# A Woman of No Importance: every role by lines, words, and stage time

> Oscar Wilde. 15 speaking roles, 19,306 words, about 138 minutes of speech.

- URL: https://www.offbook.com/plays/a-woman-of-no-importance
- Last updated: 2026-10-08

**Lord Illingworth** has the most to say in A Woman of No Importance: about 492 lines and 4,107 words, 21.3% of the play. Wilde’s drama follows Lord Illingworth, who offers young Gerald a post as his secretary before he learns that Gerald is his own son. Lord Illingworth holds about a fifth of the words, and Lady Hunstanton is a close second. Mrs. Arbuthnot, the third-largest part, does not speak until Act 2.

- Speaking roles: 15
- Scenes: 4
- Words: 19,306
- Speech time: 138 min

## Every role, largest first

| Role | Lines | Words | Share | Minutes | Scenes |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Lord Illingworth | 492 | 4,107 | 21.3% | 29.3 | 4 |
| Lady Hunstanton | 417 | 3,627 | 18.8% | 25.9 | 4 |
| Mrs. Arbuthnot | 379 | 3,049 | 15.8% | 21.8 | 3 |
| Gerald | 286 | 2,351 | 12.2% | 16.8 | 4 |
| Mrs. Allonby | 270 | 2,107 | 10.9% | 15.1 | 4 |
| Lady Caroline | 164 | 1,345 | 7% | 9.6 | 3 |
| Hester | 153 | 1,310 | 6.8% | 9.4 | 4 |
| Lady Stutfield | 86 | 665 | 3.4% | 4.8 | 3 |
| Kelvil | 51 | 397 | 2.1% | 2.8 | 2 |
| The Archdeacon | 25 | 218 | 1.1% | 1.6 | 2 |
| Lord Alfred | 6 | 45 | 0.2% | 0.3 | 1 |
| Sir John | 9 | 42 | 0.2% | 0.3 | 1 |
| Alice | 4 | 28 | 0.1% | 0.2 | 1 |
| Francis | 2 | 12 | 0.1% | 0.1 | 1 |
| Farquhar | 1 | 3 | 0% | 0.0 | 1 |

## Who speaks in which scene

Words each role speaks in each scene (scene: words). Scenes: Act 1 = Act 1; Act 2 = Act 2; Act 3 = Act 3; Act 4 = Act 4.

- **Lord Illingworth**: Act 1 (973), Act 2 (1,028), Act 3 (1,237), Act 4 (869)
- **Lady Hunstanton**: Act 1 (921), Act 2 (1,300), Act 3 (764), Act 4 (642)
- **Mrs. Arbuthnot**: Act 2 (597), Act 3 (611), Act 4 (1,841)
- **Gerald**: Act 1 (127), Act 2 (254), Act 3 (1,161), Act 4 (809)
- **Mrs. Allonby**: Act 1 (531), Act 2 (1,309), Act 3 (114), Act 4 (153)
- **Lady Caroline**: Act 1 (835), Act 2 (472), Act 3 (38)
- **Hester**: Act 1 (150), Act 2 (571), Act 3 (286), Act 4 (303)
- **Lady Stutfield**: Act 1 (204), Act 2 (430), Act 3 (31)
- **Kelvil**: Act 1 (387), Act 3 (10)

## The longest speeches

| Speech | Scene | Words | Lines |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Mrs. Arbuthnot: “Men don’t understand what mothers are. I am no different from other women except in the wrong done me and the wrong I did, and my very heavy punishments and great disgrace. And yet, to bear you I had to look on death. To nurture you I had to wrestle with it. Death fought with me for you. All women have to fight with death to keep their children. Death, being childless, wants our children from us. Gerald, when you were naked I clothed you, when you were hungry I gave you food. Night and day all that long winter I tended you. No office is too mean, no care too lowly for the thing we women love—and oh! how I loved you. Not Hannah, Samuel more. And you needed love, for you were weakly, and only love could have kept you alive. Only love can keep anyone alive. And boys are careless often and without thinking give pain, and we always fancy that when they come to man’s estate and know us better they will repay us. But it is not so. The world draws them from our side, and they make friends with whom they are happier than they are with us, and have amusements from which we are barred, and interests that are not ours: and they are unjust to us often, for when they find life bitter they blame us for it, and when they find it sweet we do not taste its sweetness with them … You made many friends and went into their houses and were glad with them, and I, knowing my secret, did not dare to follow, but stayed at home and closed the door, shut out the sun and sat in darkness. What should I have done in honest households? My past was ever with me. … And you thought I didn’t care for the pleasant things of life. I tell you I longed for them, but did not dare to touch them, feeling I had no right. You thought I was happier working amongst the poor. That was my mission, you imagined. It was not, but where else was I to go? The sick do not ask if the hand that smooths their pillow is pure, nor the dying care if the lips that touch their brow have known the kiss of sin. It was you I thought of all the time; I gave to them the love you did not need: lavished on them a love that was not theirs … And you thought I spent too much of my time in going to Church, and in Church duties. But where else could I turn? God’s house is the only house where sinners are made welcome, and you were always in my heart, Gerald, too much in my heart. For, though day after day, at morn or evensong, I have knelt in God’s house, I have never repented of my sin. How could I repent of my sin when you, my love, were its fruit! Even now that you are bitter to me I cannot repent. I do not. You are more to me than innocence. I would rather be your mother—oh! much rather!—than have been always pure … Oh, don’t you see? don’t you understand? It is my dishonour that has made you so dear to me. It is my disgrace that has bound you so closely to me. It is the price I paid for you—the price of soul and body—that makes me love you as I do. Oh, don’t ask me to do this horrible thing. Child of my shame, be still the child of my shame!” | Act 4 | 612 | 62 |
| Mrs. Arbuthnot: “Gerald, come near to me. Quite close to me, as you used to do when you were a little boy, when you were mother’s own boy. Gerald, there was a girl once, she was very young, she was little over eighteen at the time. George Harford—that was Lord Illingworth’s name then—George Harford met her. She knew nothing about life. He—knew everything. He made this girl love him. He made her love him so much that she left her father’s house with him one morning. She loved him so much, and he had promised to marry her! He had solemnly promised to marry her, and she had believed him. She was very young, and—and ignorant of what life really is. But he put the marriage off from week to week, and month to month.—She trusted in him all the while. She loved him.—Before her child was born—for she had a child—she implored him for the child’s sake to marry her, that the child might have a name, that her sin might not be visited on the child, who was innocent. He refused. After the child was born she left him, taking the child away, and her life was ruined, and her soul ruined, and all that was sweet, and good, and pure in her ruined also. She suffered terribly—she suffers now. She will always suffer. For her there is no joy, no peace, no atonement. She is a woman who drags a chain like a guilty thing. She is a woman who wears a mask, like a thing that is a leper. The fire cannot purify her. The waters cannot quench her anguish. Nothing can heal her! no anodyne can give her sleep! no poppies forgetfulness! She is lost! She is a lost soul!—That is why I call Lord Illingworth a bad man. That is why I don’t want my boy to be with him.” | Act 3 | 324 | 33 |
| Mrs. Allonby: “He should persistently compromise us in public, and treat us with absolute respect when we are alone. And yet he should be always ready to have a perfectly terrible scene, whenever we want one, and to become miserable, absolutely miserable, at a moment’s notice, and to overwhelm us with just reproaches in less than twenty minutes, and to be positively violent at the end of half an hour, and to leave us forever at a quarter to eight, when we have to go and dress for dinner. And when, after that, one has seen him for really the last time, and he has refused to take back the little things he has given one, and promised never to communicate with one again, or to write one any foolish letters, he should be perfectly brokenhearted, and telegraph to one all day long, and send one little notes every half-hour by a private hansom, and dine quite alone at the club, so that everyone should know how unhappy he was. And after a whole dreadful week, during which one has gone about everywhere with one’s husband, just to show how absolutely lonely one was, he may be given a third last parting, in the evening, and then, if his conduct has been quite irreproachable, and one has behaved really badly to him, he should be allowed to admit that he has been entirely in the wrong, and when he has admitted that, it becomes a woman’s duty to forgive, and one can do it all over again from the beginning, with variations.” | Act 2 | 260 | 26 |
| Mrs. Arbuthnot: “I do not know it. I do not feel it, nor will I ever stand before God’s altar and ask God’s blessing on so hideous a mockery as a marriage between me and George Harford. I will not say the words the Church bids us to say. I will not say them. I dare not. How could I swear to love the man I loathe, to honour him who wrought you dishonour, to obey him who, in his mastery, made me to sin? No: marriage is a sacrament for those who love each other. It is not for such as him, or such as me. Gerald, to save you from the world’s sneers and taunts I have lied to the world. For twenty years I have lied to the world. I could not tell the world the truth. Who can, ever? But not for my own sake will I lie to God, and in God’s presence. No, Gerald, no ceremony, Church-hallowed or State-made, shall ever bind me to George Harford. It may be that I am too bound to him already, who, robbing me, yet left me richer, so that in the mire of my life I found the pearl of price, or what I thought would be so.” | Act 4 | 209 | 21 |
| Hester: “We are trying to build up life, Lady Hunstanton, on a better, truer, purer basis than life rests on here. This sounds strange to you all, no doubt. How could it sound other than strange? You rich people in England, you don’t know how you are living. How could you know? 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. Oh, your English society seems to me shallow, selfish, foolish. It has blinded its eyes, and stopped its ears. It lies like a leper in purple. It sits like a dead thing smeared with gold. It is all wrong, all wrong.” | Act 2 | 206 | 21 |
| Gerald: “Mother, how changeable you are! You don’t seem to know your own mind for a single moment. An hour and a half ago in the Drawing-room you agreed to the whole thing; now you turn round and make objections, and try to force me to give up my one chance in life. Yes, my one chance. You don’t suppose that men like Lord Illingworth are to be found every day, do you, mother? It is very strange that when I have had such a wonderful piece of good luck, the one person to put difficulties in my way should be my own mother. Besides, you know, mother, I love Hester Worsley. Who could help loving her? I love her more than I have ever told you, far more. And if I had a position, if I had prospects, I could—I could ask her to—Don’t you understand now, mother, what it means to me to be Lord Illingworth’s secretary? To start like that is to find a career ready for one—before one—waiting for one. If I were Lord Illingworth’s secretary I could ask Hester to be my wife. As a wretched bank clerk with a hundred a year it would be an impertinence.” | Act 3 | 206 | 21 |
| Mrs. Arbuthnot: “George, don’t take my son away from me. I have had twenty years of sorrow, and I have only had one thing to love me, only one thing to love. You have had a life of joy, and pleasure, and success. You have been quite happy, you have never thought of us. There was no reason, according to your views of life, why you should have remembered us at all. Your meeting us was a mere accident, a horrible accident. Forget it. Don’t come now, and rob me of … of all I have in the whole world. You are so rich in other things. Leave me the little vineyard of my life; leave me the walled-in garden and the well of water; the ewe-lamb God sent me, in pity or in wrath, oh! leave me that. George, don’t take Gerald from me.” | Act 2 | 142 | 15 |
| Hester: “It is right that they should be punished, but don’t let them be the only ones to suffer. If a man and woman have sinned, let them both go forth into the desert to love or loathe each other there. Let them both be branded. Set a mark, if you wish, on each, but don’t punish the one and let the other go free. Don’t have one law for men and another for women. You are unjust to women in England. And till you count what is a shame in a woman to be an infamy in a man, you will always be unjust, and Right, that pillar of fire, and Wrong, that pillar of cloud, will be made dim to your eyes, or be not seen at all, or if seen, not regarded.” | Act 2 | 134 | 14 |
| Gerald: “Then I have my ambition left, at any rate. That is something—I am glad I have that! You have always tried to crush my ambition, mother—haven’t you? You have told me that the world is a wicked place, that success is not worth having, that society is shallow, and all that sort of thing—well, I don’t believe it, mother. I think the world must be delightful. I think society must be exquisite. I think success is a thing worth having. You have been wrong in all that you taught me, mother, quite wrong. Lord Illingworth is a successful man. He is a fashionable man. He is a man who lives in the world and for it. Well, I would give anything to be just like Lord Illingworth.” | Act 3 | 130 | 13 |
| Lord Illingworth: “The boy is to be with you for six months in the year, and with me for the other six. That is perfectly fair, is it not? You can have whatever allowance you like, and live where you choose. As for your past, no one knows anything about it except myself and Gerald. There is the Puritan, of course, the Puritan in white muslin, but she doesn’t count. She couldn’t tell the story without explaining that she objected to being kissed, could she? And all the women would think her a fool and the men think her a bore. And you need not be afraid that Gerald won’t be my heir. I needn’t tell you I have not the slightest intention of marrying.” | Act 4 | 123 | 13 |

## Small roles that can be doubled

These pairs of small roles never speak in the same scene, so one actor could play both. Check entrances and silent appearances in your script before you cast it this way.

- Lady Stutfield and Alice
- Kelvil and Alice
- The Archdeacon and Lord Alfred
- The Archdeacon and Sir John
- The Archdeacon and Alice
- The Archdeacon and Francis
- Lord Alfred and Alice
- Lord Alfred and Farquhar
- Sir John and Alice
- Sir John and Farquhar
- Alice and Francis
- Alice and Farquhar

## Questions actors ask

### Who has the most lines in A Woman of No Importance?

Lord Illingworth, with about 492 lines and 4,107 words, 21.3% of everything spoken in the play. Lady Hunstanton is next, with about 417 lines (18.8%).

### How long is A Woman of No Importance?

The full text has 19,306 spoken words, about 138 minutes at 140 words a minute before pauses, scene changes, and cuts. Most productions cut the text, so running times vary.

### How many speaking roles are in A Woman of No Importance?

15 named roles speak in this edition, across 4 scenes. 6 of them have less than 2% of the words, which is why small parts are often doubled.

## How we count

Counts are computed from the full text of the [Standard Ebooks edition](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/oscar-wilde/a-woman-of-no-importance) (public domain; retrieved 2026-10-08). Words are every spoken word, with stage directions removed. Lines are verse lines as printed, plus prose at 10 words a line, because prose has no fixed line breaks; editions differ, so other sources give slightly different line counts. Time is words at 140 words a minute, before pauses and stage business. A role is counted in a scene when it speaks there. To count a script that is not in the library, paste it into the [script line counter](https://www.offbook.com/tools/script-line-counter).