Romance, Boredom, and Delight Theme Analysis

If life is a form of art, and art’s purpose is to delight and occasionally to instruct, then boredom – which withers delight and inhibits learning – is to be avoided at all costs. For this reason, boredom is a significant preoccupation for the dandyish characters of the play. Characters assert at various times that obligations are boring (“Well, my duty is a thing I never do, on principle. It always depresses me”), goodness is boring, common sense is boring, earnestness is boring, perfection is boring (“We have married perfect husbands, and we are well punished for it”), and romance is boring (“Englishmen always get romantic after a meal, and that bores me dreadfully”). Romance, especially, is boring because it is a mixture of goodness, obligation, and earnestness. Like the other items on the list, it is too heavy a feeling to be delightful; delight is nimble, spontaneous, and changeable.

Yet, as the play’s ending demonstrates, when life comes to a crisis – the crisis of the Chilterns’ marriage, and the crisis of Robert’s reputation – one must move beyond the distinction between the boring and the amusing. The distinction is useful only to a certain point; it is important to the artifice of social life, but less so at times when human nature is more exposed. In moments of crisis, it is the distinction between empathy and egotism, between goodness and heartlessness, which guides the play’s heroes and heroines.