Jolene Patricia Brown
Dr. K. Frederickson
ENL 133
3 June 2010
Scandalously Aesthetic:
The Flaws of Modernism in Wilde’s An Ideal Husband
In his preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde writes “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. / Books are well-written, or badly written. That is all” (3). Though The Picture of Dorian Gray was written almost three years before his publication of An Ideal Husband, his philosophy of keeping morality separate from his art continues to shine through. The idea of an impending scandal permeates the construction of the drama but the reader must realize that it is not the scandal that is important to the understanding of the novel. It is the balance of the individual within society and the beauty of the “modern” individual: his portrait of a scandal is a way of representing the aesthetic of relationships between people, for even the worst of relationships represents the best of what it is to be human. In showing his characters in the worst situations he is testing their morality it is true, but it is not the morality that is the key to the drama itself. Wilde is not supplying the reader a parable for right/wrong or good/evil; the drama is way of viewing the beauty of society with all its flaws included, not hiding anything from the public yet still managing to find social acceptance. A society that can embrace its flaws is, according to Wilde, a truly beautiful, and thus modern, one indeed.
Scandal within the novel is a very real threat to those who would suffer to lose position—be it political or moral. The morality of a Victorian politician is deeply connected to their political clout, especially if that clout is deserved through the claim of a higher moral standing, such as that of Sir Robert Chilton. It is important to define exactly what a scandal is, especially in terms of Victorian politics. In the essay “A Theory of Scandal: Victorians, Homosexuality, and the Fall of Oscar Wilde,” Art Adut defines scandal as “the disruptive publicity of transgression…The norm audience is a public united by some level of identification with the norm that has apparently been violated, and it is in some capacity attentive and negatively responsive to the publicized transgression” (219-220). Adut also attributes the emergence of scandals to an “underreinforced” rule that broken in private is acceptable, but once broken in public it becomes unacceptable because it is against a social norm (214). Part of living a modern Victorian high-lifestyle is walking the line between private controversy and public morality. Sir Robert Chiltern understands that the norm of the society in which he lives revolves around the wealth that people have; to gain power, especially at a young age he must be wealthy enough to purchase it: “Every man of ambition has to fight his century with its own weapons. What this century worships is wealth. The god of this century is wealth. To succeed one must have wealth. At all costs one must have wealth” (Ideal II.66-69). Wilde challenges modern morality by placing Sir Robert in a position that the reader should recognize as an ethical dilemma involving the sacrifice of individual morality in order to do a greater good for society: Sir Robert married and overly-moral woman after his moral sacrifice, and does his best to do only the best for his people, and yet his one flaw returns to haunt him despite his current good-doings. It does not matter that he is a good person now, and only matters that his past returns to harm him—his past sin endangers his current endeavor for good, and indeed he sacrifices himself for the sake of morality, even at the risk of losing his wife in the process.
In the drama An Ideal Husband, Mrs. Cheveley is representative of all that is corrupt in politics but even she realizes the importance of perceived virtue to the public-at-large:
In old days nobody pretended to be a bit better than his neighbours. In fact, to be a bit better than one’s neighbour was considered excessively vulgar and middle-class. Nowadays, with our modern mania for morality, everyone has to pose as a paragon of purity, incorruptibility, and all the other seven deadly virtues… (Ideal I.543-547)
Her observation in this passage is a paradox of what she calls the “modern mania for morality,” as it seems her implication is that those who “pose” to have the most incorruptibility have the most virtue—but “virtue” in her sense takes on a different context. Virtue for Mrs. Cheveley is more like a coat one puts on at certain times to look a certain way for the sake of public opinion. Further, modern morality is different from “old” times in that the public now appreciates those who are “better” morally: to be better than one’s neighbor is to have a kind of moral authority that is otherwise absent among equals. Class is an important distinction is Victorian England, and for one to not only have a class distinction, but also a moral distinction only serves to put more distance between the modern aristocracy and the public it is supposed to serve.
One critic, Gregory Mackie, argues that instead of a moral basis, Wilde is arguing for an aesthetic basis for what is considered “good” (148). This argument would give more depth to Wilde’s seemingly uncaring and superficial characters. Consider Lord Goring in An Ideal Husband, who is portrayed for most of the play as an everlasting bachelor but in the course of events he is realized to be the ideal husband, for it is him who maintains and encourages “morality,” though in a way that is aesthetically pleasing to a modernist: he gives in to social-connections in order to maintain the best outcome for all those involved.
Well, the English can’t stand a man who is always saying he is in the right, but they are very fond of a man who admits that he has been in the wrong. It is one of the best things in them…in England a man who can’t talk morality twice a week to a large, popular, immoral audience is quite over and a serious politician. There would be nothing left for him as a profession except Botany or the Church. (II.186-196)
In this passage, Lord Goring’s advice is sound for he realizes that a public apology would only create more problems for the grieved Sir Robert. Goring’s avoidance of a scandal, however, is not to be read as a deception of the public, and instead should be seen much the same way that Sir Robert imagines his own fall: “I did not sell myself for money. I bought success at a great price” (II.85-86). It is the spin that the characters use that the reader can imagine an over-sensitive public using to turn against Sir Robert. It does not matter what he has done since his rise to power, for that power was built on a foundation of lies and corruption.
It is however, significant that precisely what gets Sir Robert into trouble—namely hiding his past transgressions from the public—is exactly what will get him out of trouble. This is the paradox of modern culture, according to Wilde. To reiterate the point made by Mackie, Wilde’s interest in morality has nothing to do with what is good or what is bad, and instead depends on how it is perceived in accordance to the laws of aesthetics. Scandal, though it might jeopardize an individual’s reputation has a way of bringing together the public, and making them notice things about themselves and their culture that might otherwise escape their view. Scandal becomes an opportunity for scrutiny; an individual in a spotlight becomes one of two things to the general public: they are either someone to admire and emulate regardless of their transgressions, or someone to scorn. Either way, what counts is the reaction; reaction is always dependent on the perspective of the viewer—beauty is thus thrust into the forefront of public opinion: even scandal has elements of the aesthetic. It is, then, the job of the artist to present that beauty to be seen and appreciated.
“The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist,” Wilde goes on to say in his preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, “but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything” (3). The controversial lifestyle of Wilde might have been subject to speculation, but he fought strenuously to keep that same speculation out of his art. Scandal, as it is presented in An Ideal Husband, is a way for Wilde to explore what is beautiful about even the most precarious of social situations. The aesthetic quality is such that it is what the viewer does not see that is actually beautiful: the viewer instead turns the scandal inward, asking themselves if their own past might not represent their current state. Wilde’s drama might be a small world of people who have little in common with the common reader, but their fears are the same. It is the aesthetic in Wilde’s work that allows the reader to find the way to embrace society’s flaws—having nothing to do with the “moral or immoral”—the beauty instead being found, as Wilde claims of his books, in how well-written and well-presented those flaws are.
Works Cited
Adut, Art. “A Theory of Scandal: Victorians, Homosexuality, and the Fall of Oscar Wilde.” American Journal of Sociology. Vol. 111, No 1. JSTOR, (July 2005). Web. 25 May 2010.
Mackie, Gregory. “The Function of Decorum at the Present Time: Manners, Moral Language, and Modernity in ‘an Oscar Wilde Play’”. Modern Drama. Vol. 52, No. 2. Project Muse. Summer 2009, pp. 145-167. Article. 25 May 2010.
Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. J.W. Edwards, Inc.: Ann Arbor, MI. 2006. Print.
--. The Importance of Being Earnest and other Plays. Oxford University Press: Oxford. 2008. Print.
