Character guide

Lord Goring

major

Also known as Goring, Lord Goring Smiling, Lord Goring Ah, Lord Goring Oh, Lord Goring Gravely, Lord Goring Rising, Lord Goring Sacrificed, Lord Goring Youth, Lord Goring Good heavens, Lord Goring Bowing, Lord Goring Great heavens, Lord Goring Robert, Lord Goring Mabel, Lord Goring Miss Mabel, Lord Goring Phipps

Lord Goring drifts through London drawing rooms armed with paradoxes, dodging his father's demands that he marry and Mabel Chiltern's teasing with equal grace. Beneath the pose of the idlest man in town lies real moral seriousness: he alone urges Robert to confess the truth to his wife, and he alone treats Mrs. Cheveley as the danger she is. His drawing room becomes the play's crossroads, where blackmail, friendship, and courtship all converge.

Sir Robert Chiltern

major

Also known as Robert Chiltern, Sir Robert, Robert, Sir Robert Chiltern Smiling, Sir Robert Chiltern Coldly, Sir Robert Chiltern Really, Sir Robert Chiltern Rushes, Sir Robert Chiltern Stop, Sir Robert Chiltern Excitedly, Sir Robert Chiltern Certainly, Sir Robert Chiltern Speaking, Sir Robert Chiltern Walking, Sir Robert Chiltern Weak, Sir Robert Chiltern Who, Sir Robert Chiltern No, Sir Robert Chiltern Rises, Sir Robert Chiltern Rising, Sir Robert Chiltern Stopping, Sir Robert Chiltern Arthur, Sir Robert Chiltern Gertrude

Sir Robert Chiltern is the admired Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, a self-made man whose fortune began with a letter sold to Baron Arnheim eighteen years ago. He worships his wife Gertrude as the embodiment of ideals he knows he has betrayed, and the arrival of Mrs. Cheveley, who holds the proof of that old sin, turns his composure to panic. His struggle between protecting his career and deserving his wife's love drives the play's central moral crisis.

Lady Chiltern

major

Also known as Gertrude Chiltern, Gertrude, Lady Chiltern Smiling, Lady Chiltern Robert, Lady Chiltern All, Lady Chiltern Gravely, Lady Chiltern Rising, Lady Chiltern Thrusting, Lady Chiltern Startled, Lady Chiltern Coldly, Lady Chiltern Ah, Lady Chiltern Dear Mabel, Lady Chiltern Mabel, Enter Lady Chiltern

Lady Chiltern is a woman of strict principle who once won the good conduct prize at school and has built her marriage on the belief that her husband is a man of unimpeachable honour. Her idealism is both her beauty and her limitation: Robert fears that telling her the truth would turn her love to horror, and Lord Goring suspects she has never learned that forgiveness is part of love. Her confrontation with Mrs. Cheveley and her gradual reckoning with human frailty form the emotional core of the play.

Mrs. Cheveley

major

Also known as that Mrs. Cheveley, Mrs. Cheveley Smiling, Mrs. Cheveley Rising, Mrs. Cheveley Baron Arnheim, Mrs. Cheveley Arthur, frightening Mrs. Cheveley

Mrs. Cheveley is a woman of restless gray-green eyes and scarlet lips, a work of art showing the influence of too many schools, who trades in other people's secrets and calls it society. She offers Sir Robert a bargain: support a fraudulent Argentine canal scheme, or she will expose the letter that reveals how his fortune was made. Her wit is as sharp as her morals are flexible, and her presence turns the Chilterns' drawing room into a battlefield where idealism, ambition, and old grudges collide.

Mabel Chiltern

supporting

Also known as Mabel, Miss Mabel, Miss Chiltern, that pretty Miss Chiltern, Mabel Chiltern Dear Gertrude, Mabel Chiltern Gertrude, Mabel Chiltern Dear, Mabel Chiltern Tommy, Mabel Chiltern Tommy Trafford, Mabel Chiltern Gravely, Mabel Chiltern Looking, Mabel Chiltern Severely, Mabel Chiltern Lord Goring

Mabel Chiltern is the play's freshest voice, a young woman who declares London society composed of beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics and means it as praise. She teases Lord Goring about broken appointments in the Park while clearly enjoying his attention, and her frankness cuts through the hypocrisy around her. Her courtship with Goring offers a lighter counterpoint to the Chilterns' troubled marriage, and her loyalty to her brother keeps her close to the story's emotional stakes.

Lord Caversham

supporting

Also known as James Lord Caversham, Lord Caversham Hum, Lord Caversham Eh, Lord Caversham Humph, Lord Caversham Grimly, Lord Caversham Angrily, Lord Caversham Lady Chiltern, Mason Lord Caversham, Enter Lord Caversham

Lord Caversham is a gruff, traditional peer who hates paradoxes and cannot fathom why his son refuses to propose to the pretty Miss Chiltern. He grumbles about Lady Caversham's bonnets, glares at Goring with bushy eyebrows, and insists that if he had any influence over his son he would know exactly what to make him do. His running battle with Goring's wit provides the play's comic spine, and his eventual approval of Mabel signals the older generation's grudging respect for the younger's choices.

Phipps

supporting

Also known as Lord Goring Phipps, Enter Phipps, Exit Phipps

Phipps presides over Lord Goring's Adam-style library, receiving hats, presenting buttonholes on a salver, and answering every epigram with a level 'Yes, my lord.' His deadpan composure is the perfect foil to his master's dandy philosophy, and his one volunteered remark — that the florist has had a loss in her family — quietly punctures Goring's talk about the lower classes. He matters because his inscrutability sets the play's comic temperature and makes the fashionable world around him look almost as performed as he is.

Mason

supporting

Also known as Enter Mason, Mason Lady Markby, Mason Lord Caversham, Mason Lord Goring, Mr. Montford Mason

Mason moves through the Chilterns' house ushering in the parade of callers — Lady Markby, Lord Caversham, Lord Goring — that keeps the play's social machinery turning. His announcements are the hinge on which the morning-room scenes swing, dropping titled visitors into the middle of flirtations and negotiations already in progress. He matters because Wilde's satire depends on this steady traffic of the fashionable: Mason is the door through which the plot's complications keep walking in.

Lady Markby

supporting

Also known as Dear Lady Markby, Lady Markby Reflecting, Lady Markby Really

Lady Markby arrives at the Chilterns' with Mrs. Cheveley in tow, cheerfully admitting she has no idea which Cheveleys these are — 'families are so mixed nowadays.' She is a one-woman gossip exchange, mourning Sir John's political temper, praising Vienna's scandals and its chef in the same breath, and introducing the woman whose arrival will unsettle everything. She matters because she is the play's comic engine of social connection: harmless, indiscreet, and exactly the kind of hostess through whom a dangerous newcomer gains entry.

Tommy Trafford

minor

Also known as Tommy, Mr. Trafford, poor Mr. Trafford

A young man in love with Mabel Chiltern.

Vicomte de Nanjac

minor

Also known as Vicomte, the Vicomte de Nanjac, Vicomte de Nanjac Approaching

A French attaché who appears at social gatherings.

Lady Basildon

minor

Also known as Lady Basildon Stiffly, Lady Basildon Men

A fashionable society woman at Lady Chiltern's party.

Margaret

minor

Also known as dear Margaret

A woman mentioned in passing by Lady Markby.

Mrs. Marchmont

minor

Also known as Olivia, Marchmont, Mrs. Marchmont Rising, Mrs. Marchmont Olivia, Mrs. Marchmont Men

A society friend who gossips with Lady Basildon.

Baron Arnheim

minor

Also known as the Baron

A wealthy financier who influenced Sir Robert's past corruption.

Mr. Montford

minor

Also known as Montford

A guest at the Chilterns' party.

Sir John

minor

Also known as John

A minor character mentioned in social conversation.

Lord Mortlake

minor

Also known as poor old Lord Mortlake, Poor old Lord Mortlake

An elderly lord mentioned in passing.

Lord Radley

minor

A minor noble mentioned in dialogue.

Lady Brancaster

minor

A society figure mentioned in conversation.

Lord Brancaster

minor

A minor noble mentioned in dialogue.

The Hartlocks

minor

A family mentioned in society gossip.