Key Facts

FULL TITLE An Ideal Husband AUTHOR Oscar Wilde TYPE OF WORK Drama GENRE Romantic melodrama; farce; "satire" of popular Victorian society dramas (i.e. the formulaic "well-made

play," which emphasized stock characters, situations, and themes emphasizing bourgeois morality)
LANGUAGE English TIME AND PLACE WRITTEN Written in 1894 in London; staged immediately prior to Wilde's most successful play,

The Importance of Being Earnest, in 1895

DATE OF FIRST PUBLICATION 1895 PUBLISHER L. Smithers NARRATOR None CLIMAX An Ideal Husband has no clear climax, but relies a series of complications and crises. There are numerous

climatic speeches and climatic reversals at the end of each act (i.e. the revelation of Sir Robert's secret, Mrs. Cheveley's theft of Lady Chiltern's letter, etc.). The most climatic confrontation is probably between Mrs. Cheveley and Lord Goring at the end of Act III
PROTAGONISTS Sir Robert Chiltern, Lady Chiltern, and Lord Goring SETTING (TIME) 1895; thus, first staged in "the present." The time of the play's action is twenty-four hours. SETTING (PLACE) London POINT OF VIEW Point of view is not located as there is no narrator figure FALLING ACTION Falling action comes at the end of Act IV, where Sir Robert accepts his Cabinet post and

reconciles with his wife; subsequently, Mabel and Lord Goring announce their engagement
TENSE The play unfolds in the time of the present TONE Tone is differentiated according to character. For example: Mrs. Cheveley displays an acrid wit; Mabel

Chiltern is pert and flirtatious; Lady Chiltern and Sir Robert are prone to moments of high moralistic pathos; Lord Goring is a master of irony, sarcasm, etc
THEMES The ideal marriage; the ideal woman; Aestheticism and the art of modern living MOTIFS Wit, irony, paradox, hyperbole; the melodramatic speech SYMBOLS The Rococo tapestry; the diamond brooch FORESHADOWING There are two notable examples in terms of plot: the speech by Lady Chiltern at the end of Act I

that prefigures Sir Robert's fall and Lord Goring's vague remarks about the diamond bracelet and his past engagement to Mrs. Cheveley in Act II