This study will examine the structure of Arthur Wing Pinero's play, The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, focusing on the ways the work divides what is going on in the physical world or the body and what is going on in the soul or the mind. In those structural terms, the study will examine the character of Paula as it changes and develops through the play.
Pinero establishes the fact that Paula's character is profoundly affected by her physical environment, by what other people think about her in that environment, and, certainly, by the physical needs of her body. The playwright shows through this relationship of character to environment that Paula is a woman headed for disaster, because she is almost entirely shaped by what other people think of her and because she has little sense of her self separate from others. Pinero chooses this approach because it emphasizes the fact that most people do, indeed, live life on the physical plane and are, in fact, shaped especially by what others think of them on that plane.
This physical/non-physical structure is emphasized as well by the contrast between the reasonable and idealistic Aubrey and the flighty and unpredictable Paula. Aubrey believes that he is motivated by spiritual concerns, which is evident in his conversation with Drummle early in the first Act: "Of course, I don't expect you to think compassionately, fairly even, of the woman. . . . " (Pinero 18).
Clearly, the suggestion here is that Aubrey himself is thinking compassionately and fairly of Paula, and the suggestion is further that Aubrey has no motivation beyond trying to restore to Paula some sense of honor, as if marrying Aubrey would indeed accomplish such a restoration for her besmirched past and reputation.
The very fact that she is being judged by society for her past is another aspect of the physical/spiritual structure of the play. In other words, society is judging Paula's worth as a person--her character, her m...