Work
Lady Windermere's Fan
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About this work
Lady Windermere's Fan is Oscar Wilde's 1892 comedy, a glittering society play in which a young wife, convinced of her own virtue, nearly ruins herself by judging others too quickly. Beneath the famous epigrams runs a serious question about who has the right to call anyone good or fallen. It made Wilde a star of the London stage.
About the author — Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde (1854 to 1900) was an Irish playwright, poet, and wit, one of the most celebrated dramatists of late Victorian London. His comedies pair sparkling dialogue with a sly subversion of the morality of his age.
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People also ask
What is Lady Windermere's Fan about?
A virtuous young wife who, suspecting betrayal, almost destroys her marriage and reputation, only to be saved by the very woman she had condemned. It questions easy judgments of good and bad people.
What does the fan symbolize?
It is the play's hinge of mistaken judgment and hidden truth, the object that could expose a scandal and that ultimately turns the plot toward mercy over condemnation.
What is the famous quote from the play?
Wilde's line that we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars, one of the most quoted epigrams in English drama.