مشخصات پژوهش

Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband (1895) emerged during late Victorian England’s “crisis of conscience,” when rigid moral absolutes collided with pragmatic realities of public and private life (Gagnier 101). The play’s central conflict—Sir Robert Chiltern’s concealment of a youthful transgression that secured his fortune and political career—interrogates the sustainability of absolute moral frameworks in a world governed by contingency and self-interest. This research pursues several interconnected goals. The primary goal is to demonstrate that ethical pragmatism—drawing on William James, John Dewey, and Richard Rorty—provides a coherent framework for interpreting the moral logic of An Ideal Husband. A second goal is establishing the historical and intellectual plausibility of connecting Wilde’s dramatic practice to American pragmatist thought, despite apparent geographical and disciplinary distance. Finally, the study sheds light on aspects of An Ideal Husband receiving insufficient critical attention, particularly the play’s treatment of forgiveness, moral growth, and marriage ethics as requiring ongoing negotiation rather than static idealization.