Teacher's Notes

PENGUIN READERS Teacher’s notes LEVEL 3 Teacher Support Programme An Ideal Husband Oscar Wilde in Argentina, which will make her rich. If he doesn’t do this, she threatens to tell the newspapers about the letter. Chiltern at first resists, but eventually agrees to do as she wishes. Act 1, Scenes 4–6: Mrs Cheveley tells Lady Chiltern that she has persuaded Sir Robert to change his mind about the canal project. Lady Chiltern is shocked and finds it hard to believe that an honest man like her husband would do such a thing. After Mrs Cheveley leaves, Mabel, Sir Robert’s sister, finds a brooch on the sofa. Another guest, Lord Goring, takes the brooch and asks Mabel not to tell anybody that he has it. He says he had given it to somebody many years earlier. Lady Chiltern confronts About the author her husband and asks him not to do what Mrs Cheveley Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in 1854 wants. Sir Robert gives in to his wife and writes a letter to in Dublin, Ireland, the second of three children born Mrs Cheveley refusing to support the plan in the House of to writer Jane Francesca Wilde née Elgee and surgeon Commons. Sir William Robert Wills Wilde. Wilde’s mother was Act 2, Scenes 1–3: Sir Robert tells Lord Goring about a prominent poet, journalist and nationalist and his the difficult situation he is in. He explains that he sold father was a successful surgeon and noted philanthropist, the government secret because he was poor and wanted knighted in 1864. Wilde first entered Trinity College to be rich and successful. Lord Goring advises Sir Robert in Dublin and then continued his studies at Oxford to tell his wife everything, but he refuses saying that she University in England. He excelled in his studies, winning wouldn’t love him anymore. Sir Robert decides to write many prizes and awards and helped found the Aesthetic to Vienna, where Mrs Cheveley normally lives, to see if Movement, ‘art for art’s sake’ at Oxford. Known for he can find out any secrets about her. Lord Goring then his biting wit, he became one of the most successful speaks to Lady Chiltern and he tells her that a man can do playwrights of late Victorian London, and one of the anything to become successful, but she does not believe greatest celebrities of his day. Several of his plays continue her husband could do anything dishonest. to be widely performed, especially The Importance of Being Act 2, Scenes 4–5: Mrs Cheveley visits Lady Chiltern and Earnest. An Ideal Husband (1895) was first performed at mentions a brooch she thinks she lost at the Chilterns’, the famous Haymarket Theatre in London. but no servant has found it. Lady Chiltern asks Mrs Summary Cheveley to leave her house because she is dishonest, but Mrs Cheveley argues back and tells Lady Chiltern that An Ideal Husband is about a group of rich people in her husband is a dishonest man who made his money by London during the 1890s. Sir Robert Chiltern is the selling a government secret. She insists that Sir Robert ‘ideal husband’, who works in the government’s foreign must help her by supporting the canal project. Lady office and is happily married to the beautiful Lady Chiltern confronts her husband and he admits that it is Chiltern. When Mrs Cheveley arrives on the scene, true. She is bitterly disappointed that her husband is not however, a secret about Sir Robert’s past is revealed and the perfect man she thought he was. important life-changing decisions must be made. Act 3, Scenes 1–2: Lord Goring receives a letter from Act 1, Scenes 1–3: A woman called Mrs Cheveley arrives Lady Chiltern. She says she trusts and wants him and at a party at the Chilterns’ house. She has been out of that she is going to visit him that evening. Then Lord England for a long time. Her arrival brings trouble for Goring’s father arrives, wishing to speak to him about the Sir Robert. She has a secret letter written by him to a importance of marrying soon. Goring tells his servant businessman called Baron Arnheim, in which he sells that when a woman arrives, to show her into the sitting him a government secret. Mrs Cheveley wants Chiltern room to wait for him. When Mrs Cheveley arrives, the to get the government to support a plan to build a canal servant thinks that this is the woman Goring was referring c Pearson Education Limited 2008 An Ideal Husband - Teacher’s notes 1 of 3 PENGUIN READERS Teacher’s notes LEVEL 3 Teacher Support Programme An Ideal Husband to and takes her to the sitting room. Once there, she sees play’s ironies is that the happy ending depends on this the letter from Lady Chiltern and plans to steal it, but the corruption remaining hidden from the public. However, servant comes in and she can’t. because he successfully hides this past, Sir Robert feels Act 3, Scenes 3–5: Sir Robert goes to Goring’s house to absolved of his crime. Even Lady Chiltern forgives him tell him that his wife knows everything and she no longer for it. The play suggests that corruption often went hand loves him. He discovers Mrs Cheveley in the next room in hand with politics. The morals of many people, and and assumes that her and Goring are plotting against him. some of the play’s major characters, are based more on He leaves and Mrs Cheveley tells Goring that she will give the fear of public disgrace and losing social status than on him Sir Robert’s letter if he promises to marry her. He the values of right and wrong. Wilde criticizes this society refuses. Mrs Cheveley then talks about the brooch she lost throughout the play. and Goring takes it from his desk. He tells Mrs Cheveley Institution of marriage: Wilde treats marriage as a that he knows that the brooch had been stolen from his complicated and imperfect relationship and makes fun of cousin and threatens to call the police. To stop him doing the Chilterns’ attempt to create the perfect marriage. Lady this, Mrs Cheveley gives Goring Sir Robert’s letter and he Chiltern constantly states that her husband is perfect and burns it. Then Mrs Cheveley manages to steal the letter represents the best of respectable English life. Lord Goring Lady Chiltern had sent Goring and seeing that it looks is the play’s champion of love, and his relationship with like a love letter, threatens to send it to Sir Robert. Mabel allows for imperfections rather than focusing on Act 4, Scenes 1–4: Lord Goring and his father are talking ideals. Mrs Cheveley tries to force Lord Goring to marry about marriage again at Sir Robert’s house when Mabel her, but she represents evil and self-interest. Thus, he does Chiltern arrives. Lord Goring asks her to marry him and not even imagine accepting her suggestion, and maintains she accepts. Then Lady Chiltern appears and Goring tells true to himself and his love. her that Sir Robert’s letter has been destroyed but that Mrs Cheveley has stolen her letter. He suggests she tell her Discussion activities husband everything but she refuses. They plan to try to Before reading intercept the letter, but are too late and Sir Robert arrives 1 Discuss: Ask students to talk in small groups about with it in his hand. Fortunately, he thinks his wife wrote whether they prefer plays or films and why. Get feedback from the whole class. Tell them to draw a it to him and he believes she loves him again. He says he Venn diagram to compare plays and films. What is is going to leave the government and live quietly with his similar and what is different? wife. PLAY FILM Act 4, Scenes 5–8: Lord Caversham returns and tells Sir Robert that the Prime Minister has offered him a very important government job. At first, he refuses it but then Goring convinces Lady Chiltern that he is wrong to do this and she in turn persuades her husband to accept the job. Goring asks Sir Robert for permission to marry his Introduction sister. Sir Robert says he cannot give it, believing that After reading Goring has some kind of relationship with Mrs Cheveley. 2 Discuss: Put students in small groups to answer the Lady Chiltern then tells her husband everything about the following questions: When and where does the story letter she wrote to Goring and how Goring had thought it happen? What are the men and women in the story like? was her in the other room, not Mrs Cheveley. Sir Robert Do they work? What do they do in their free time? What isn’t angry with his wife and consents to the marriage kind of secrets do people sometimes learn that give them power over other people? between Mabel and Goring. 3 Read carefully: Get students to look at the list of characters on page viii and ask them to write more Background and themes information about them as they read. As students go Political corruption: Sir Robert’s brilliant career is on reading, they decide if they are main or secondary threatened by his corrupt past behaviour. One of the characters. c Pearson Education Limited 2008 An Ideal Husband - Teacher’s notes 2 of 3 PENGUIN READERS Teacher’s notes LEVEL 3 Teacher Support Programme An Ideal Husband Act 1, Scenes 1–3 Student B: You’re Lady Chiltern’s mother.

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