Lady Windermere's Fan

A short four act play from the master of wit, Oscar Wilde. It threatens to become too melodramatic in its middle sections after a contrived setup, but he brings it all together nicely in the final act, and as always, peppers the script with droll one-liners and a satire of Victorian morality. The plot has a ‘loose’ woman showing up and seeming to have an affair with a married man, since he’s secretly paying her large sums of money and she’s known to be flirtatious. It turns out the woman is his wife’s mother, assumed dead since she was a baby, and she doesn’t want her identity made known to her daughter. Complicating things is the wife has an admirer of her own who wants to whisk her away to a different life abroad. Aside show more from his clever wordplay, I liked how in crafting this story, Wilde pointed out that all in the world cannot be simply be divided into good and evil, moral and immoral. The way sacrifices are made and left unsaid are touching, and fit together well at the conclusion.

Quotes:
On man’s condition:
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

On not caring what the world thinks:
“I won’t tell you that the world matters nothing, or the world’s voice, or the voice of society. They matter a great deal. They matter far too much. But there are moments when one has to choose between living one’s own life, fully, entirely, completely – or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands. You have that moment now. Choose! Oh, my love, choose.”

On temptation:
“How securely one think one lives – out of reach of temptation, sin, folly. And then suddenly – Oh! Life is terrible. It rules us, we do not rule it.” show less

I quite enjoyed Oscar Wilde's collection of short stories that I just read, but his plays are 100% why we came here! Even though the plots are highly melo-dramatic and based on a social class (and their ridiculous ideas of scandals) that most of us can't possibly understand (or want to, for that matter) Wilde's careful use of dialogue and sarcasm are perfection. "Lady Windermere's Fan" is a new play for me, and it didn't seem that great at the outset because the titular character is a bit of a square, but by the finale it had definitely grown on me. More than anything I appreciated that Wilde sought to tackle the subject of gender bias and inequality - a theme that was on point for the burgeoning sufferage movement of his era and still show more rings true today. Wilde may still have missed the mark a touch to be considered a true feminist, but at least he's asking the questions and putting the idea out there for his audience. show less

I usually find Oscar Wilde's plays to be written in a kind of gay code so that they look like one thing on the surface, but underneath are about the lives of queer people in Edwardian England. On the surface Lady Windermere's Fan looks like the story of a happily married couple whose life together is almost destroyed by a grasping yet loving woman. But it's really about having to live with secrets that, if known, would destroy your standing in middle-class Victorian society.

It's young Lady Windermere's birthday and she is going to throw a ball in the evening. In the morning, she receives the first visitors, and a duchess gives her the information that Lord Windermere is having an affair with a certain Mrs Erlynne. Lady Windermere, who has been raised as a Puritan and who follows a rigid moral code, starts looking for evidence of her husband's betrayal. Other characters appear, and a sequence of charades, mistakes and confusions ensues. However, there are also earnest topics and conservations, and the plot itself is exciting. I could not wait to see how it developed.
This play is clever and humorous with a serious undertow, and it was a delight to discover some of the most famous Oscar Wilde quotes within show more the play. The witty dialogue is a joy to read, too. show less

Oh, like so many comedies of manners you do just end up wanting to bang all their heads together, but this is clever and witty and at one and the same time heartwarming, yet deeply depressing. Is Lady Windermere doomed to repeat the mistakes her mother made?

Lady Windermere's Fan is classified as a Comedy of Manners, and while there are certainly humorous elements present in the usual clever Wilde manner, I would contend that there is more of drama here than comedy. The story at the base of this play is quite serious. The subject of the ease with which a person (particularly a woman) could be ruined and expelled from society (something that Wilde, even as a man, knew something of) is a serious topic for Wilde. The instinctive love of a mother is a serious topic for me.

As is so often Wilde's technique, there is much misunderstanding and confusion that leads characters to do foolish or socially dangerous things. Mrs. Erlynne might be a bad woman, but she does a very good thing; Lady show more Windermere prides herself on being a good woman, but she does a very bad thing. Perhaps the lines are not that clear or delineated. I particularly enjoy the progress that Lady Windermere makes in her thinking by the end of the play. I also enjoy the contrivance in which we, the audience, share in a secret that the Lady does not know.

Plays are meant to be seen, not read. I have never had the privilege of seeing this play produced, but in 2004 a movie was made based on this play entitled "A Good Woman" and starring Helen Hunt. If you have not seen it, it is worth seeking out. I think Oscar Wilde would be proud. show less

Young and deeply in love, the marriage of Lord and Lady Windermere is suddenly in peril when gossip assures the Lady that her husband has been keeping company with a notorious woman. This rumor is confirmed to be true by her husband, who then begs his wife to invite this friend of his to their society party that night, which the Lady refuses to do. Lord Windermere issues the invite on his wife's behalf, openly telling her that he does so because this woman wishes to be welcomed into society and he plans on helping her in that.
A story of deception and the intense scrutiny a person lived under, where whatever your relatives did reflected on you. Many of Wilde's best lines are here.