A stage direction that visually elevates Lady Chiltern and signals moral authority
“At the top of the staircase stands Lady Chiltern”
A description that presents aestheticised femininity
The “exquisite fragility” of Lady Basildon and Mrs Marchmont which “Watteau would have loved to paint”
A comic exchange between Lady Basildon and Mrs Marchmont that mocks upper-class anti-intellectual snobbery
“I hate being educated! / It puts one almost at a level as the commercial classes, doesn’t it?”
A description that establishes Lord Goring’s reputation as socially useless
“Good-for-nothing” and the “idlest man in London”
A description that depicts Mabel as a woman growing up in the fin-de-siecle period
Mabel Chiltern has the “tyranny of youth” and is “the perfect example of the English type of prettiness” but “would be rather annoyed if she were told so”
A physical description that codes Mrs Cheveley as dangerous and predatory
Her “scarlet” lips and “aquiline nose”
A line that frames Mrs Cheveley as subversive and incontainable
Mrs Cheveley “showing the influence of too many schools”
A description that establishes Robert Chiltern’s public moral reputation
Robert Chiltern is “deeply respected by the many”
A phrase that explains why Robert is such a good politician
“A complete separation of passion and intellect”
A line that suggests politics is at odds with feminine expectations and destroys aesthetic or moral idealism
“Picturesqueness cannot survive the House of Commons”
A phrase that treats scandal as social entertainment
“Pleasant scandals”
A quote where Mrs Cheveley weaponises gender essentialism
“Science can never grapple with the irrational [of women]”
A line that presents Mrs Cheveley as having masculine interests
“Politics are my only pleasure”
The symbol that introduces blackmail and links past to present
The “letter”
Stage direction that shows Wilde’s view of Goring
A 34-year-old “flawless dandy” who “plays with life and is on perfectly good terms with the world”
Lady Basildon and Mrs Marchmont accidentally exposing the emptiness of ‘perfect’ marriages
Their husbands are “the most admirable in London”; “we have married perfect husbands, and we are well punished for it”
Robert did whaaaaaaaat??!
He “laid the foundation of his fortune by selling… a Cabinet secret”
A phrase that criticises Victorian moral performativity
madame morrible M M flip it around… P P?
The “modern mania for morality” where “everyone has to pose as a paragon of purity”
A metaphor that presents scandal as indiscriminate and brutal social destruction
strike!
“Scandals” make people “go over like ninepins”
A line that demonstrates the power reversal between Mrs Cheveley and Robert
“I am much stronger than you are”
How Mrs Cheveley reframes Robert’s corruption as intelligence
A “clever, unscrupulous thing”
A line demonstrating inevitable moral consequence in late-Victorian high society
“Sooner or later we all have to pay for what we do”
A critique of the press as morally corrupt and sadistic
Newspapers’ “loathsome joy” in plunging people into “mud and mire” and “arranging the foulness of the public placard”
A line that shows Mrs Cheveley’s past and character
she was “an evil influence on everyone” at school
