Mrs. Erlynne, according to Harold Bloom’s description, is a mysterious social climber who knows how to manipulate the men to serve her purpose (60). However, Mrs. Erlynne sacrifices herself as a mother in one night in order to save her daughter from danger. A woman character like Mrs. Erlynne would usually be labeled as a bad
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and malicious woman who gets anything she wants without caring other people’s feelings. In the play; for example, Mrs. Erlynne fearlessly goes to the party of her daughter’s and delicately socializes with the people in the party although she knows there are some rumors about her behaviors in the London society. Her bold and confident attitude also arouses Lady Windermere’s anger and jealousy, as Lady Windermere considers Mrs. Erlynne simply wants to show her capability of socializing on purpose. However, this selfish and self-centered woman, terribly worries about her daughter when she sees her daughter’s leaving-home letter, eagerly persuades her daughter to return to her husband and wholeheartedly protects her daughter from harm and assault. Thus, even only for one night, she experiences bitterness as a mother.
Mother and child are separated individuals but share an indivisible relationship.
When Mrs. Erlynne learns that Lady Windermere is going to repeat what she did when she was young, Mrs. Erlynne seems to ignite her spirit of being a mother. Her sense of being a caring mother firstly arises when she reads the letter, arising again when she urges Lady Windermere to go home, and surges up when she threatens Lord Windermere not to leak out a tiny word about her identity as the birth mother of Lady Windermere. Mrs. Erlynne reveals to the audience that a mother would rather be the sinful and fallen woman who is misunderstood by the society and people in order to protect her daughter’s innocent purity. Mrs. Erlynne’s identity is revealed to the audience in the end of Act II when she was looking for Lady Windermere near the end of the party but accidentally finds the letter and notices that it is from her daughter to Lord Windermere:
MRS.ERLYNNE. . . . Why do I remember now the one moment of my life I most wish to forget? Does life repeat its tragedies? [Tears letter open and
reads it, then sinks down into a chair with a gesture of anguish.] Oh, how
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terrible! The same words that twenty years ago I wrote to her father! And how bitterly I have been punished for it! No; my punishment, my real punishment is to-night, is now! [Still seated R.] (Act II, p.36)
When Mrs. Erlynne realizes that this letter follows the track of the same mistake she made when she was young, she immediately rushes to Lord Darlington’s house to stop Lady Windermere from stepping into the mud, which she considers as a dangerous tragedy. Mrs. Erlynne’s feeling of anxiety draws her back to the time when she abandoned Lady Windermere. As a mother, Mrs. Erlynne feels embarrassed and panic at the same time, but she carefully covers up the secret in front of Lord Windermere.
All she thinks is to save her daughter as soon as possible before anything happens.
She reveals her feelings and worries by a series of questions:
MRS. ERLYNNE. What can I do? What can I do? I feel a passion awakening within me that I never felt before. What can it mean? The daughter must not be like the mother—that would be terrible. How can I save her? How can I save my child? A moment may ruin a life. Who knows that better than I? (Act II, p.37)
Mrs. Erlynne’s reflections prove one thing that she indeed cares a lot for her daughter.
From the beginning of the play, the audience could only catch the image of Mrs.
Erlynne as a bad woman who breaks the marriage and destroys the harmony and consonance of a lovely couple. Not until Mrs. Erlynne shows her panic did the audience realize in this scene that Mrs. Erlynne essentially harbors the heart of a loving mother.
According to Wollstonecraft, parental affection is, she said, “the blindest modification of perverse self-love” (232). As the blindest modification of perverse self-love, parents always sense the possibility of danger which their children might confront or encounter. Parents sense the existence of danger and always want to
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prevent it from happening towards their children. Wollstonecraft claimed that
“[p]arents often love their children in the most brutal manner, and sacrifice every relative duty to promote their advancement in the world” (232). On the other side, Lady Windermere heavily worries about herself and doubts whether she should return to Lord Windermere, wondering if she is actually making the worst decision to look for Lord Darlington’s shelter. From her lines, she exposes her interior conflicts of going back and forth to think about her decision. Apparently, Lady Windermere has no courage to take this real action. According to Chodorow, the child would feel rejected or unloved when the child is not satisfied in the maternal relationship, and would define itself as rejected or “as someone who drives love away” (78). In addition, the child needs to admit it itself is a separate being from mother so that it can develop a self. Lady Windermere’s lack of security proves Chodorow’s theory.
When Mrs. Erlynne sees Lady Windermere in Lord Darlington’s house, she finds no way to urge her daughter back. At the same time, she also has to be aware of not telling her daughter that she was actually her mother. Under the pressure of almost running out of time, she burns the letter to destroy the proof of Lady Windermere’s never-happened adultery. At that moment, all Mrs. Erlynne cares about is how to save her daughter out of the thorny condition, although Lady Windermere contradictorily doubts the reason of Mrs. Erlynne’s rescue as she regards Mrs. Erlynne as her husband’s lover:
MRS.ERLYNNE. Dare! Oh! To save you from the abyss into which you are falling, there is nothing in the world I would not dare, nothing in the whole world. Here is the letter. Your husband has never read it. He never shall read it. [Going to fireplace.] It should never have been written.
[Tears it and throws it into the fire.] (Act III, p.41)
In order to save her daughter, Mrs. Erlynne becomes the bravest woman in the world,
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considering there is nothing in the world she would not dare to do. To Mrs. Erlynne, Lady Windermere’s accusation of her is unimportant, but the way her daughter misunderstands Lord Windermere and would not return to him is the bigger issue that Mrs. Erlynne wants to deal with.
Mother would think the child as the extension of the self (Chodorow 87). Mrs.
Erlynne’s series of behaviors are the self-repair of the past mistakes she made.
Through the process, she seems to stop the curse of the next generation. Seeing Lady Windermere having a happy family, to some extent, seems to be Mrs. Erlynne’s another mental remedy. But, when Mrs. Erlynne euphemistically urges Lady Windermere to go back to her husband and explains that she has nothing to do with Lord Windermere, her explanation only stimulates Lady Windermere and drives Lady Windermere to another deeper misunderstanding. Mrs. Erlynne then heartbrokenly begs Lady Windermere to think about her son, urging her to put her son in the first place. Mrs. Erlynne tells Lady Windermere that if she falls into the adultery pit, she would be despised, mocked, abandoned and sneered at as an outcast (Act III, p.42-3), and it is tragic and horrible. Mrs. Erlynne speaks so earnestly to Lady Windermere.
As an experienced woman, she continues to express her regret and sorrow:
MRS. ERLYNNE. I may have wrecked my own life, but I will not let you wreck yours. You—why, you are a mere girl, you would be lost. You haven’t got the kind of brains that enables a woman to get back. You have neither the wit nor the courage. You couldn’t stand dishonour!
No! Go back, Lady Windermere, to the husband who loves you, whom you love. You have a child, Lady Windermere. Go back to that child who even now, in pain or in joy, may be calling to you. . . . Back to your house, Lady Windermere—your husband loves you! . . . you must stay
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with your child. If he was harsh to you, . . . [i]f he ill-treated you, . . . [i]f he abandoned you, your place is with your child. (Act III, p.43)
The confession Mrs. Erlynne made is her true voice after the twenty years drifting in the upper society trying to live an aristocratic life. Her confession to Lady Windermere is the experience sharing and also with the painful realization. Mrs.
Erlynne encourages her daughter to think about her beautiful and young life and arouses her responsibility of taking care of her child instead of doubting her husband.
As an experienced woman, she tells Lady Windermere about what she would encounter if she abandons the family. As a mother, she would not like her child to be rejected by the people and the society. Knowing how hard the life would be, Mrs.
Erlynne chooses to reveal the truth to Lady Windermere about what she will face if she escaped from Lord Windermere’s embracement. “Fighting to prevent a repetition of her own past, Mrs. Erlynne first offers her daughter all the conventional moral arguments—the horror of being an outcast, the wife’s duty to her husband, the mother’s duty to her child” (Eltis 81).
Mrs. Erlynne has never thought herself as a threat to her daughter. Her primary goal is to get the money and climb up to the upper society. At first, Mrs. Erlynne expects to obtain the benefits from her son-in-law, but she never thinks that her coming is a threat to her daughter. However, Mrs. Erlynne’s arrival, when connecting to Chodorow’s statement, is actually helping the child to establish the central ego. In the process, the mother “must guide her child’s separation from her. . . . [S]he often awakens her child’s ambivalence toward her, and unintentionally brings on its rejection of her and of the care which she has provided” (83). Through Mrs. Erlynne’s confession, Lady Windermere is moved and she helplessly behaves like a child in the play, as Wilde clearly gave the instruction of the actions of Lady Windermere and Mrs.
Erlynne. This scene naturally leaks out the mother-daughter emotions:
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[Lady Windermere bursts into tears and buries her face in her hands.]
[Rushing to her.] Lady Windermere!
LADY WINDERMERE. [Holding out her hands to her, helplessly, as a
child might do.] Take me home. Take me home.
MRS. ERLYNNE. [Is about to embrace her. Then restrains herself. There is
a look of wonderful joy in her face.] Come! Where is your cloak?
[Getting it from sofa.] Here. Put it on. Come at once! (Act III, p.43-4) Like a child, Lady Windermere stretches out her arms to the stranger who she previously hated and calls out “take me home;” on the other hand, as a mother, Mrs.
Erlynne implicitly expresses her joyful feelings. Eltis concludes that “Lady Windermere falls naturally into the role of infant, needing guidance and support from the stronger adult” (81).
Nancy Chodorow claims in her theory that daughter usually experiences a more hard status than son when she interacts with mother. Women, as mothers, create the same pattern for their daughters to develop the desires of mothering. The capacity and the need are all built due to the mother and daughter relationship. The son, on the other hand, would not sense the feeling of mothering. Instead, sons are lack of the capacity and need of nurturing. So, sons can deal with the public life and the work so that they would not be influenced by the familial life (Chodorow 7). The diversions of son and daughter, obviously manifest in Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan and A
Woman of No Importance. In Wilde’s two plays, Lady Windermere is reminded by
Mrs. Erlynne that she should remember her child. No matter what kind of circumstances she would encounter, Mrs. Erlynne encourages Lady Windermere to stay with her child and never abandons him. As a woman, Mrs. Erlynne realizes the mistakes she made in the past. Filling with guilt, she conveys the regret in her truly honest statements to Lady Windermere. As a mother, Mrs. Erlynne delivers the
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experience and emotions of a mother to her daughter.
When a mother provides the care to the child, the child would wholeheartedly rely on the mother with the “absolute dependence” (qtd. in Chodorow 60). “Absolute dependence” is the child’s original state. The “self” is supported by the mother love, and the mother love protects the child and provides the child a whole illusion for the child so that it would think itself stable and powerful, even though it is apparently weak. With the protection, the child can establish the “true self” and “central self.” In the state of absolute dependence, the child will defensively internalize the relationship it has with its mother. Therefore, her care must be consistent and reliable. Her absence would cause anxiety in the child. The earliest experience and development happens in the context of the child and the mother’s relationship. Lady Windermere declares that
“[her] mother died when [she] was a mere child” (Act I, p.5) and she was brought up by her father’s sister. Lacking the experience of getting along with the mother, Lady Windermere remains in the anxiety because of her mother’s absence since she was young. Lady Windermere easily senses the anxiety. Her anxiety reveals when she finds out Lord Windermere’s secret account book, when she discovers the fact that Mrs. Erlynne is more popular in the party and when she arrives at Lord Darlington’s house. She is young and immature; her behaviors disclose how she experiences the anxiety through her process of confronting the difficulties in her life.
When Lord Windermere decides to tell his wife about Mrs. Erlynne’s true identity, Mrs. Erlynne stops him. It is the third time that Mrs. Erlynne’s heart of a mother reveals in front of the audience. Lord Windermere ignores and doubts about Mrs. Erlynne’s heart of a mother because he considers Mrs. Erlynne as a selfish and arrogant woman:
MRS.ERLYNNE. [After a pause.] If I said to you that I cared for her, perhaps loved her even—you would sneer at me, wouldn’t you?
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LORD WINDERMERE. I should feel it was not true. A mother’s love means devotion, unselfishness, sacrifice. What could you know of such things? (Act IV, p.61-2)
Mrs. Erlynne threatens her son-in-law that she forbids him to spread out her secret that she is the mother of Lady Windermere. When Lord Windermere strongly blames her for her failure of being a mother, Oscar Wilde gives an instruction in the script that Mrs. Erlynne paused before saying the next line. Mrs. Erlynne seems to admit Lord Windermere’s accusation, but she, in fact holds the heart of a mother, because she avoids letting her child get hurt. When Lord Windermere ironically points out that Mrs. Erlynne does not have the mother’s love, he does not know the night when Mrs.
Erlynne was trying to save her daughter from the cliff; her love is filled with devotion, unselfishness and sacrifice. When her daughter encounters the difficulties in her life, she reaches to her daughter in order to be a reliable support. Mrs. Erlynne’s behavior proves to her daughter that when she is in need, Mrs. Erlynne would help her wholeheartedly. Saving her daughter from the adultery is the most important and meaningful thing that Mrs. Erlynne ever thinks she would do, but when her love is being denied by Lord Windermere, Mrs. Erlynne does not defend for herself. It means to some extent, Mrs. Erlynne regards her daughter’s reputation more important than hers. As for Lady Windermere; when a mother identifies with her own mother (or the mother she wishes she had), she would try to provide nurturant care for the child. At the same time, “she reexperiences herself as a cared-for child, thus sharing with her child the possession of a good mother” (Chodorow 90).