A Woman of No Importance

A Woman of No Importance serves as a critique of the values of English high society, while at the same time revealing how appealing its cynical perspective can be. Throughout the play, Wilde has some characters voicing frustrations with the way that England’s aristocracy appreciates superficial cleverness and charm more than any deeper goodness. At the same time, the banter between these witty, cynical characters contributes to the humor of the play itself. The audience is therefore made to decide whether or not characters such as Lord Illingworth and Mrs. Allonby are amusing enough to make up for their faults; even as the play criticizes the way they flaunt their amorality, it presents them as witty and charming.

Lord Illingworth and Mrs. Allonby both have substantial roles in the play. They often dominate the dialogue more than the play’s staid, moral protagonists. Both of them are fond of irony, witty sarcasms, and wordplay: They often say things that they do not mean or that serve no purpose other than to amuse. They mock characters who are sincere in conversation, making people like Mr. Kelvil and Hester seem ridiculous for their strong convictions. Lord Illingworth claims, for example, that “one should never take sides in anything […]. Taking sides is the beginning of sincerity, and earnestness follows shortly afterwards, and the human being becomes a bore” (20-21). Equating sincerity with boredom indicates how corrupt England’s society has become, as their values have been distorted.

Hester, who is a young American, offers a scathing critique of the cynicism she observes throughout the party, indicating that England’s high society should focus on higher ideals rather than superficial materiality. After listening to Mrs. Allonby’s ironic joking, Hester bursts out:

You shut out from your society the gentle and the good. You laugh at the simple and the pure. Living, as you all do, on others and by them, you sneer at self-sacrifice, and if you throw bread to the poor, it is merely to keep them quiet for a season. With all your pomp and wealth and art you don’t know how to live—you don’t even know that. You love the beauty that you can see and touch and handle, the beauty that you can destroy, and do destroy, but of the unseen beauty of life, of the unseen beauty of a higher life, you know nothing. You have lost life’s secret (67).

Hester’s moral and religious convictions lead her to this condemnation, and she finds greater value in the charity and humble love that Mrs. Arbuthnot shows to her son, Gerald. However, Wilde’s critique of English cynicism is not without reservation as Hester’s moral rigidity is a source of conflict as well as a virtue. Furthermore, the play itself is meant to entertain. The audience might enjoy the witty banter of Lord Illingworth and Mrs. Allonby more than they enjoy Hester’s dialogue. This tension serves to complicate the question about the purpose of art, suggesting that too much sincerity and didactic moralism can lead to boring art.

Throughout the play, various characters give their opinions on the role of women in society and how they differ from men. By showing a variety of perspectives on women, the play reveals the ways in which patriarchal society oppresses women, but it also shows how women reclaim some social power through interpersonal relationships. While various female characters in the play suffer the negative impacts of misogyny, women are ultimately the ones with the most agency in the narrative. While the title hints at the way that women’s needs are ignored and women themselves are discarded by men, the ending of the play subverts this entirely.

The play demonstrates women’s social power throughout, and various characters attest to it. Mr. Kelvil frequently praises women for the ways that they guide the morality of society. While he is a politician and wields actual power over English laws, he views women as being complementary to men when it comes to moral issues; he claims that “[t]he growing influence of women is the one reassuring thing in our political life […]. Women are always on the side of morality, public and private” (15). Mrs. Allonby expresses the same idea in a more cynical and ironic fashion, quipping that in comparison to men, “[women] have a much better time than they have. There are far more things forbidden to us than are forbidden to them” (13). Her comment serves to expose how the strict standards for women’s social behavior constrains them, but also makes them appear more virtuous and upstanding than men.

A Woman of No Importance subverts the notion that women in patriarchy have no agency by depicting how women actually make the most impactful decisions in the narrative. Lord Illingworth seems to be aware of this, telling Gerald: “No man has any real success in this world unless he has got women to back him, and women rule society. If you have not got women on your side you are quite over” (107). Wilde emphasizes this by showing how women like Lady Caroline have total control over their husbands. Lady Caroline often ignores her husband’s comments in conversation, and she steers the narrative far more than he ever does. Mrs. Arbuthnot also supports this view when she tells Gerald that women are often the drivers of social exclusion, saying, “There is not one woman in the world to whom I could go for pity, if I would take it, or for sympathy if I could win it. Women are hard on each other” (157). Indeed, the happy ending of the play is only possible when Hester decides to show solidarity for another woman. Hester’s decision to marry Gerald despite his lack of funds and Mrs. Arbuthnot’s decision to reject a marriage to Lord Illingworth influence the outcome of the play far more than anything the male characters do—Hester’s decision turns the play into a comedy with a happy ending, rescuing it from being a tragedy. In the end, Lord Illingworth is reduced to being “a man of no importance” (182), reversing the patriarchal assumptions of the title.