In Act 1, Part 3, Mrs. Cheveley blackmails Sir Robert Chiltern into supporting the Argentine canal scheme. When Chiltern protests, Cheveley laments what she feels to be a useless preoccupation with morality in London society using simile and an ironic allusion to the seven deadly sins:
Nowadays, with our modern mania for morality, everyone has to pose as a paragon of purity, incorruptibility, and all the other seven deadly virtues—and what is the result? You all go over like ninepins—one after the other. Not a year passes in England without somebody disappearing. Scandals used to lend charm, or at least interest, to a man—now they crush him.
In decrying the “seven deadly virtues,” including purity and incorruptibility, Cheveley ironically criticizes morality in the language of Christian sin—revealing, in the process, her own extreme amorality. Following up with a simile comparing this new moral craze with bowling pins being hit by a ball, Cheveley dismisses how London's political leaders knock themselves about in their rush to moral judgement. Her speech highlights two of the major themes of the play: the question of whether “goodness” is boring and undesirable—and morality therefore only useful as an act—and the crisis that occurs when real moral conflict, like the one that Chiltern now faces, arises in a world that only values delight and amusement.
In Act 2, Part 1, Sir Robert Chiltern and Lord Arthur Goring discuss Robert’s predicament—Mrs. Cheveley’s blackmail, and her revelation of Robert’s past mistakes to his wife. As Robert shares his fears to his friend, he uses a set of similes to articulate their severity:
Arthur, I feel that public disgrace is in store for me. I feel certain of it. I never knew what terror was before. I know it now. It is as if a hand of ice were laid upon one’s heart. It is as if one’s heart were beating itself to death in some empty hollow.
In both similes, Robert grounds his fear in the physical sensation it creates in him: in the first, he feels an icy sort of terror like a frozen hand clutching his heart. In the second, he shares that his frantic heartbeats make his heart feel as though it is slowly and brutally killing itself. The intensity of both comparisons underscores the tremendous stakes that Robert places on his personal and professional standing in London society. The fear, after all, is first and foremost a fear of “public disgrace.” This is a critical moment in the play, as Robert must face the failure of his values—the values of his elite English world—to accommodate real personal crisis. There is little room for forgiveness and compassion in a society that revolves around the valorization of delight and the fear of boredom, and both Robert and Lady Chiltern will have to shift their entire worldviews to reconcile.
