After watching An Ideal Husband, admittedly I love Lord Arthur Goring most for his round character with unique fashion style, dandyish appearance, a warm heart, and wit. And it is not hard to see that Lord Arthur shares some similar figures with the writer Oscar Wilde himself.
Lord Arthur is actually a pretended dandy, but a real childish warm-hearted person. He seems to be qualified with the requirements for a dandy, wealth, idleness, and experienced expert on flirting with women. Firstly, his father is a powerful British politician, and he always be criticized by his father a good-for-nothing. And at the very beginning of the movie, Lord Arthur was wakened by the butler after a restless night. Out of his comments on his friend Lord Robert, the universal ideal husband, that he hopes the journalists will not call him the perfect type as they praise Lord Robert, he looks like a perfect macaroni who sees marriage and responsibility as burdens which interrupts his liberty.
And he is extremely good at flirting with girls by catching and holding their eye sights gently and using unclear words to grab girls’ attention. Take the conversation between him and Miss Mabel in as an example, he holds Miss Mabel’s eyes but stays silent in at least five minutes. Certainly during the stillness, he successfully rises Miss Mabel’s curiosity and tense. Women are creatures that have limitless potentials on thinking once they are given time to imagine, and obviously Lord Arthur are perfectly aware of that.
However, Lord Arthur can not be simply defined as a dandy for he is the one that holds purest attitude towards love. He looks highly on love, treating Mrs. Getrude, his ex-girlfriend, gently and friendly. When she is in problem, he opens his embrace to her and tell her that coming to him whenever she is in trouble. And in his relationship with Miss Mabel, when he faces Mabel this talkative gentleman becomes shy. He has a special feeling with Miss Mabel, but he chooses to hide this emotion in heart and deliberately pays less attention on Miss Mabel. However, although he pretends to be indifference towards Miss Mabel, his eyes betrayed him. When he sits on the seat of the parliament and being asked “married?” He turns his head towards Miss Mabel, which indicates that Miss Mabel is the first person he wants to marry. And even if he is a talkative handsome guy, when Mabel asks him why does he want to marry her? He pauses and do not know how to answer at all. Fortunately, he finds the answer at the very end of the movie——for love!
And he is the man in the environment of London social season that has the sense of insisting his own rules, e.g. the rule of dressing “fashion is what one wears on oneself, and what is unfashionable is what other people wear”; the rule of self-loving “Love for oneself is to start a lifelong romance”; the rule of love “Love cannot be bought. It can only be given”; the rule of marriage, when he responds Sir Robert that “secrets from other people’s wives are luxury in the modern society, but no man has secret to his own wife.” In later Victory period, there is the tendency of catching up the population flow among the upper class. Everyone in the social circle is complicated for they always see things from complicate views. Take marriage as an example, they consider marriage as a step for their political success; get married not because they are in love, but because the person they choose can bring them benefits on politics or financial aspect. Only Lord Arthur choose to do things out of the original aim. In such an environment where everyone is thinking too considerate, Lord Arthur looks more shining.
Lord Arthur is the man that behaves as what he says, while his rules do not just stay in his mouth but also become his standards. The most significant one is the quality of being loyalty to his friend. When Sir Robert is trapped in the scandal of the Suez Canal, Lord Goring tries his best to help his friend out, persuading Mrs. Cheveley bringing back the letter which threatens his friend’s political life, playing clever tricks to make Robert and Getrude be together again. Even more, when he receives a love letter from Getrude, he immediately put it down without any hesitation.
All in all, although I have explained so many for Lord Arthur, he still closely tights with the characteristic of dandy. Personally speaking, the character of Lord Arthur shares high similarities with Oscar Wilde, the author himself. The author may want to use Arthur to express his own opinion that the person who looks in order and is perfect with everything is not always the real perfect one. On the contrary, the person who looks imperfect and does not conform with the common sense may stand on the side of truth. Lord Arthur is actually that kind of person that being criticized by others for wasting time everyday and good-for-nothing but is the only one who keep pure and simple. Clearly, it is totally wrong to judge people from different lifestyle. The majority does not mean 100% right, and the minority also dose not symbolize totally wrong.
