An Ideal Husband Critics

Question 1

“Goring… acts as Wilde’s personal voice”

Answer 1

George Woodcock

Question 2

“Wilde recultivated an eroding sexual stereotype of the victorian era that women are intellectually the inferiors of men”

Answer 2

Kerry Powell

Question 3

“Women were creatures of vast feeling but scant intellect”

Answer 3

Kerry Powell

Question 4

“The Ideal husband is caricatured as a sort of plaything at the mercy of his wife’s every whim”

Answer 4

Norbert Kohl

Question 5

“Women… were technically powerless… at the same time, the plays were really about them, and everything the men did was designed to win their love, admiration or forgiveness”

Answer 5

Roger Ebert

Question 6

“As long as everyone plays by the rules in public, they can be broken in private”

Answer 6

Roger Ebert

Question 7

“Lady Chiltern loves her husband but loves his upright character even more”

Answer 7

Roger Ebert

Question 8

“characters regard each other as ‘pure’ representations”

Answer 8

Harold Bloom

Question 9

“R.C’s machiavellian justification for his own reckless ambition for power and wealth”

Answer 9

Harold Bloom

Question 10

“Reveals the gap between moral posturing and the reality of public power”

Answer 10

Peter Raby

Question 11

“Insincere society that refuses to acknowledge its reliance on secrecy and public masks”

Answer 11

K. Neal

Question 12

“An Ideal Husband hints at social and political corruption but withdraws into conventional ideology about the respective worth of men and women”

Answer 12

Philip Cohen

Question 13

“[the upper class] did not give a damn about conventional morality”

Answer 13

Pearsall

Question 14

“[Lady C is] priggish and naive”

Answer 14

Katherine Worth

Question 15

“In AIH… Wilde proved he could glitter and say something at the same time”

Answer 15

Alvin Klein

Question 16

“He wanted… to render a true portrait of English society’s follies”

Answer 16

Alvin Klein

Question 17

“[Chiltern is] a spokeperson for every man who is presumed, and pressured, to be more than he is”

Answer 17

Alvin Klein

Question 18

“Wilde’s.. astringent observations of women’s tendency to create impossible standards for men and live vicariously through their reflected glory”

Answer 18

Helen Meany

Question 19

“Lord Goring is the play’s moral barometer”

Answer 19

Helen Meany

Question 20

“Wilde’s wit masked a vision of life”

Answer 20

Michael Billington

Question 21

“Sir Robert represents the hollow sham of public life”

Answer 21

Michael Billington

Question 22

“[Mrs Cheveley is] a dubious predator… an instrument of truth”

Answer 22

Michael Billington

Question 23

“The fundamental flavour of Wilde’s works is happiness”

Answer 23

Borges

Question 24

“The play is unquestionably very poor”

Answer 24

H.G Wells (contempory)

Question 25

"[RC] is man enough to to brave it rather than commit a second and greater treachery"

Answer 25

William Archer (contemporary)

Question 26

"[RC] licks the dust before [Mrs C] and is quite prepared to involve his country in a second Panama catastrophe in order to save his own skin"

Answer 26

William Archer (contemporary)

Question 27

"Sir Robert Chiltern proves himself to be one of those gentlemen who can be honest as long as it is absolutely convenient, and no longer"

Answer 27

William Archer (contemporary)

Question 28

"several scenes in which the dialogue is heavily overburdened with witticisms"

Answer 28

William Archer (contemporary)

Question 29

"All the literary dignity of the play, all the imperturbable good sense and good manners"

Answer 29

George Bernard Shaw (contemporary)

Question 30

"so unapproachably playful... the delight of every playgoer"

Answer 30

George Bernard Shaw (contemporary)

Question 31

"a play which has no thesis... a play and nothing else"

Answer 31

George Bernard Shaw (contemporary)

Question 32

"Sir Robert Chiltern's assertion of the individuality and courage of his wrongdoing as against the mechanical idealism of his stupidly good wife"

Answer 32

George Bernard Shaw (contemporary)

Question 33

"[Wilde's] catch and whimsicality of the dialogue tickle the public"

Answer 33

Clement Scott (contemporary)

Question 34

"A strepitous, polychromatic, scintillating affair"

Answer 34

AB Walkley (contemporary)

Question 35

"Mr Wilde is practically of the same mind as his audience, and gets his reward"

Answer 35

AB Walkley (contemporary)

Question 36

"[Wilde] is far from being a realist"

Answer 36

AB Walkley (contemporary)

Question 37

"Mr Wilde flatters the public, presents it with a false picture of life"

Answer 37

AB Walkley (contemporary)

Question 38

"[politicians wouldn't] refuse seats in the cabinet because their wives bid them"

Answer 38

AB Walkley (contemporary)

Question 39

"The whole play is designed to fill us with joy over the escape of a sinner from the penalty of his sin through the trick of a diamond bracelet"

Answer 39

AB Walkley (contemporary)

Question 40

"[AIH] seemed to me so helpless, so crude, so bad, so clumsy, feeble and vulgar"

Answer 40

Henry James (contemporary)

Question 41

"[AIH] is not only an excellent piece of art, but an excellent piece of sense"

Answer 41

William Dean Howells (contemporary)

Question 42

"[Mrs Cheveley is] a sulphourous female"

Answer 42

William Dean Howells (contemporary)

Question 43

"Lady Chiltern's unlikely word-for-word parroting of Goring's advice tends not to validate his words but rather teeter on the edge of absurdity"

Answer 43

Sos Eltis

Question 44

"it is crucially unclear whether Lady Chiltern ends the play cowed, politically sidelined, coldly pragmatic, or educated in a more humane and charitable understanding of others' frailty"

Answer 44

Sos Eltis"

Question 45

"Sir Robert varies his moral standpoint according to circumstances"

Answer 45

Sos Eltis