Character Profile: Lady Chiltern
Adjectives
Role in the play/ used as a device?
Key quotations
Attitude to key themes
Morality
Consistent or change across the play
Consistent and doesn't change or stray from her beliefs even at the end of act 4 when she reconsiders and lets Robert take the position in the cabinet she ahs to be persuaded by Lord Goring beforehand
Lady Chiltern is the wife to Sir Robert Chiltern whom both idealise each other
Grave
Wilde uses her as a stock character of a strict puritan wife
Bewildered
Dialogue
'Robert must be above reproach' - Act two
'you are not a man to anything base or underhand or dishonourable' - Act One
'Robert is as incapable of doing a foolish thing as he is of doing a wrong thing ' - Act Two
Stage directions
'a woman of grave Greek beauty' - Act one
'Nothing could make her alter her views' - Act two - said by Robert Chiltern
Uses idealism between the married couple to demonstrate his own moral views exploring the danger of loving an ideal and thinking perfection is fact and not an opinion
Helpless
Child like, lost without security of perfect husband, dependent on husband, like child is to parents - status of women
Serious, strict, aged beyond her years
Childish fear
Dreadful dream
Shocked, disbelieving, hard to come to terms with seeing her husband differently
Forgiveness
Inflexible doesn't forgive
Has very strict moral beliefs
Idealism
Roles/expectations of women
Lady Chiltern idealises her husband and falls in love with her ideal version and gets a nasty shock when she finds out he isn't as perfect as she thought
Remain loyal and faithful to their husbands even if they disagree with what their husband is doing they have no political, social or marital power over their husband to change it