A Woman of No Importance
1894
The play that made Victorian England gasp. At a country house party, the revelation of Mrs. Arbuthnot's long-concealed secret exposes the brutal mathematics of gender in English society: a woman who falls is destroyed, while the man who ruined her ascends to power. Wilde constructs his indictment with surgical precision, pitting the cynical Lord Illingworth against the principled Hester Worsley, an American whose outsider's eye sees what the English have learned not to notice. When Gerald learns his new employer is the father who abandoned him and his mother, the play's central question cuts to the bone: what does it mean to be a woman of no importance in a world built by men who answer to nothing? Wilde's darkest society play remains a devastating comedy of manners, one that understands the real scandal is not sin but the hypocrisy that protects men and destroys women.
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“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one's own relations.””
— Oscar Wilde
“Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself.””
— Oscar Wilde
“But she is happiest alone. She is happiest alone.””
— Oscar Wilde
“Nothing spoils romance so much as a sense of humor in the woman””
— Oscar Wilde
“When a man is old enough to do wrong he should be old enough to do right also.””
— Oscar Wilde
“LORD ILLINGWORTH: The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life.MRS ALLONBY: And the body is born young and grows old. That is life's tragedy.””
— Oscar Wilde
“Nothing should be out of the reach of hope. Life is a hope.””
— Oscar Wilde
“To get into the best society, nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people - that is all!””
— Oscar Wilde
“I don't know how to talk.Oh! talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first season you will have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact.””
— Oscar Wilde
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Wilde, Oscar. A Woman of No Importance. Lex, lex-books.com/book/a-woman-of-no-importance-68bbd6eb-0c68-4e17-9524-f3677a6f97bb.Wilde, O. (1894). A Woman of No Importance. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/a-woman-of-no-importance-68bbd6eb-0c68-4e17-9524-f3677a6f97bbWilde, Oscar. A Woman of No Importance. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/a-woman-of-no-importance-68bbd6eb-0c68-4e17-9524-f3677a6f97bb.
