A review by ind24
An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde

funny lighthearted reflective relaxing tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

An ideal husband is a meaty story infused with Wilde’s trademark epigrammatic humor. There are a lots of very funny and very quotable lines. (Would it be a Wilde novel if there weren’t glorious gems scattered through out?) A quote that is still stuck in my mind and definitely sums up the core of the play: 

 "There was your mistake. There was your error.  The error all women commit.  Why can’t you women love us, faults and all?  Why do you place us on monstrous pedestals?  We have all feet of clay, women as well as men; but when we men love women, we love them knowing their weaknesses, their follies, their imperfections, love them all the more, it may be, for that reason.  It is not the perfect, but the imperfect, who have need of love. A man’s love is like that.  It is wider, larger, more human than a woman’s.  Women think that they are making ideals of men.  What they are making of us are false idols merely.  You made your false idol of me, and I had not the courage to come down, show you my wounds, tell you my weaknesses.  I was afraid that I might lose your love, as I have lost it now.  And so, last night you ruined my life for me—yes, ruined it! 

Let women make no more ideals of men! Let them not put them on alters and bow before them, or they may ruin other lives as completely as you—you whom I have so wildly loved—have ruined mine!"

Once you read the play it becomes apparent that the hypocrisy of the public's expectation for perfection from those in public life was Wilde’s target. All I can say is read the play; you shall not be disappointed.