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.
Lady Windermere reprimands Lord Darlington for continuing to pay her compliments after she has repeatedly requested that he stop. To explain his behavior, he uses a clever paradox:
I couldn’t help it. I can resist everything except temptation.
On one level, this statement isn't logical. Lord Darlington begins to claim that he has the willpower to resist anything, but goes on to specify that the only thing he can't resist is temptation. If temptation is the main thing people attempt to resist, it seems that Lord Darlington is in fact unable to resist anything at all. This renders his statement void of meaning.
However, in addition to imbuing the moment with humor, his statement does provide some valuable insight. Lord Darlington is suggesting that he can't resist anything that is actually tempting, which highlights a challenge that much of humanity has in common with him. It is because something is difficult to resist that it is a temptation.
Besides consolidating his cleverness, this line contributes to Lord Darlington's flirty, naughty characterization. The general nature of the diction allows him to communicate indirectly that compliments aren't the only thing he can't resist the temptation of. He wishes to insinuate to Lady Windermere that he can neither resist his attraction to her nor the temptation of pursuing an affair. This epigram is a well-known Wilde quote. Lord Darlington's paradox establishes him as a witty, transgressive foil to the principled, self-restrained Lady Windermere.
Throughout the play, the male characters employ a large amount of paradox and verbal irony. Turning aphorisms and clichés on their head, the men use language that often toes the line between provocative and inappropriate. The effect of this is a large amount of puzzling, but ultimately witty, wordplay.
Pretty much any time they are on stage, characters like Cecil Graham, Dumby, and Lord Darlington express ideas that a woman would have to be more careful with at the time. Additionally, many of their lines revolve around making fun of and upstaging each other with witty wordplay. In one instance, Cecil Graham makes light of Lord Augustus and his failed marriages:
By the way, Tuppy, which is it? Have you been twice married and once divorced, or twice divorced and once married? I say you’ve been twice divorced and once married. It sounds so much more probable.
This conclusion is, of course, absurd, as it isn't possible to be divorced more times than one has been married. Cecil Graham's paradoxical verbal irony nevertheless captures a kernel of truth. By saying that Lord Augustus has been divorced more than he's been married, Cecil Graham implies that his friend is more adept at getting divorced than staying married. Whether present on stage or present in other characters' dialogue, Lord Augustus is continually the butt of people's jokes. He lacks the self-awareness and quickness of wit required to keep up with banter, to defend himself, and to get back at his taunting friends.
Cecil Graham's insult is punchy in part for its paradox and irony, and in part because it draws on the stigma of divorce. At the end of the nineteenth century, it was still very controversial to get divorced. However, the stigma of a ruptured marriage fell to a much greater degree on divorced women than on divorced men. This is why the men can make jokes about divorce: it is just controversial enough that Cecil Graham can use it for fodder in his mockery, but not inappropriate in the way that it would be if a woman tried her hand at a similar joke.
Throughout the play, the permission to treat marriage and divorce playfully in speech and action is primarily reserved for men. Lady Windermere, the play's most respected woman, takes marriage very seriously and would never make jokes about divorce. A woman who treats marriage and divorce with the same levity as Cecil Graham, like Mrs. Erlynne, inevitably becomes a personification of infamy.
