hand, want to be given higher payments for their labor. This is the foundation of a conflict is a society that is based on capitalist ideals. This paper is therefore going to give an analysis of the characters, setting and or dialogue of the play ‘An Ideal Husband’ through the employment of a Marxist critique. It is argued that wealth gives people power. The play has both powerful and powerless people. The powerful ones are like Sir Robert Chiltern and his wife, Lady Chiltern. This is evidenced from the magnificence of their house. They seem to be people of means. It is said that inside the house they have a chandelier with wax lights designed by Bouder, something that would only be afforded by rich people. They equally have a music room equipped with a quartette and numerous reception rooms. The furniture in their house is equally expensive, for example the example the presence of a Louis Seize-sofa which have exquisite fragility. Their house is also very large with several rooms both upstairs and downstairs. The house has many floors as evidenced from the existence of a staircase. Only a person of means can be in a position to have all these possessions. Robert Chiltern works at a foreign and he has acquired a lot of fame in the continent. Mrs. Cheveley also considers him to be extremely clever. He is respected by many people as well. Sir Robert Chiltern is only fascinated by difficult and complex tasks that this world presents. He considers cheap tasks to be for the powerless. He is also into politics and he even organizes political parties. The sister to Sir Robert Chiltern, Mabel Chiltern, is equally powerful. Mabel Chiltern has an attitude of looking down upon people whom they are not of the same class as she is in the London society. She considers them to be idiots and lunatics. She sarcastically looks down upon them by saying that they are beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics. Being a sister to Robert Chiltern also makes Mabel Chiltern to share in the power, wealth, success and fame of his brother. Lord Caversham is also a powerful person. This can be deduced from his attire. He has worn the riband and star of the Garter, one considered by the society to be an extremely fine whig. The author of this play also states that this riband and star of the Garter almost resembles Lawrence’s portrait. Lord Gorring is a powerful person too. The play states that he rides in the Row every single morning, a ride that can only be afforded by rich people. He also has huge amounts of income which he spends to attend the Opera thrice a week. It can also be said that he has a lot of money as evidenced from the many clothes that he has. He changes these clothes five times a day. He can also afford to go for dinner every night of the season. Mrs. Cheveley is equally powerful. She has a very strong educational background. The play states that she has a powerful influence of too many schools in all her dealings. She is also adorned with diamonds. Diamonds are very expensive and they are considered to be for the rich people in the society. She can also afford to travel a lot. It is evidenced that she has been out of England for long. She has travelled to Berlin, Vienna, Vicomte among other places. She also comes from a very powerful family in London known as Dorsetshire Cheveleys. Mrs. Cheveley also has a personal liking and interest for politics. She considers it to be such a noble career, noble game as well as a nuisance. Lastly, Sir John is a powerful personality as well. It is indicated in the play that he has taken his role in politics seriously. Politicians are a powerful people in any given society. The powerless people in this society happen to be Mrs. Marchmont and Lady Basildon. This is evidenced from the play as they do not like seem to like education and they consider it to be a preserve of the commercial class. They therefore do not subscribe to the commercial class and as a result they have no power in the society. Mrs. Cheveley made a point of meeting Sir Robert Chiltern in London. This was a step calculated towards revealing his past. Mrs. Cheveley reminded Sir Robert of Baron Amheim, a man that they both knew in the past. Baron is however a deceased person at the moment. Mrs. Cheveley had a great desire of talking to Sir Robert Chiltern about a significant political and financial scheme, involving an Argentine canal company. She was quite sure that Sir Robert Chiltern was interested in international canal schemes since he had previously been a secret to Lord Radley when the government bought the shares of the Suez Canal. This made Sir Robert to reveal to Mrs. Chevely the reason as to why they wanted to have control of the Suez Canal. He indicates that it gave them a direct route to India. The Suez Canal scheme equally gave them magnificent value. Mrs. Cheveley used this chance to indicate to Sir Robert Chiltern that their common friend, Baron Amheim, had actually advised her to invest heavily in the Argentine canal company. Sir Robert states that the works in the Argentine canal company actually never began and no one knows where the money subscribed went. Mrs. Cheveley sternly warns Sir Robert Chiltern not to table the report of the special commission that privately investigated the affairs of the Argentine canal company to the House of Commons. To Sir Robert surprise, she indicated to him that it was for his own benefit that he does not table the report. She is using this as blackmail so as for her not to reveal the fact that Sir Robert Chiltern got his fortune by selling a cabinet secret to a stock exchange speculator. The stock exchange speculator happened to be Baron Amheim. He had sold this secret to him at a price of one hundred and ten thousand pounds. Mrs. Cheveley indicates that she knows the source of the wealth as well as the success of the career of Sir Robert Chiltern. Cheveley even has a letter that Sir Robert wrote to Baron Amheim to the same effect. The said letter had been addressed to Baron asking him to buy the Suez Canal shares. This letter had been written three days prior to the government announcing the purchase. Sir Robert had all reasons to believe that the letter had been destroyed only to realize that it was in the possession of Cheveley. Cheveley wants Sir Robert to help her and her friends make opulence out of the Argentine canal company just like he made his own fortune out of the Suez Canal by giving her public support. This would be in exchange for the letter. Mrs. Cheveley plans to ruin Sir Robert by using this letter to reveal his past if he does not agree to her terms and conditions of helping her. Sir Robert Chiltern’s past has a lot to do with his social status. He got the fortune that he has through a nasty scandal. He had sold a secret of the cabinet for money worth one hundred and ten thousand pounds. This huge sum of money was the foundation of his extensive wealth and successful career. Sir Robert had sold this cabinet secret when he was a secretary to a Minister in the government. Sir Robert is in a splendid position to the income that he obtained from the said scandal. The success and social status of Robert had therefore been based on this clever and unprincipled scandal that he had involved himself in. The setting of this play provides very important information about the distribution of wealth. It is clearly shown that most of the wealth is in the possession of the powerful people in the society. Most of the powerless people have nothing to show in terms of wealth. The gap between the rich and the poor in this setting is very huge. Most of these wealthy people are politicians who obtain their fortune from corrupt practices. It is for example stated that Sir Robert obtained his fortune through unscrupulous dealings. The setting of this play also relates to the historical culture of the people in a number of ways. The historical culture was that women were required to worship and submit to their husbands. Lady Cheltern states that “when women love, they worship and when they lose this worship, they virtually lose everything” (Wilde, 89). It can therefore be concluded that the women depended entirely on their husbands. This text therefore matches the culture of the time period. This play was first published in the year 1893 and this was the period of women subjugation. Wit is expressed in the dialogue of this play in a number of ways. The three people who have expressed their wit in their dealings are Mrs. Cheveley, Lord Gorring and Lady Chiltern. Mrs. Cheveley uses her wit to blackmail Sir Robert Chiltern. She has indicated to him that she will ruin his entire future and honor among the people if he does not give her the public support that she needs in regards to the Argentine scheme. This enables her to succeed in luring Sir Robert into considering meeting her demands how inconsiderate they happen to be. Lord Goring also displayed his wit when he takes charge of a diamond brooch left behind by one of the guests that had come to Sir Robert Chiltern’s house and asks her not to mention it to anyone. Lady Chiltern equally demonstrated her wit when she persuaded her husband, Sir Robert Chiltern, not to give public support to Cheveley. She did this by threatening to leave him forever if he did support Cheveley. Sir Robert fearing to lose the love of his life, decided not to give this support despite having informed Cheveley that he would help her. Wilde’s ambitions, values and morals have been adequately demonstrated in the play. Wilde hated things that were unworthy, dishonored and stained. This is shown when Lady Chiltern tells Robert to be ideal still and not to love what other men in the world love. It is stated that “other men do love unworthy, dishonored and stained things that have a very bad reputation in the society” (Wilde, 23). He hates men who love horrible secrets and have to buy back for these awful secrets by doing others embarrassing things like involving themselves in more and more scandals. Lady Chiltern asks her husband, Sir Robert Chiltern, if he is one such man and whether he is agreeing to the proposals of Mrs. Cheveley in order for him to pay back for his awful secrets, if any. Wilde hates scandals in a society. This is evidenced when Lady Chiltern sternly warns Sir Robert Chiltern to write back to Mrs. Chevelely and inform her that he will not give her his public support for the scandal of misrepresenting to the public the facts of the Argentine scheme. She also informs the husband that this pronouncement must be irrevocable. Wilde also believes in the attainment of success in an honest and pure manner. This can be shown from the play when Lord Gorring tells Sir Roberts that “he would have achieved his success and fortune even without wealth” (Wilde, 13). He tells Robert that it was not important for him to involve himself in scandals so as to achieve his wealth. This is after Sir Robert Chiltern had intimated to Lord Gorring in their conversation that to succeed one has to have wealth and it does not matter the means of acquiring that wealth. It can be argued that Wilde subscribed to the low socio-economic class. This can be evidenced from the play as he is very bitter towards the people who subscribe to the high economic class and oppress the ones who are not of their class. He is also in the forefront in condemning corruption that is mostly done by high class individuals who hold government positions and other official positions. He argues that they “use these positions to enrich themselves while oppressing the poor” (Wilde, 18). It can also be said that he comes from the low socio-economic class as he does not believe that one has to have wealth in order to succeed in their careers and to have more fortunes. He believes that a person can work hard and honestly attain their wealth. Wilde’s life was surrounded by events of corruption, poor appropriation of wealth in the society and oppression of the poor by the rich. “The time period was marked by the development of the class structure in the society whereby those who had wealth considered themselves to be of the upper class and those who did not have wealth were considered to be of the low socio-economic class” (Schnitizer, 23). This is why his play is based on a capitalistic society in which less people have wealth and more do not. Among the plays that Oscar Wilde wrote, ‘An ideal husband’ was the most popular work in its day. The play was published in 1895 by Lewis Waller. He produced this play in Haymarket Theatre. Wilde Oscar was however not named as the author of this play following the many controversies that surrounded it and he had even been arrested over the same (Szanter, 45). The play’s performance was very popular. It was approximately performed one hundred times and it was widely. Many people were eager to read it because of the many controversies that surrounded it. One of the people who read this play was George Bernard Shaw. He thought that “Wilde Oscar was an extremely good playwright following his play structure, organization and themes” (Schnitizer, 26). “A number of critics who read the play also praised the ecstatic manner in which Wilde presented various theoretical elements in the play” (Szanter, 64). The Marxism ideals that present themselves in this play are blackmail and corruption. The play is full of corruption from the people in the high class in the society. Works Cited Schnitizer, Carol. A husband’s tragedy: The relationship between art and life in Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband. Victorian Newsletter, issue 109, (2006) 25. Szanter, Ashley. A silly girls’ insight: Mabel Chiltern’s commentary on public versus private spheres in an ideal husband. Weber State University conference papers, issue 2.3, (2014). Wilde, Oscar. An Ideal Husband. London: Methues & Co. Ltd, 1893 Read More