SUMMARY
ACT I
It’s Margaret Windermere’s birthday, and she’s having a party tonight. Her husband has given a fan as a birthday present. Lord Darlington, a friend of the couple, is visiting lady Windermere and is paying her a lot of compliments. He is infatuated with her, but we don’t know if he’s really in love, or he’s only a rake. Lord Darlington knows lord Windermere has a singular relation with a woman called Mrs Erlynne, who is new in the city, and wants to take advantage of this in order to seduce lady Windermere.
Lady Windermere is going to find out about her husband supposed affair through the Duchess of Berwick, who tells her about the frequent visits her husband pays to Mrs Erlynne, hinting he has a love affair with her.
Lady Windermere doesn’t believe the story, but she has some doubts. In the end, she checks her husband bank books and discovers he has repeatedly given big sums of money to Mrs Erlynne.
She asks her husband why he has given her so much money, but he didn’t explain why; he only asks her to trust him and also to invite Mrs Erlynne to her birthday party. As she doesn’t want to do it, Lord Windermere writes himself the invitation card.
ACT 2
In the second act, we are at Lady Windermere birthday party. There are a lot of people, including Lord Windermere’s funny friends, Lord Darlington, the Duchess of Berwick and Mrs Erlynne. In the beginning, all the people want to avoid Mrs Erlynne, but, as the party goes on, everybody is seduced by her wits. Even one of Lord Windermere’s friends, Lord Augustus, aka Tuppy, a very simple man, falls in love with her.
Lady Windermere is so angry and disappointed with her husband, that she decides to accept Lord Darlington’s love and his proposition to elope with her. When the party is over, she leaves a letter for her husband telling him she is leaving him and goes away to Lord Darlington’s house. But Mrs Erlynne sees the letter, takes it before Lord Windermere knows anything about its content, and decides to save her and her marriage.
ACT 3
Lady Windermere is at Lord Darlington’s house waiting for him to run away together. But she has some doubts about her decision. After a while, in comes Mrs Erlynne. She tells her she wants to save her and her family, and lastly, she persuades her to go back to her husband. But, when they are going to go out, Lord Darlington and his friends, including Lord Windermere, are entering the house. Mrs Erlynne and Lady Windermere have to hide quickly.
But somebody finds Lady Windermere’s fan on a chair, and, when Lord Windermere is on the point of starting searching for his wife thinking she has something to do with Lord Darlington, Mrs Erlynne reveals herself. Everybody is astounded, Lady Windermere can make her escape, and Lord Augustus is quite disappointed.
ACT 4
Lady Windermere is at home thinking about the way to thank Mrs Erlynne, now she knows she isn’t a bad woman because she helped her to go back to her husband. But now her husband tells her she’s a contemptible woman.
At that moment, Mrs Erlynne comes to Lord Windermere’s to give back Lady Windermere’s fan and to ask for a photo of hers. While she is looking for it, and Lord Windermere and Mrs Erlynne are alone together, we find out that Mrs Erlynne is Lady Windermere’s mother, and that she abandoned her daughter twenty years ago to elope with her lover, who died some years after and left her alone in the world and rejected by every society. But neither he nor she tells anything of this secret to Lady Windermere.
In the end, Mrs Erlynne goes away, but not without finding a creditable explanation for her appearance at Lord Darlington’s, and this way she gets back Tuppy, and they leave for the continent together.