A Woman of No Importance

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A Woman of No Importance program from 1930
A Woman of No Importance program from 1930

A Woman of No Importance is a play by Irish playwright Oscar Wilde. The play, published in 1893, and premièred on 19 April 1893 at London's Haymarket Theatre, is a testimony of Wilde's wit and his brand of dark comedy. It looks in particular at English upper class society and has been reproduced on stages in Europe and North America since his death in 1900. A film based on this play is in production and is due to be released in 2009.

[edit] Plot

The scene is set in an English country house — Hunstanton (Lady Hunstanton's property). The curtains open to the terrace where we are introduced to Lady Caroline who is engaging in conversation with Lady Huntstanton's American Puritan guest Hester Worsley. Other characters are introduced, including the flirtatious Mrs Allonby, the meek Lady Stutfield and Lady Caroline's submissive husband Sir John. They discuss frivolous matters and are later joined by the powerful, charming and charismatic gentleman, Lord Illingworth who has offered the post of secretary to the fortunate Gerald Arbuthnot. Gerald's mother is invited to join the party, and when she arrives she realises that Lord Illingworth is Gerald's father. She had an affair with him twenty years ago, became pregnant and he refused to marry her, making her a "fallen woman." She is reluctant to let Gerald become Illingworth's secretary, but doesn't tell Gerald her reasons behind her reluctance. Gerald finds out about his mother's past in a spectacularly Wildean moment of melodrama — after trying to kill Lord Illingworth for kissing Hester Worsley — a woman with whom he is very much in love.

The play concludes with Gerald, Hester and Mrs. Arbuthnot leaving England for America to live in a society where she will not be judged so harshly by others.

ACT I

Introduces the society characters and sets up the underlying relationships and themes.

  • Lady Caroline patronises Hester Worsely and Hester's preference of Gerald Arbuthnot.
  • Lord Illingworth's job offer to Gerald; which, in turn, causes Lady Hunstanton to write to Gerald's mother, Mrs. Arbuthnot and invite her to the Hunstanton.
  • Wilde also introduces several "running gags" like Lady Caroline's insistence of referring to Mr. Kelvil as "Kettle" and her constant nagging of Sir John.
  • Mr. Kelvil is not a necessary character (In terms of plot) but is used to show up both the hypocrisy of the public middle class man, while also providing opportunities for the upper class to reveal their complacent prejudice and ignorance.
  • The audience is made aware of the relationship between Lord Illingworth and Mrs. Allonby, when he accepts her challenge to kiss the puritan, Hester. Their flirtatious exchange culminates in his reading of Mrs. Arbuthnot's letter and being reminded of someone he once knew, whom he dismisses as "a woman of no importance."

ACT II

The beginning of Act II shows the ladies on their own, which gives the audience an opportunity to observe their relationships and their attitudes to men.

  • Interesting difference in opinion between Lady Caroline , who says that any man in love with a married woman "should be married off in a week to some plain, respectable girl, in order to teach them not to meddle with other people's property" and Mrs. Allonby, who contradicts her, saying that women should not "be spoken of as other people's property."
  • Wilde puts the socially conventional view into the mouth of a woman who bullies her husband (Lady Caroline), while Mrs. Allonby gives herself away as a female predator, while masquerading as a frivolous wit.
  • This section of the play also provides the audience with Hester's views on the superiority of the American way of life, where "true American society consists simply of all the good women and good men we have in our country." The obvious unlikelihood of this suggests her youth and naiveté, and her views on "fallen women" coincide dramatically with Mrs. Arbuthnot's unannounced appearance behind her. [An appearance mirrored in Act IV, by Hester's own unannounced appearance during Mrs. Arbuthnot's speech on marriage.]
  • When the gentlemen return, Lord Illingworth and Mrs. Arbuthnot meet, followed by the confrontation wherein the audience learns of their past history. The Act ends dramatically after Lord Illingworth challenges Mrs. Arbuthnot to give Gerald the reason he cannot accept the post he has been offered. Then father and son go off, leaving her alone.

ACT III

The start of Act III gives the audience an opportunity to see Lord Illingworth and Gerald together and form and opinion of what kind of father he would be.

  • Lord Illingworth begins by praising Mrs. Arbuthnot as a "thoroughly sensible woman", but then later undermines her by saying that a mother's love can be "curiously selfish."
  • There is considerable dramatic irony in the exchange where Gerald's father is discussed, "I sometimes think she must have married beneath her." Gerald means this in the sense of social class, but it can be taken to mean morally, in which case he's right.
  • He and Lord Illingworth discuss society, women and love, but the conversation mainly consists of Gerald asking questions and Lord Illingworth giving witty answers.
  • Following this, the company seems to have divided itself into couples, symbolic of the way they behave in private, with the partners changing discretely at intervals.
  • In order to give Hester time to talk to Mrs. Arbuthnot, Wilde ensures that Gerald first takes his leave of Lord Illingworth. Hester says, "You are so different from the other women here... somehow you brought with you a sense of what is good and pure in life."In one sense this is dramatic irony, since the society she is part of would consider Mrs. Arbuthnot to be a "fallen woman", but in the real moral sense, she is good.
  • Later, Gerald re-appears leading to a conversation about the job opportunity — which ends in Gerald being allowed to go whenever he wishes. Just at the point where he has what he wants, he learns the truth about the man he admires. He saves Hester from Lord Illingworth's unwanted advances, and the Act ends on the melodramatic line from Mrs. Arbuthnot, "Stop, Gerald, Stop! He is your own father."

ACT IV

Act IV takes place the following morning at Mrs. Arbuthnot's house. The audience is aware of Hester's puritanical views about sinners and are presumably wondering what Gerald is going to do.

  • The delay at the start of Act IV comes from Lady Hunstanton and Mrs. Allonby who are unaware of the dramatic events at the end of Act III.
  • The exit of Lady Hunstanton and Mrs. Allonby coincides with Mrs. Arbuthnot's entrance which then leads to her argument with Gerald about marrying Lord Illingworth.
  • This subject allows Mrs. Arbuthnot to make her passionate speech about marriage and about mother-love, which Hester is brought to overhear. The two women are brought together by mutual feelings as well as their love for Gerald.
  • Only when their future is settled, does Wilde bring Lord Illingworth into the scene for a final confrontation. His desire to help his son and to take him with him is denied by Mrs. Arbuthnot, even after his offer of marriage.
  • Lord Illingworth leaves on one final melodramatic flourish as Mrs. Arbuthnot strikes him with his glove. (Interesting as it had been discussed between Lord Illingworth and Mrs. Allonby in Act I, only with Hester doing the striking).
  • The two "mirrored" situations in the play are both concerned with Mrs. Arbuthnot and Hester — reinforces their similarity.
  • The play ends with Hester wanting to be Mrs. Arbuthnot's daughter and the final line about "a man of no importance" parallels the end of Act I as the women triumph over men and society.

[edit] Characters of the Play

  • Lord Illingworth

He is a man of about 45 and a bachelor. He is witty and clever and a practised flirt, who knows how to make himself agreeable to women. He is Mrs. Arbuthnot's former lover and seducer and the father of Gerald Arbuthnot. Also, he has a promising diplomatic career and is shortly to become Ambassador to Vienna. He enjoys the company of Mrs. Allonby, who has a similar witty and amoral outlook to his own, and who also engages in flirting. His accidental acquaintance with Gerald, to whom he offers the post of private secretary, sets in motion the chain of events that form the main plot of the play. Illingworth is a typical Wildean dandy.

  • Mrs. Arbuthnot

Apparently a respectable widow who does good work among the poor and is a regular churchgoer. She declines invitations to dinner parties and other social amusements, although she does visit the upper class characters at Lady Hunstanton's, since they all appear to know her and her son, Gerald. However, the audience soon realise that she has a secret past with Lord Illingworth who is the father of her son, Gerald.

  • Gerald Arbuthnot

The illegitimate son of Mrs. Arbuthnot and Lord Illingworth. Gerald's young and rather inexperienced character represents the desire to find a place in society, and gain high social standing. His naїvety allows him to accept uncritically what society deems as proper, and his belief in honour and duty is what leads him to insist upon his parents' marriage.

  • Miss Hester Worsley

As an American Puritan and an outsider to the British society in the play, Hester is in an ideal position to witness its faults and shortcomings more clearly than those who are part of it. Hester is both an orphan and an heiress, which allows her to "adopt" Mrs. Arbuthnot as her mother at the end of the play.

  • Lady Jane Hunstanton

The host of the party. Means well but is quite ignorant, shown in her conversation and lack of knowledge. Could be seen as portraying the typical Victorian aristocrat.

  • Mrs. Allonby

A flirtatious woman who has a bit of a reputation for controversy. She is not the stereotypical female character and exchanges witty repartee with Lord Illingworth, indeed she could be viewed as a female dandy. It is she who dares Illingworth to "kiss the Puritan."

  • Lady Caroline Pontefract

A very strong bullying character, shown by her belittling of Mr Kelvil whom she constantly refers to as Mr Kettle. Her traditionalist views are in direct contrast to Mrs Allonby.

  • The Ven. Archdeacon Daubeny, D.D.

Seen as the 'ultimate priest' his willingness to 'sacrifice' his free time for the benefit of his wife who is seen as an invalid of dramatic proportions. Shows his discomfort at being within the upperclass social circle.

  • Lady Stutfield

A naive and intellectually restricted character that shows her lack of vocabulary with constant repetitions such as her use of the phrase, "Quite, Quite". However this view is a mis conception, and those who study the women characters in depth will find Lady Stutfeild to be full of ulterior motives and desperate for male attention.

  • Mr. Kelvil, M.P.

A thoroughly and stuffily modern progressive moralist. He earnestly wishes to improve society and in particular the lot of the lower classes, but seems to lack the charisma and charm to succeed--for example, he chooses to discuss the monetary standard of bimetallism with Lady Stutfield

  • Lord Alfred Rufford

A stereotypically lazy aristocrat who is constantly in debt with no intentions of paying back his debtors due to him spending other peoples money on luxury items such as jewelry.

  • Sir John Pontefract
  • Farquhar, Butler
  • Francis, Footman
  • Alice, Maid

[edit] External links

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Plays by Oscar Wilde
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