Summary of the play
AN IDEAL HUSBAND"
by Oscar Wilde
"An ideal husband" is a play written by Oscar
Wilde. The story is set in London, at the end of XIX century. The events start
at a party at Sir Robert Chiltern's house. Robert Chiltern is a politician, who
has a good career and is happily married with Gertrude, a woman who loves him
and idealises him. He has got a sister, called Mabel.
She falls in love with Lord Arthur Goring, a rich and apparently lazy man who
always quarrels with his father, Lord Caversham. Lord
Goring is a good friend of Sir and Lady Chiltern.
At the party is invited also Mrs Cheveley, an English woman living in Vienna, who was
married with Baron Arnheim. She asks Sir Chiltern
what he thinks about the project of a canal in Argentina, because she knows
that he has to report a speech about this subject at the House of Common the
following day. She's interested in it because she's bought a lot of shares
concerning this project, so she wants Chiltern to support the scheme. Sir
Chiltern answers that the construction of a canal in Argentina is a swindle, so
he doesn't want to support this scheme in his speech to the Government. Mrs Cheveley then blackmails him: in fact, she has got a letter
that Robert had written in his youth which can destroy his career and his
marriage. In that letter, Chiltern wrote to Baron Arnheim
secret information concerning the intentions of English Government about the
Suez canal (he had stolen this information from the office of Minister Radley, where he was working as a secretary), giving the
Baron the possibility of making a lot of money. Sir Chiltern had received a
great amount of money from the Baron for this favour, becoming rich and
popular. Mrs Cheveley menaces Chiltern: if he doesn't
do what she wants, she'll gave the letter to the press, so there will be a
great scandal and he'll be ruined.
Robert doesn't know what to do, so
he talks to his friend Lord Goring and tells him the truth. Goring says that
Chiltern should tell the whole story to his wife, but Chiltern doesn't want her
to know anything about this detail of his past. Unluckily Lady Chiltern
discovers the situation because Mrs Cheveley tells
her about the blackmail. Gertrude is confused, she thought her husband was the
ideal man, so she gets very angry and chases him away.
Sir Chiltern goes to Goring's house. At the same time, Lord Goring receives a
short letter from Gertrude, where she says that she's coming because she needs
his help. Goring tell his butler, Phipps, that a woman will arrive soon, and
that she will have to wait for him in the drawing room. After her arrival,
nobody else must be accepted. But suddenly, before Gertrude's arrival, Mrs Cheveley knocks at Goring's door.
Phipps takes her in the drawing room, and when Gertrude arrives, he tells her
that Goring is not there. While Goring and Chiltern are talking, Mrs Cheveley makes a noise: Chiltern notices it and becomes
suspicious, so he gets into the drawing-room and finds his enemy there. He
thinks it was an agreement between Goring and Mrs Cheveley,
so he leaves the house in anger. Goring had been as surprised as Chiltern to
find Laura Cheveley instead of Gerturde
Chiltern, so he asks Mrs Cheveley what she had come
for. She answers that she had come to give him the compromising letter, but in
change he should become her husband. Goring doesn't accept this blackmail, but
he accepts a bet: he will marry Mrs Cheveley if his
friend support the scheme in his speech, but she will give him the letter if
Chiltern follows his ideas and does his initial speech. (Lord Goring trusts his
friend, that's why he accepts such a bet).
At the crucial moment Chiltern shows
his honesty and tell the Government that the Argentina scheme is a swindle. He
thinks he's ruined his life, because he doesn't know that he's safe thanks to
lord Goring, but then Goring and Gertrude tell him what had happened, and
Chiltern feels safe and grateful towards his friend Lord Goring. Mrs Cheveley doesn't accept the defeat and tries a last
blackmail sending to Chiltern's office the letter in which Gertrude announced
his visit to Goring: she had stolen it from Goring's
house while she was waiting for Lord Goring in the drawing-room. Luckily, with
a game of words Goring, Lady Chiltern and Mabel make
Robert believe that the letter was addressed to him. In the end, Sir and Lady
Chiltern come back together, Robert's career is safe and even better (he gets a
more important role in politics) and Goring marries Mabel,
while mrs Cheveley comes
back to Vienna.
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