A Woman of No Importance

When a woman has made a mistake she is the only one, with her son, to carry the burden. She is tainted forever and can only hide in some anonimity. But the play goes a lot further. The son becomes the target of the father who, unmarried, wants to find love in his son, and give his son the love he has never given to any one. But it is not that simple. The son has to choose between his father who provides him with an important ambitious position, and his mother who has been tainted forever by this man he does not know as his father yet, but not for long. But love will come in the way and will reveal the father as being forever unable to respect women. This man will try to soil the young woman the son is in love with. This will lead to a happy ending for the son and for the mother but a very unhappy ending for the father who will be deprived of his son. Is the punishment proportioned to the crime, because the father is exposed as a criminal, and in a way he is. Philandering is unacceptable in those days. The most intriguing aspect of the play is that this happy ending is brought by a young woman who is both American and a puritan. In a way Oscar Wilde, and we know the drama of his life, is advocating a real puritanism that is based on purity both on the surface and in depth. So he criticizes the hypocrisy of English victorian society because it advocates purity but practices (at least men can, but women cannot) any kind of unethical attitude or behavior. How can Oscar Wilde advocate such a position when he is what he is, hiding something that amounts to a crime in his society? We are also surprised by this salvation coming from an American woman. How can America be better than England? There is no easy answer. Maybe just the fact that in America ethics come first and do not accept any compromise or segregation against women. But is this true at the end of the nineteenth century? This play is very emotional but yet very unreal, surreal.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Perpignan

I've just started re-reading this play and I think it is one of the most beautiful works Wilde ever wrote. Mrs. Arbuthnot's speech at the end of Act Four, beginning "men don't know what mothers are" is one of the most beautiful pieces I've ever read in Wilde. It's a very ironic speech, considering it was written by a man, but it shows what a wonderful insight into women Wilde had. The play is essentially about morality and the conflict between a person's own, private sense of morality and the moral values imposed on us by society. Ultimately, Mrs. Arbuthnot is the character who most deserves our respect, precisely because she refuses to buy into the moral values of those around her. Reading it, I can just imagine how it would be performed, I even find myself acting the play out in my head, such is the power and force of Wilde's dialogue. This is a truly beautiful work which I highly recommend