A Woman Of No Importance by Oscar Wilde (Don’t Ask Me What This Means)
Posted by helix888 on Tue, 30 Jun 2020
I haven’t moved, everyone I know is still the same, the only differences I experience are from my book club, reading something the others will never try. And last week it was something poignant, another Oscar Wide because why not? A Woman Of No Importance. That’s it, that’s the title.
The premise in a nutshell, well I’ll admit it’s not easy to put a button on it, the title already alludes to a woman’s journey, singling out one character in particular Mrs. Rachel Arbuthnot and her relations with an uncontested ego Lord Illingworth. Honestly, he reads like a personality, a verb, someone everybody knows more than a pronoun, an actual name. Throughout the play you receive insights on a woman’s place in society, particularly in a society raised for those who want to or can dine in its lavishes and amorals without consequence. It’s depicted in a few characters lens on what the secret of life really is, one of my favourite debates in the play:
“MRS. ALLONBY. The secret of life is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming.
LADY STUTFIELD. The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.
KELVIL. The secret of life is to resist temptation, Lady Stutfield.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. There is no secret of life. Life's aim, if it has one, is simply to be always looking for temptations. There are not nearly enough. I sometimes pass a whole day without coming across a single one. It is quite dreadful. It makes one so nervous about the future.”
Coffee table discussion we have here! I wholly agree with one thing, there is no secret to life. It’s not a test, there isn’t one way to ace it, there’s no code to crack, however some might argue against that, how we treat living like a sport when talking about winners and losers like we’re supposed to be in constant competition with each other— we’ve let it be that way— we’re we really supposed ? But that’s another conversation because if you ask me I’d say, life’s aim is of no importance.
'Don’t ask me what this means, I just know the words.'
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