Goodness is a recurring motif in Lady Windermere's Fan. Closely related to gender performance, the characters seem especially interested in what constitutes a good woman and the question of whether good men exist.
The motif comes with its fair share of ambiguity, however. To begin with, who is the good woman mentioned in the sub-title? Throughout the play, the characters describe Lady Windermere, who appears to be the main character, as a good woman. However, in the last line of the play, Lady Windermere herself uses these same words to describe Mrs. Erlynne—whom other characters have repeatedly posed as an example of a bad woman. Unbeknownst to any of the characters besides these two women, they both make decisions that exist in line with and contrary to goodness over the course of the play. In their one-on-one relationship, built both on secrets and genuine intimacy, the two women discover that the categories of good and bad are less distinct, even less contrasting, than one might think.
In addition, the characters' persistent discussions about goodness also contribute to the ambiguity surrounding the motif. The male characters Lord Darlington, Cecil Graham, and Dumby share a number of aphorisms and epigrams—often paradoxical—that increasingly imbue goodness with a negative connotation. To a certain extent, their many claims about the nature and effects of goodness empty the word of its meaning.
In the first act, for example, Lord Darlington states that "nowadays so many conceited people go about Society pretending to be good, that I think it shows rather a sweet and modest disposition to pretend to be bad." He brings up the unreliability of surface-level goodness in his paradoxical statement that those who pretend to behave badly reveal a sweet and modest disposition. What he says nothing about is where and how to detect the boundary between being bad and pretending to be bad. He isn't alone in his unconventional views of goodness. In the third act, Cecil Graham claims that the "only difference" between wicked and good women is that "wicked women bother one" and "good women bore one." When Lord Darlington later suggests that good women are rare, Cecil Graham says—with some frustration—that "the world is perfectly packed with good women." Like Lord Darlington, Cecil Graham is interested neither in goodness as a trait nor as a category.
The dandies aren't the only characters with an unconventional view of goodness, however. Women like the Duchess of Berwick, Lady Plymdale, and Mrs. Erlynne also see goodness and the possibility of moral betterment through a cynical lens. Commenting on Lady Windermere's decision to invite Mrs. Erlynne, Lady Plymdale says that it "takes a thoroughly good woman to do a thoroughly stupid thing." Like Lord Darlington and Cecil Graham, she evidently associates goodness with ignorance and innocence. Mrs. Erlynne has a similar understanding of goodness, as revealed by her comment that Augustus's good qualities are all on the surface, just where good qualities should be.
Lady Windermere is one of the few characters who, at the play's start, sees goodness as desirable, and who identifies good and bad as distinct categories. By the fourth act, she has undergone a transformation that has totally shifted her worldview. When her husband calls Mrs. Erlynne a bad woman, she tells him that she doesn't think "people can be divided into the good and the bad, as though they were two separate races or creations." In under 24 hours, she has come to realize that all people are capable of good and bad—in fact, that neither can exist without the other.
Throughout the play, characters consistently use the same figurative language to describe female ruin. Mrs. Erlynne, who has been through it herself, especially uses words like brink, precipice, abyss, pit, and falling to describe what happens when a woman leaves her husband. Degradation as a depth and shame as a pit return repeatedly as motifs.
The metaphor of shame as a hole women fall into appears for the first time in the third act, when Mrs. Erlynne goes to Lord Darlington's place to retrieve Lady Windermere. She warns Lady Windermere that she is "on the brink of ruin" and "on the brink of a hideous precipice." Soon after, she says there is "nothing in the world" she would not dare to do to save her "from the abyss into which [she] is falling."
Mrs. Erlynne's entreaties form some of the most stirring moments in the whole play, as the audience knows why she's so familiar with this so-called brink—not to mention why she's so attached to Lady Windermere's wellbeing. Although the older woman has until this point been characterized as cynical and scrupulous, this part of Act III shows that she has a soft, self-sacrificial interior. She can't reveal her secrets to Lady Windermere, but she puts great effort into convincing her that she knows what she's talking about:
You don’t know what may be in store for you, unless you leave this house at once. You don’t know what it is to fall into the pit, to be despised, mocked, abandoned, sneered at—to be an outcast!
This metaphor is related to the idea of the fallen woman. Mrs. Erlynne's warnings make it clear that, for women, a ruined reputation is irreversible. Once she has fallen into the pit, she will never make it out. Her serious, intense tone is worth contrasting with the light, playful tone of men like Cecil Graham when they joke about divorce in other parts of the play. While men have the privilege of discussing divorce with levity, women use dramatic metaphors to conceive of what faces them on the other side.
The metaphor of the brink also appears in a description of emotional ruin. When Lady Windermere tells Lord Windermere that she wants to see Mrs. Erlynne in Act IV, he warns her that she "may be on the brink of a large sorrow." This produces dramatic irony, as the audience has heard that word and idea repeated multiple times throughout the play. Unlike the audience, he doesn't know that he was recently on the brink of both sorrow and scandal. Lord Windermere's use of Mrs. Erlynne's term highlights his unwavering faith in his wife's goodness.
Lady Windermere herself turns to this motif in Act IV, when describing her new worldview to her husband. Unlike before, when she thought good and evil were distinct, easily defined categories, she now understands that "good and evil, sin and innocence, go through [the world] hand in hand." She says that shutting one's eyes to "half of life" in order to "live securely" is tantamount to blinding oneself in order to "walk with more safety in a land of pit and precipice." She tells Lord Windermere that she herself "came to [the] brink" because she shut her eyes to life.
In the third act, the motif of the brink encapsulates the severe consequences women have to face when their perceived innocence has been compromised. In the fourth act, the motif comes to be linked to Lady Windermere's expanded conception of goodness.
Throughout the play, characters consistently use the same figurative language to describe female ruin. Mrs. Erlynne, who has been through it herself, especially uses words like brink, precipice, abyss, pit, and falling to describe what happens when a woman leaves her husband. Degradation as a depth and shame as a pit return repeatedly as motifs.
The metaphor of shame as a hole women fall into appears for the first time in the third act, when Mrs. Erlynne goes to Lord Darlington's place to retrieve Lady Windermere. She warns Lady Windermere that she is "on the brink of ruin" and "on the brink of a hideous precipice." Soon after, she says there is "nothing in the world" she would not dare to do to save her "from the abyss into which [she] is falling."
Mrs. Erlynne's entreaties form some of the most stirring moments in the whole play, as the audience knows why she's so familiar with this so-called brink—not to mention why she's so attached to Lady Windermere's wellbeing. Although the older woman has until this point been characterized as cynical and scrupulous, this part of Act III shows that she has a soft, self-sacrificial interior. She can't reveal her secrets to Lady Windermere, but she puts great effort into convincing her that she knows what she's talking about:
You don’t know what may be in store for you, unless you leave this house at once. You don’t know what it is to fall into the pit, to be despised, mocked, abandoned, sneered at—to be an outcast!
This metaphor is related to the idea of the fallen woman. Mrs. Erlynne's warnings make it clear that, for women, a ruined reputation is irreversible. Once she has fallen into the pit, she will never make it out. Her serious, intense tone is worth contrasting with the light, playful tone of men like Cecil Graham when they joke about divorce in other parts of the play. While men have the privilege of discussing divorce with levity, women use dramatic metaphors to conceive of what faces them on the other side.
The metaphor of the brink also appears in a description of emotional ruin. When Lady Windermere tells Lord Windermere that she wants to see Mrs. Erlynne in Act IV, he warns her that she "may be on the brink of a large sorrow." This produces dramatic irony, as the audience has heard that word and idea repeated multiple times throughout the play. Unlike the audience, he doesn't know that he was recently on the brink of both sorrow and scandal. Lord Windermere's use of Mrs. Erlynne's term highlights his unwavering faith in his wife's goodness.
Lady Windermere herself turns to this motif in Act IV, when describing her new worldview to her husband. Unlike before, when she thought good and evil were distinct, easily defined categories, she now understands that "good and evil, sin and innocence, go through [the world] hand in hand." She says that shutting one's eyes to "half of life" in order to "live securely" is tantamount to blinding oneself in order to "walk with more safety in a land of pit and precipice." She tells Lord Windermere that she herself "came to [the] brink" because she shut her eyes to life.
In the third act, the motif of the brink encapsulates the severe consequences women have to face when their perceived innocence has been compromised. In the fourth act, the motif comes to be linked to Lady Windermere's expanded conception of goodness.
