Critical Analysis Essay on Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband
Feminism in An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde
“Women are not meant to judge us, but to forgive us when we need forgiveness. Pardon, not punishment is their mission.” –Goring to Gertrude
This passage shows the expected role of women in the lives of men. At most, the play concludes that an ideal husband does not exist. Yet, with this conclusion, it ratifies an ideal submissive wife (Clum, 36). This means that women are expected not to judge their husbands even if they are wrong and imperfect. In the later part of the novel, the “moral” lesson that the novel wishes to imply is that women should simply love their husbands amidst faults and imperfections; that they should simply forgive their husbands because it is what they need. To completely give in and pardon is the only mission of women. With this, we can see this novel as a feminist one.
Sir Robert Children is portrayed as a typical husband, proud and exerts power over his wife—a man of the world. However, this is not what his wife, Lady Gertrude Chiltern believes. She affirms that her husband is different from other men because he is good (Clum, 36). In the feminist aspect, we can view this is an utter acceptance of women’s subordination under the power of men. Through this couple, Wilde shows his idea of what a wife should do for her husbands: to acclaim his goodness to other people. A husband needs his wife to look good and feel good in the eyes of others. A woman needs to stand by her husband like a parrot which needs to repeat what her master, the husband, frequently says.
This subordination could be observed in women’s confusion between love and worship. As Lady Gertrude puts it: “We women worship when we love and when we lose our worship, we lose everything.” Because Lady Gertrude sees her husband not only as an ideal husband, but also an honorable man, who cannot do foul things, she sees her husband as a perfect one who is worthy not only of love, but also worship. With this regard, the novel attempts to show that women’s submission to their husbands is not a form of power play as others would suggest, but rather a complete fault of women (Wilde, 3). In other words, women choose to worship and to submit completely to their husbands by their own choice. Furthermore, this goes further that when women losses the idea of a perfect husband, she losses “everything.” By everything, this would mean her love for his husband, reason to live, and sanity. This is the case because we associate worship and faith to one’s own purpose in life. If all of these lose, she can be shuttered.
Lastly, the novel shows feminist message in this quote from Sir Goring: “A man’s life is of greater value than a woman’s…. A woman who can keep a man’s love, and love him in return, has done all the world wants of women… (Salamensky, 92).” This shows a straightforward subjugation of women simply because men’s life is more important that women’s. In this situation, women are trapped to love and accept their husbands because this is what the culture set them to do.
Wilde’s An Ideal Husband receives many criticisms because of its portrayal of male-organized society where women have parasitic tendencies because they are helpless and maintain unrealistic expectations of their husbands (Raby, 258). In this society, women do not have a choice but to accept all the faults and imperfections of their husband because this is what they are expected to do. They need to stay at men’s side so that they can continue to pursue their prospects like Sir Robert’s political career.
Works Cited:
Clum, John. The Drama of Marriage: Gay Playwrights/Straight Unions from Oscar Wilde. New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillian, 2010.
Raby, Peter. The Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Salamensky, Ni. The Modern Art of Influence and the Spectacle of Oscar Wilde. New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillian, 2012.
Wilde, Oscar. An Ideal Husband: Revised. New York, USA: Bloomsbury, 2013.