DRAMA APPRECIATION

“An Ideal Husband”

Major Characters :

-          Sir Robert Chiltern      : a government official who was a secretary only in the past. He is forty years old, but still looks younger. He has a bad secret or a nasty scandal which comes back when he gets success.

-          Lady Chiltern              : a twenty seven years old woman, upright, virtuous, educated, politically engaged, and active in her husband’s career. She worships her husband as a perfect and an ideal husband.

-          Mrs. Cheveley             : a charming woman who has gotten married twice, a genius in the daytime and a beauty at night and a wittiest character who can be the strongest enemy for Sir Robert Chiltern.

-          Lord Goring                :  an idle but clever. He is Lord Chaversham’s son and a bachelor who is thirty four years old.

-          Mabel Chiltern            : pert and clever young sister of Sir Robert Chiltern. She seems romantic with Lord Goring but there is no certain relationship.

-          Lord Caversham         : a seventy old gentleman and the father of Lord Goring.  He is a serious and respectable character.

1.       Conflict :

-          The conflict begins when Mrs. Cheveley (from Vienna) visits to London to meet Sir Robert Chiltern in a mission. Her mission is about the very nasty scandal which Sir Robert Chiltren had done in the past when he was a secretary of Lord Radley. At that time he had wrote the letter to Baron Arnheim to tell the Baron to buy Suez Canal shares – a letter written three days before the Government announced its own purchase. Mrs. Cheveley and Sir Robert Chiltern are the doers of the conflict.

Events :

-          Sir Robert Chiltern holds a dinner party in the Grosvenor Square home.

-          The arrival of Mrs. Chiltern starts the conflict between her and Sir Robert Chiltern.

2.      The narrator :

-          The unknown third person is the narrator. It is because all of the characters have been described clearly by someone who knows well about the story without enclosing her/himself as the part of the characters. So, this third person might be an observer of the story.

3.      Comments :

-          The text is attracting and not boring because the conversation is established by the different, same, and contrast characters which affect the readers more curious about the next story and the ending. The delineation of the story has been explained clearly in the text.

4.      Theme :

-          Marriage :

It deals with the title “An Ideal Husband” that the main character is a husband of a marriage including loyalty and forgiveness. Lady Chiltern assumes that her husband is extremely perfect and ideal. In the other hand, Sir Robert Chiltern had done the worst sin that makes him feel so afraid if his wife will know about that matter. It explains how the way they appreciate each other as a wife and a husband in their marriage. As evidence that the story has the theme of marriage is when Lady Chiltern feels jealous and afraid of the arrival of Mrs. Cheveley whose purpose is only to meet her husband.

-          Politics :

The conflict is established upon the politics elements. It tells more about power, wealth, scheme, and business. The change of Sir Robert Chiltern as a secretary at first becoming a government official shows us the change in the power of the politics also.