The play 'An Ideal Husband' was written by Oscar Wilde in 1895. He grew up in Dublin, Ireland. An Ideal Husband is a political comedy about an evil scheming woman (Mrs Chevely) trying to blackmail an upright English gentleman (Sir Robert Chiltern) with an act of folly he once did in hi...

The desire for power has been a compelling theme in plays for centuries. However, Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband displays something that most power-driven plays don't - the desire for many different kinds of power. Instead of every character struggling to control one common aspect of their lives, ea...

My Reader-Response to The Awakening In Kate Chopin's, The Awakening, Chopin told the story of a woman who struggled between leading the life of a conservative, traditional wife and mother or leading the life of an independent, fee-willed woman. The woman's name was Edna and she felt stu...

Love and Marriage in Much ado about nothing Even though love and marriage was a major ideal in Shakespearean England, we can get views from Much Ado about nothing, which oppose this idea. From the two main 'couples' in this play we can understand their different views on commitment throughout and b...

The tigers, which are representative of what women could be if they were not held back by the bounds of social expectations, are not fearful of any bonds which men might put on them, for they know that they are free. The use of the word "prance" to describe the activities of Aunt Jennifer's tigers...

Given a taste of your own medicine takes on a whole new meaning as Katherine finds herself having to speak to Bianca and the widow about how to treat their husbands. How very ironic it is that Katherine must now explain to the two women how to be an "ideal" wife in the eyes of their lordl...

Shakespeare's Othello is commonly regarded as a work depicting man's ability to use his reason towards evil intentions. A lowly ancient in a general's army is able to destroy him through manipulation and deceit. But although Iago's deceit of Othello is undoubtedly a central the...

The meaning and importance of love in marriage has changed throughout time. In our society, most marriages exist solely because of love. Marriages occur between all sorts of people; the influence of family, social status, and especially wealth has much less to do with the marriages of today compared...