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Chapter 4. CONGREVE: The Way of the World

The Restoration Comedy of Manners takes its origin from 6oth) Jonson's English comedy of humours^s welfa^ the French comedy of Moliere. It is almost completely social in its concern and deals with the kind of appearances that make up the matrix of drawing room interaction. Like the characters in The Misanthrope, those who throng the parlours and parks of The Way of the World (1700) are also members of upper class society.

When the people of England invited Charles Stuart to return to his country and grace the throne, he brought with him the lifestyle and manners that had become second nature to him and his group of nobles in exile in France. The ostentatious adoption of French styles and ideas by the aristocracy marked the deliberate distancing of Restoration England from the character of Cromwellian England. It would be possible to describe Puritan England as a phase in English history that corresponds to a culture inclined to earnestness rather than play, as Huizinga would put it. The concept of play was alien to the Puritan mind. Utilitarianism and functionality were the key notions: there was no place for frills, fripperies and entertainment, and a rigid code of morality was imposed. While Puritan England outlawed frivolous fashion and all forms of play in the world of entertainment - theatre, music, dancing - these were brought back resoundingly and even positively enshrined by the patronage extended by Charles after he was crowned. The performing arts became popular pastimes for the rich and idle who had plenty of time and inclination to play. The artifice and stylization of the sort of social behaviour considered appropriate in high society made interaction a fine and artistic form of play. The self-conscious and theatrical manner in which society ladies used the fan, the parasol and smelling salts and gentlemen used the snuff box and cane indicates a well developed awareness of their potential as stage props for an actor. The popularity of the wig and the elaborate 159 costumes worn by both men and women speak of the integration of play at every level of activity. Outstanding as an example of play is the witty conversation that is the ultimate hallmark of the "Wit", the highest apotheosis of Restoration culture. When Millamant talks of ^curling her hair using love letters written in verse, both the procedure and the arch description are examples of play.

An open moral climate (and even the amoral attitudes of an Epicurean skepticism born of a reaction against Puritanism) made for an enviable degree of play available in the norms of behaviour. Rejecting conventional Christian morality, the Restoration gentry decided to adopt the carpe diem philosophy and live (and play) for the moment. While the effort of a Witwoud to approximate the role of Wit might be considered "work" because it is undertaken to achieve something (a certain status) rather than enjoyed for itself, the social life of a natural Wit is to be seen as "play* since it is an end in itself. There might be a convergence of work and play in agonistic struggles to achieve supremacy which imply both effort to attain a particular reputation and the exhilarating pleasure of the contest.

High society, taken as subject in Restoration Comedy, was extremely fashion conscious and imitation of the current mode was a matter of some priority for the beau monde. These people worked hard at projecting an image of effortless wit. The important thing about dissembling the fashion ideal is that it should be imitated to exactly the right extent - this is where fancy and judgment must amalgamate in perfect proportions to create a graceful product. Those who dissemble too much (fops), those who cannot imitate well enough and those who lack the youth to appear graceful in their roles are all uniformly mocked. In this image obsessed era role playing verily attains the level of an art form. This is "role-governed play*, as Bernard Suits describes it, as opposed to "goal-governed 160 play"' and skill in imitation is the crux of it. However, when entry into a certain group or a certain level of society becomes a touchstone of acceptance, a goal too is discerned in the activity.

Since the playwrights were themselves of the beau monde, their attitude was usually indulgent to the dissemblers and did not condemn but rather admired those who conformed to the social mores and maintained their chosen roles with distinction. The young aristocracy was in a state of euphoria: the impossible had happened - they had been welcomed back to England and received their property and titles again. They expressed their contempt for the middle class earnestness of the "commonwealth" era by indulging and even flaunting their extravagant lifestyle and manners. Thus heroes like Dorimant, Harcourt, Valentine and Mirabell are celebrated for their exquisite taste in dress, their fine manners and their wit. The hero's group includes only those who can imitate and conform to the rules of the game perfectly. Yet, at the same time, we are given the feeling that they sometimes despise the artificiality of their lives. Thus Dorimant refuses the perfumes offered by his valet and declares that he will smell like himself that day.^ Similarly Harriet will have nothing to do with "powdering", "painting" and "patching" and even threatens to "shake [her curls] all out of order" if her maid continues her fussing (49). As Glasgow points out, such characters who deliberately and consciously reject a mask are likely to be admired for their openness. On the other hand, those who unwittingly drop it are likely to be butts of ridicule.^ Over-affectation

' Bernard Suits, The Grasshopper: Games. Life and Utopia (1978; Boston: Nonparen, 1990) 91.

2 George Etherege, The Man of Mode, ed. W.B. Camochan (London: Edward Arnold, 1967) 22. Dorimant: "I will smell as I do today, no offense to the ladies' noses." All subsequent references are to this edition and page numbers are given in parentheses. 161 is a fault for sure - so that Sir Fopling Flutter is ridiculed for carrying the dictates of fashion too far. But the numerous country folk who cannot adopt the city modes fully enough also become butts of satire. The ideal pose is his who can wear his artificial manners naturally or, in other words, the player with the grace of the born actor. There is no concept of (wrongful) deception involved here, merely an entire society's commitment to a certain ideal which they naturally attempted, to the best of their individual abilities, to achieve. There is certainly an aura of agon in their social game and role playing since each actor seeks to put in a good performance and gain the limelight to play a stellar role in his milieu. Those who are accepted as members of the inner circle achieve a sense of superiority and recognition, the experience of receiving the "strokes" that Eric Berne speaks of as the reason behind man's playing of games.

The Restoration age, preoccupied with the notion of play in its several manifestations, spawned a drama depicting its own unique perspective on love, sex and marriage in an upper class urban setting. Masks and disguises form a natural part of the wardrobe of these characters as never before. The characters are sophisticated wits or would-be wits and sport an attitude of trendy skepticism. Courtship is curiously devoid of tenderness and romance, but is rather a matter of smart verbal sparring. Palmer is justified in declaring that "sex in Congreve is a battle of the wits" rather than "a battlefield of the emotions".^ It is through the superficial "verbal pyrotechnics"^ that we are to gauge the nature of the emotions that lie beneath. Thus the Restoration wits and sparks use language as a

3 R.D.V. Glasgow, Madness, Masks and Laughter: An Essay on Comedy (London: Associated Universities Press, 1995) 162.

'' John Palmer, quoted by Bonamy Dobree, Restoration Drama 1660 - 1720 (1924; London: Oxford U P, 1970) 23.

^ Dobree, Restoration Drama 236 162 kind of mask that they superimpose upon the real personality. Their witty exchanges are a subtle version of the agonistic verbal battles Huizinga mentions as one variety of human play through which man tries to assert his superiority.^' The metaphor of clothes (or ornament) is often used by Dryden, for instance, for language in his essays, indicating that speech is a covering for the real substance that lies within. This is exactly how Harold Pinter's characters were to use language three centuries later in the "postmodern" manifestation of the comedy of manners.

Like other Restoration comedies, Congreve's too reveal the contemporary interest in role playing. His plays make use of the popular motif of the mask, and the multiple intrigues depicted often involve dissembling and play acting on the part of the characters. Richard Bevis has, in fact, called the mask the "central symbol of Restoration theatre".^ The practice of introducing masks and disguises continued to be popular since it had established itself as a common practice in real life. Holland says that "First, there was an increasing belief that the personality is hard to know under the appearances it puts on; second, affectation (semi-conscious pretense) was uniformly condemned; third, dissimulation (conscious pretense) tended increasingly to be accepted as a necessity."^ The Restoration writers were in contact with members of the Royal Society and new scientific findings which encouraged the notion of a separation of appearance and reality came to be accepted by them and the idea incorporated in their work. Whether in questions of politics, science, human relations or theatre there was a marked trend toward analysis and experimentation. The skepticism and

6 J. Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture (1949; London: Routledge 85 Kegan Paul, 1980) 84.

7 Richard Bevis, English Drama: Restoration and Eighteenth Century. 1660 - 1789 (1988; London: Longman, 1989) 71.

8 Norman N. Holland The First Modem Comedies: The Significance of Etherege. Wycherley and Congreve (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U P, 1959) 50. 163 irreverence of the age can be seen as a genuine attempt to rationalize relationships and discover a new set of values applicable to their new conditions. To use Robert Brustein's metaphor, they ^i destroyed the existing church and sought to build a new one. The irreverence, skepticism and role playing that we notice in the plays are all experimental strategies towards an effort to forge a new framework of values that would prove meaningful to them in their special context. Graham Parry emphasizes the "pervasive curiosity that was a characteristic of the Restoration spirit which expressed itself also in the spheres of science and philosophy". Hobbes and Locke exemplify the investigative mentality of the times, he goes on to say. Certainly, Hobbes has described the sort of power struggles and thirst for dominance that we see dramatized in the plays as typical of human nature.

Assuming different personae or dissembling was not only wholly acceptable but had even become an integral part of the life at court. Charles 11 and Catherine enjoyed going out in disguise. It was the height of fashion to play a role. Masquerade balls were fashionable and the mask itself became a necessary accessory to social living. As Roger Caillois says, the fun of donning a disguise lies in the sheer "pleasure of playing a role, of acting as if one were someone or something else" (8). There is only the notion of fun directing the action here; no planned intention to deceive anyone. For people so commonly in the glare of public life the anonymity of a mask must have been precious - it gave them a sense of freedom and may even have released the real personality of the wearer. The members of the English beau monde were like actors on stage, constantly under (each other's and the commoners') observation and eternally concerned about their image and its effective projection. They used the mask and their other accessories to project certain attitudes or stances chosen by them. 164

King Charles, Queen Catherine and other members of the aristocracy found it fun to wander incognito in town. Legend has it that Charles met his future mistress Nell Gwynn while he was masked. Nell had no way of knowing that her latest conquest was none other than the King himself. Holland reports an account of Catherine's use of the mask that landed her in a potentially dangerous situation. The sedan chair carriers she had employed, unaware they were with the Queen of England, tired of waiting for her and went away, leaving her stranded without any attendants. She was forced to travel to the palace in a hackney coach like a commoner.

Dobree refers to the Restoration period as "an age of inquiry and curiosity" in which "criticism became active for the first time."^^ Alfred North Whitehead went so far as to call the seventeenth century the century of genius. Holland dares even greater eulogy when he calls Whitehead's pronouncement an understatement. While play acting had been Machiavellian anathema to the Elizabethan audience, it became a political reality to the Restoration theatre-goers.^^ A study of their drama shows that Elizabethans believed that the appearance or outward reality was bound (normally) to be a reflection of the inner nature. Cases where this was not so were considered unnatural. Invariably, in an enactment involving disguise and dissimulation, the outer appearance and inner reality were reconciled (shown to be congruent) by the end of the play. Thus, for example, the smooth Claudius is exposed as a role player and the murderer of his brother, Hamlet senior.

Since social image and reputation were important in high society, members of the beau monde are often seen to deliberately project a certain image even though the reality is contrary to it. In The Way of

•^ Dobree, Restoration Drama 20.

10 Holland, The First Modem Comedies 45, 50. 165 the World Lady Wishfort holds meetings of her cabal in which she proclaims her hatred of men, yet we see that she, Mrs. Marwood and Mrs. Fainall seem only to profess an antipathy for the male sex while they continue to secretly lust after them. Tattle's instructions to Miss Prue in Love for Love seem hilarious and ridiculous but the social reality was almost frighteningly close to Tattle's sketch of it. Success in social interaction certainly depended upon much role taking and artful image projection. The Restoration gentlemen and ladies understood the importance of a projection of virtue and appreciated the social prestige it bequeathed. Appearances were of paramount importance. Wives must necessarily appear to be virtuous for the satisfaction of the husband's sense of possession and husbands must not flaunt their inconstancy so that wives felt a sense of security. Restoration wits played an exacting social game of interaction, thus having their pleasure and retaining their reputation too. The importance given to social image becomes clear when we see that Mrs. Fainall decided to marry Fainall purely on the basis of the acceptability of his social persona. Again, the power of Marwood's warnings regarding public scandal and legal suits (if Lady Wishfort does not agree to Fainall's demands) is based on the horror implied in the loss of reputation.

Following the example of France, England too could boast actresses after the reopening of the theatres in the Restoration period. For the first time in the history of the English stage women joined theatre troupes. With actresses available for female roles, the necessity to contrive plots where masculine disguise could be introduced came to an end. However, writers continued to devise plots that required women to adopt male disguise since they found that it excited the audience to see the actresses' slender legs. The example of Margery Pinchwife rises to mind.

Congreve's first play, The Old Batchelour (1693), presents the leading ladies, Bellinda and Araminta, in masks in St. James' Park. 166

In Love for Love (1695) Valentine adopts a "seeming madness" in order to put off signing over his inheritance to his younger brother. 11 Meanwhile Angelica, whom he loves, dissembles a fondness for Valentine's father, Sir Samson Legend, in order to ultimately win his consent to her match with Valentine. When Sir Samson responds far more amorously than she ever expected, she cautions him not to "over-act your part" (112). It is the strategic game playing and play acting of both hero and heroine that finally succeeds in winning Valentine both his inheritance and parental consent to his marriage with Angelica. The sub-plot too incorporates the motif of the dissembler. Tattle's tuition to Prue is basically a lesson in play acting as the only way of life for anyone with pretensions to a social identity. When Prue asks if she must tell lies. Tattle's unequivocal answer is - Yes, if you would be well-bred. All well-bred persons lie. Besides, you are a woman; you must never speak what you think; your words must contradict your thoughts; but your actions may contradict your words. So, when I ask you if you can love me, you must say no, but you must love me too. (53). Thus he initiates Prue into the social game of role playing. Tattle only simulates the role of the lover with Prue but once he has had her he is willing to shun her as any typical Restoration gentleman would an old play or an outdated fashion.

In contrast to the resourceful heroes of The Way of the World and Love for Love. Mellefont - in The Double-Dealer (1693) - is an innocent duped almost to the end by the dissembling hypocrite, Maskwell. While Mellefont refuses to "affect either pertness or formality" 12^ thereby winning Cynthia's love, Maskwell's utterance -

11 WiUiam Congreve, Love for Love, ed. Malcolm Kelsall (London: Ernest Benn, 1969) 104. All subsequent references to this text are to this edition and page numbers are given in parentheses.

12 William Congreve, "The Double-Dealer", The Complete Works. II, ed. Montague Summers (London: Nonesuch Press, 1923) 28. All subsequent references are to this edition and page numbers are given in parentheses. 167

"I must dissemble" (40) - is the key to his character. To each character he presents a different "face" (48). Indeed, he and his paramour, Lady Touchwood, are a well-matched pair for she too "can wear more shapes" than just one (62). So sure is Maskwell of his own skill at intrigue and deceit that he even dares to wear the mask of sincerity. He dupes naive Mellefont yet again, convincing him that he is working towards uniting Mellefont and Cynthia, whereas he is, all the while, trying to win Cynthia for himself (60).

However, Congreve's dramaturgy is seen at its best in his last play. Again, the world of the play is one in which shrewdness and knowledge make for power, where games are played as much for fun as for the gain that is the prize for victory, and every character is involved in an agonistic quest for prominence. Not only is The Way of the World his most sophisticated play, incorporating delightful characters and sparkling repartee, but it is also redolent of a maturity absent from the earlier efforts. Though modern critics have disagreed about the dramatic emphasis of Congreve's last comedy, Harriet Hawkins points out that they are in complete agreement about its excellence. Though she proceeds to criticize "a catalogue of dramatic frailties" in the play, she wholeheartedly concedes that it "deserves its acclaim" i^. More significantly, the play reveals an increasingly reasoned and modern attitude to the place of the role, the mask in man's life.

There is only one instance of actual disguise in The Way of the World: Waitwell, Mirabell's aptly named manservant, is roped into Mirabell's ingenious scheme to win Lady Wishfort's consent to his marriage with Millamant. The plan is one that seeks to put the dowager aunt into such k compromising situation from which onlyN Mirabell would be able to save her. Once beholden to him, she would

13 Harriet Hawkins, Likenesses of Truth in Elizabethan and Restoration Drama (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972) 115 - 16. 168 be able to deny him nothing. In this play within the play Mirabell directs the action; Waitwell and Foible enact it. He is right in surmising that, once he has her in his power, she would then) agree to anything - even his marriage to her niece - to express her gratitude. Waitwell steps into the role of Sir Rowland, Mirabell's fictitious uncle and the holder of his purse strings, with the effortlessness of the born thespian. Foible is equally competent when she enacts the role of Lady Wishfort's confidant at Mirabell's behest. Since she is Lady Wishfort's trusted personal maid, it is a simple matter for her to introduce the subject of an eligible older gentleman who apparently nurtures an interest in the Lady. Foible's sincere pose succeeds and she convinces Lady Wishfort that Sir Rowland has fallen in love with her miniature. Her credulity results in her joining the cast: all unbeknown to her she becomes another actor in the play.

Quite caught up in the game of temptation that Mirabell masterminds, she welcomes a meeting with Sir Rowland in person and encourages his advances. Unaware of the game playing going on around her, she plans her own wily role playing in order to entrap Sir Rowland. While she carefully plans their first meeting, she presents a number of possible roles to Foible: she could play the startled ingenue, or the thoughtful lady; she could be walking or lying down when he first sees her. She is, of course, carefully painted to resemble the old (or rather young) cameo painting that "Sir Rowland" has seen. When the amorous knight arrives, she hopes for importunity but insists on decorum. Marriage should be swift but appearances must be maintained. That Lady Wishfort is completely taken in by the role playing of Waitwell and his newly secured wife. Foible, is ample testimony of the duo's acting skills. Waitwell joins a long line of servants who successfully play the parts of upper class gentlemen with aplomb in order to expose some ridiculous aspect of the aristocracy. Mascarille and Jodelet (in The Precious Damsels) before him helped their masters. La Grange and 169

Du Croisy, to make their lady loves realize the ludicrous nature of their behaviour while they laughably aped the fashionable pose of preciosity.

Foible is the typical shrewd servant who has her origin in the soubrette of the Italian Commedia delV Arte and is as adept at switching roles as she is in painting my lady's face. It is worth noticing that while the two servants are designed merely to play puppet to Mirabell's puppet-master, still, situations do arise when they have to improvise and manage unexpected circumstances in the absence of their director. Foible proves able in justifying her meetings with Mirabell to a suspicious Lady Wishfort by imaginatively creating a fictional script of her supposed conversation with him. She more or less acts out the notional meeting for my lady's benefit and appears to express her own thoughts about Lady Wishfort through Mirabell's supposed speeches. She also plays would-be director herself when Lady Wishfort submits several possible roles for her approval before Sir Rowland arrives. When Marwood's letter seems about to wreck the little play within the play, it is Foible who is quick witted enough to improvise and suggest that Waitwell pretend the handwriting in the letter is Mirabell's. Waitwell is quick to catch his cue and does a fine job of impromptu acting. Mrs. Marwood refers to Foible as "Mrs. Engine" ^^ and she is indeed a sort of facilitator of roles.

The duped Lady Wishfort is saved from the humiliating pseudo- marriage by Mrs. Marwood's discovery of the plot while hidden in a closet and witness to a secret conversation between Foible and Mrs. Fainall. The illusion is destroyed by means of the anonymous letter sent by Mrs. Marwood and the actors are seen as culprits to be legally prosecuted. Thus the action of the play within the play does

J"* William Congreve, The Way of the World, ed. Kathleen M. Lynch (1965; London: Edward Arnold, 1968) 60. All subsequent references are to this edition and page numbers are given in parentheses. 170 not come to fruition but is aborted prematurely. However, Waitwell is able, with a nudge or two from Foible, to continue to nurture the illusion of the play. He insists that the handwriting of the letter is Mirabell's and that the dastardly aspersions cast upon him are Mirabell's attempts at thwarting his uncle's impending marriage in any scurrilous way he can think of. Lady Wishfort is left quite undecided, not knowing what to think. Waitwell insists that he can and will prove his identity to her satisfaction: he promises to return shortly with a black box with the relevant documents. It looks as if the better actor will win the day.

Thereupon the play becomes a more diffused affair with all the characters involved. Congreve deliberately focuses attention on the "playness" of the play through Sir Wilfull's remark, "Hey day! what, are you all got together, like players at the end of the last act?" (119) Sir Wilfull's playful question directs us to observe the parallel between the skill of the manipulators on stage and the dramatist's art.

All the characters are involved in some kind of role playing within the duration of the play and all are active participants in the schemes to acquire (or wrest) the fortunes of the three ladies. Millamant alone stands above the intriguers. Created in the mould of verbal wit and sexual innocence'^ of the Restoration heroine, she is pure and eschews the need for culpable play acting since she has nothing to hide except the depth of her emotions. She accepts Mirabell frankly and on their mutual terms and conditions but leaves it to him to secure her guardian's consent. It is only when Sir Wilfull is thrust into her apartment to propose to her that she loses her temper at this insult to her understanding offered by her aunt.

15 Pat Gill, 'Gender, Sexuality and Marriage", The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre , ed. Deborah Payne Fisk (Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 2000) 198. 171 is unpardonably rude to him and actively discourages him. AsA^ Mueschkes show, this is the first and only active step taken by Millamant to further Mirabell's suit. ^^^

She does, however, play a consciously deceitful role for a short time. She and Mirabell persuade Sir Wilful! to help them to the altar. All three dissemble and lull Lady Wishfort into thinking that Millamant has accepted Sir Wilfull's proposal and that Mirabell has given up his pretensions. Lady Wishfort, pleased with Mirabell's accommodating behaviour, is led to turn to him for help. By producing the much-awaited Black Box he is able to free Lady Wishfort from Fainall's clutches and also obtain her consent to his marriage with Millamant as his reward for this help. The pretence of having "given up" the idea of marrying each other is a legitimate strategy accepted in games - feinting - that does succeed in throwing the adversary off balance and helps them to win their game.

There is much affectation in Millamant but it is carried off so gracefully that, like the best art, it looks almost natural. As an ardent Mirabell says, "Her follies are so natural, or so artful, that they become her" (17). She dissembles a seeming indifference to keep Mirabell guessing until she is sure of his commitment. She drops the role of coquette or cruel mistress (the mask is but a defence mechanism) as soon as she is assured of Mirabell's sincere love. As Fujimura says, Millamant's "whimsical wit is a shield she holds up against the world" ^^ in order to protect her tender feelings for Mirabell. She is indeed "a sensitive girl in an insensitive society". ^^ Her feelings are unusually deep and she needs to protect

'6 Paul and Miriam Mueschke, A New View of Cotifireve's Way of the World (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1958) 61.

''^ Thomas Fujimura, The Restoration Comedy of Wit (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton U P, 1952) 189.

'8 Kenneth Muir, The Comedy of Manners (London: Hutchinson, 1970) 115. 172 these from the thoughtless flings of the idle beau monde. In the same way, she employs a defensive screen of fools to keep Mirabell at bay until she makes up her mind about him. Donald Bruce analyzes and traces Millamant's tactics back to the poetry she is seen reciting. In his essay he points out that Suckling's stance is often that of the jaded lover, the "love-wearied libertine".i'^ Suckling speaks of indulgence in love as the remedy for love: Spare dyet to the cause Love lasts, For Surfets sooner kill than Fasts. Thus Millamant, quick learner that she is, makes sure that Mirabell never has enough of her. She keeps him wanting and thirsting. Her demands in the proviso scene also work towards ensuring an absence of a glut of togetherness.

Millamant confesses her love only after much reflection. Both Harriet Hawkins and Kathleen Lynch notice Millamant's overly fast and broken speech and conclude that it indicates nervousness. Hawkins makes a brief but telling stylistic analysis of Millamant's way of constantly breaking off her sentences. She points out that contemporary playwrights used broken sentences to reveal "some affection, as either of sorrow, bashfulness, fear, anger or vehemenc}^ (quoted from John Smith's definition of aposiopesis in "The Mysterie of Rhetorique Unveiled", 1673). The first passage she uses is one from Act II scene i : Well, I won't have you, Mirabell - I'm resolved - I think - You may go - Ha, ha, ha. (48). Yet another passage used to make her point is that from Act IV scene i : Well then - I'll take my death I'm in a horrid fright - Fainall, I shall never say it - Well - I think - I'll endure you. (88)

15 Donald Bruce, "Why Millamant Studied Sir John Suckling", Notes and Queries 34 . 3 (1987 Sept.): 334-35. 173

These are well chosen examples of Millamant's characteristically nervous style. Her "bravura and arrogance''^° are merely superficial masks cloaking the inner fear and uncertainty that are bound to exist in a woman who craves a stable life and a long lasting marriage based on mutual respect and trust. This would certainly not be "the way of the world" but clearly unusual, wonderful and rare in "Congreve's post-lapsarian world" which is largely made up of shallow witwouds like Petulant and the character called, pertinently, Witwoud. Millamant echoes the fears of disillusionment after marriage expressed by Shakespeare's Rosalind when, safe in the guise of Ganymede, she dares say playfully to Orlando: Men are April when they woo, December when they wed. (IV. i. 139-40).2i

She carries on a tantalizingly superficial and brief conversation with Mirabell in the park (in Act II) and then leaves him before he has had his say. Mirabell, eager to talk of serious matters like the production and direction of the play within the play, is left frustrated and exasperated with her flighty and seemingly fickle ways. Her coquettish role playing succeeds in keeping the earnest Mirabell at arm's length and her unpredictability certainly keeps him guessing. To think of a whirlwind, though 'twere in a whirlwind, were a case of more steady contemplation; a very tranquility of mind and mansion. A fellow that lives in a windmill has not a more whimsical dwelling than the heart of a man that is lodged in a woman. (49 - 50).

Mirabell comes across as a man impatient of the social game of manners. He has played it with skill for years; now its artificiality gets on his nerves. He chides Witwoud and Petulant for considering

20 Hawkins, Likenesses of Truth 135.

21 William Shakespeare, As You Like It , ed. Agnes Latham (London: Routledge, 1987) 99.

175 denounces women who will not be won by "plain dealing and sincerity' (49), only to be roundly mocked and declared "sententious".

Millamant seems to insist that they play the game (of courtship) by its rules. Amongst the wits it was considered fashionable and smart to cover emotions with the veneer of sophisticated repartee. The depth of her feelings is only revealed in instances such as her private admission to Mrs. Fainall that she loves Mirabell "violently" and would "be a lost thing" (89) if their marriage were to go wrong. Of course, Millamant's behaviour in public is the result of deliberate and artful dissembling. What sets her apart from the rest of the social players is that certain indefinable grace [aje ne sais quoi] that divides the Millamants from the Marwoods. Youth and beauty make her desirable and give her the confidence to carry off her act with panache. Millamant definitely enjoys her role of celebrated coquette, especially when it allows her to frustrate Mirabell's attempts to come closer to her in a serious relationship. She refuses to give him her word until she is sure of her feelings for him.

In The Way of the World we have come almost full circle from The Man of Mode where Etherege presents his characters suppressing emotion in order to sketch brilliant poses. In The Way of the World emotions are suppressed while the hero and heroine are in public but find expression in private. By revealing Millamant's vulnerability and fear ("Shall I have him?..." - 88) Congreve shows that his characterization is more complex than standard Restoration comedy has heretofore necessitated and that the play operates at a level never aspired to by any other playwright of the period. Anne Barton shows how the lovers are able to live life publicly according to "the 176 way of the world" but privately owe allegiance to "the way of the heart".2^

Again, Hawkins reminds us that "Mirabell is not a conventional rake, Mrs. Fainall is not a conventional discarded mistress, and The Way of the World is not a conventional Restoration comedy.''23 in Mirabell we have the already reformed rake. At the outset it is made clear that all his affairs and libertine tendencies belong to the past: his liaison with Mrs. Fainall has already come to an end. Unlike other Restoration rakes, he has manoeuvred his affairs to an extremely civilized end, where both he and his ex-mistress continue to feel a sympathetic friendship towards each other. There is no role playing at all here. Total understanding and mutual trust exist between the pair. Mrs. Fainall even signs over her entire property to Mirabell (upon his advice) in order to safeguard it from any machinations that a fortune hunting husband might employ. In fact, their painfully frank discussion of her affairs (when Mrs. Fainall drops her mask completely) might make a sensitive audience wish for some glossing over with play acting. The former Arabella Languish's marriage is arranged quite coldly and deliberately, purely in order to preserve appearances. They fear that she might be pregnant and so a "suitable" gentleman (with an acceptable image) is sacrificed to the cause of Mrs. Fainall's reputation. Thus Mrs. Fainall can continue to sport the mask of respectability in society. Reputation plays a large part in her motivations and actions. It is the reason for her marriage and for the continuance of the charade of its day-to-day reality. In fact it can be said that Fainall's "mask" of the wit was adequate to her needs of the moment and therefore she married him. Fashions such as that which decrees that it is positively scandalous to be seen walking with one's husband (35)

22 Anne Barton, Programme Note to the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of The Way of thje World in 1978. Reproduced in Congreve: Comedies, ed. Patrick Lyons (London: Macmillan, 1982) 212.

23 Hawkins, Likenesses of Truth 125. 177

come in handy as a means of keeping a distance between the husband and wife that both desire. Still both are careful to present the face of a happy marriage to the world. Fainall is always solicitous in public and she responds in kind. Fear of the scandal of divorce ensures that she stays married to Fainall even after he has revealed his unsavoury character.

If Mrs. Fainall marries for the sake of her reputation, Fainall ties the knot with her money in mind. In fact, the threat of public exposure of her daughter's affair and the scandal of the divorce proceedings is the major weapon that Fainall is able to use so (almost) successfully against Lady Wishfort. Unless she gives up the collective fortune of the family to Fainall, "your darling daughter's turned adrift, like a leaky hulk, to sink or swim, as she and the current of this lewd town can agree." (116).

There is one instance in which Mrs. Fainall wisely decides to continue her (false) role of innocence even in the face of imminent exposure of her affair with Mirabell. It seems dangerous to insist on her innocence when Marwood promises evidence of her misdeeds but Mrs. Fainall's gamble pays off. In Restoration society the perceived image is all-important, the reality negligible. If what Mrs. Fainall has to look forward to in terms of her married life is less than happiness, in fact a "dreary" and "strained" future, then this is all that the morally lax women of the plays are granted.^"^ The Fainalls' relationship is an excellent example of the sort of marriage of convenience that was the standard practice among the landed gentry and is likely to have been one of the ultimate root causes of the loose sexual morals in upper class circles.

The perfect wit, Mirabell is well-versed in imitating the ways of the beau monde and at dissembling. Poseur that he is, he does indeed

24 Pat Gill, "Gender, Sexuality and Marriage" 194. 178

Strike the correct pose, wear the appropriate mask in the first scene. While seated at the card table with Fainall he is studiedly nonchalant but alert and probing smartly for the information he seeks. He is, however, matched by Fainall - as polished and as shrewd as he is. Indeed, there is some difficulty in differentiating between the two at first. The hero and the villain are so similar as to be indistinguishable at times. Malcolm Kelsall refers to them as two Machiavellians.25 Even if the playing of the roles of wits is an innocent and amoral kind of acting in which the question of deception as such does not enter, the games and charades played by these two antagonists are far from innocent. They may play at accepted social games but they are preoccupied with concrete pre- lusory goals. Mirabell's every move is ultimately geared towards acquiring Millamant's hand in marriage, along with her whole fortune and Fainall seeks to use his information to take money where he can find it. The intrigue and counter-intrigue of the two makes for an extremely complex plot. Again, Mirabell and Fainall can be distinguished by the playful manoeuvres of the former and the more earnestly deceiving machinations of the latter. The Sir Roland plot and the romancing of Lady Wishfort by Mirabell are instances of oblique playful mischief while the threat to divorce and defame Mrs. Fainall is devoid of any sense of "fun". While this kind of role playing has its element of power play, it lacks the psychological complexity of Bernean games.

In The Leviathan Hobbes explains that "if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their end, which is principally their own conservation, and sometimes their delectation only, endeavour to

25 Malcolm Kelsall, "Those Dying Generations", William Congreve ed. Brian Morris (London : Ernest Benn, 1972) 127. 179 destroy, or subdue one another.''^^' It is hardly surprising that Mirabell and Fainall soon come to an agonistic confrontation since both want Millamant's fortune. Hobbes goes so far as to say that the existence of other people makes life intolerable since there is a constant competition for objects of desire. Rivalry, whether sexual, commercial or otherwise is a state of affairs that is to be expected. Man differs from animals by virtue of the insatiability of his desires. Both Fainall and Mirabell are careful to mask their real feelings since openness can make them vulnerable to attack.

Significantly our first sight of Mirabell and Fainall is as a pair of gamblers just rising from a game of cards. Both pretend a cool indifference. Thereafter, they are both shown enmeshed in various games throughout the action of the play. Fainall taunts Mirabell about his failure in the game of his courtship of Lady Wishfort. Significantly he does not censure Mirabell for doing something wrong or immoral but blames him for not having dissembled better (14). (Similarly Mrs. Fainall's role of supposed innocence makes her a winner and she is not castigated for her affair with Mirabell.) Had Mirabell been a more proficient actor, says Fainall, he might have won his hand. Mirabell confesses to being involved in another such game, a "matter of some mirth, which is not yet ripe for discovery" (17). There is no sense of shame in his game playing. It was the standard business of the elite - just as "smoking" is announced as the "occupation" of Jack Worthing in The Importance of Being Earnest.

In the final confrontation in Act V they match each other, thrust for thrust. If Fainall can be mercenary because "'tis but the way of the world" (117), then Mirabell too has combined shrewdness and

26 Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan, quoted by Warren Chemaik, "Those Whoreson Appetites': Varieties of Libertinism in Restoration Comedy", Comedy: Essays in Honour of Peter Dixon by Friends and Colleagues, ed. Elizabeth Maslen (London: Dept. of English, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of Londbn, 1993) 103. 180 caution in protecting Mrs. Fainall from her husband. "Even so, Sir, 'tis the way of the world, sir, of the widows of the world," (120) he calmly informs the frustrated Fainall after producing the clinching evidence in the Black Box.

In the closing scene, each character has staked his all and is playing a role using Marwood's new-found knowledge of Mrs. Fainall's affair with Mirabell. Fainall, as tough Machiavel, pressurizes Lady Wishfort to sign over not only her own and her daughter's but even her niece's fortune. Mirabell, as benign well-wisher of the family, then counter-exposes Fainall's affair with Marwood. When this ruse does not make tractable the shameless pair, he resorts to the Black Box hinted at in ambiguous terms before but never yet named. It is this surprise element in typically Terencian style^? that resolves the problem. Mirabell, in the spotlight, plays trumps. The satisfactory conclusion is the direct result of Mirabell and his group's brilliant acting abilities. The genre of the intrigue comedy (one aspect of Restoration comedy) incorporates role playing to such an extent that the entire action of the play can be seen as a game.

There is a vast difference between Mirabell and Fainall beneath the superficial similarities. Brian Gorman is right to declare that, ultimately, they are distinguished on moral, not social grounds.^« Mirabell may have been a libertine but he is "a libertine with a conscience and an aristocrat's sense of moral obligation, a gentleman who promises a future stability for both Mrs. Fainall and her famiiy^^, the sort of "man of honour" that Moliere valorizes. The

27 John Barnard, "Passion, 'Poetical Justice' and Democratic Law in The Double Dealer and The Way of the World". William Congreve. ed. Brian Morris (London: Ernest Benn, 1972) 105.

28 Brian Corman, "Comedy", The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre, ed. Deborah Payne Fisk. (Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 2000) 67.

29 Robert Markley, Two-Edg'd Weapons: Style and Ideology in the Comedies of Etherege. Wvcherley and Congreve (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988) 240. thought of Mirabell as head of the Wishfort-Fainall family is distinctly reassuring. Mirabell wants to marry Millamant for genuine love and feels it is only fair that they duly receive the fortune that is rightfully hers as well. Towards this end is masterminded the "innocent device" (114) of the Sir Rowland plan. Fainall, on the other hand, reveals himself (beneath his suave appearance and manners) as a rapacious creature who stops at nothing in his attempts to usurp the fortunes of his wife and her family. In referring to his wife as a "thing" he inadvertently reveals his own inhumanity. "You thing, that was a wife, shall smart for this." (118). The "Muscovite husband" (110) has no sense of morality at all. He is an unabashed fortune hunter who resents the fact that his wife has been beforehand in her unfaithfulness. His sense of shame resides in the fact that he has crawled after her. Once again, the concern is only with appearance rather than with reality.

Mirabell's superior character is vouched for primarily by the affection of the heroine but also by the continued friendship his ex- mistress shares with him. There is a marked contrast between the way Dorimant behaves with his discarded mistress, Mrs. Loveit, and the way Mirabell treats Mrs. Fainall. The fact that Lady Wishfort's maid is won over by Mirabell has as much to do with the respect she holds him in as the monetary incentive he offers and the fact that she is in love with his manservant. Even Lady Wishfort finds it hard to resist him. In her opinion "He has witchcraft in his eyes and tongue" (115).

Paul and Miriam Mueschke also acknowledge the apparent similarity between the male protagonists at the start of the play but show how their progress thenceforth is diametrically opposite to each other's. Since Mirabell is conscious of the wrongs he has done and seeks to redress them he shows a "progressive regeneration". Prominent is the way he helps the two women he has wronged in the past, Mrs. Fainall and Lady Wishfort. Fainall, on the other hand. 182 has no compunctions about whom he hurts and reveals a "progressive degeneration" until he seems to relinquish humanity itself in his penultimate audacious demands. Mirabell, however, makes "humane use of power" to set things right for the injured parties.30 Mueschkes prefer to view the character of Mirabell as a developing rather than a static one. What Congreve does very carefully is to gradually expose the glaring differences between the two men, admittedly both game players, who appear so similar at first glance.

However, Mirabell's treatment of Lady Wishfort does seem rather shabby: 1 did as much as man could, with any reasonable conscience; 1 proceeded to the very last act of flattery with her, and was guilty of a song in her commendation. Nay, I got a friend to put her into a lampoon, and compliment her with the imputation of an affair with a young fellow, which I carried so far, that 1 told her the malicious town took notice that she was grown fat of a sudden; and when she lay in of a dropsy, persuaded her she was reported to be in labour. The devil's in't if an old woman is to be flattered further, unless a man should endeavour downright personally to debauch her; and that my virtue forbade me. (14).

Still, since the older group is consistently treated badly in the plays of the period, we may remember, with Hunt, that tastes change and what passes for bad behaviour today may have been quite permissible in another age.^i The aging woman eager for marriage was a stock character in Restoration comedy and a standard object of satiric attack. Mirabell exhibits, in his game plan, greater

30 Mueschkes, A New View of Congreve's Way of the World 33, 39.

3' Hugh Hunt, "Restoration Acting", Restoration Theatre, ed. John Russell Brown and Bernard Harris (London: Edward Arnold, 1965) 182. 183 foresight and shrewdness (than Fainall) in having Mrs. Fainall's estate made over to himself in trust before her wedding takes place. Richard Bevis emphasizes the prudence and caution of Mirabell and goes so far as to call the play a comedy of prudence rather than of wit32 while Fujimura declares that "judgment" (not fancy) is Mirabell's chief characteristic.^3 He is guilty of perpetuating a hoax on Lady Wishfort (the Sir Rowland play within the play) but it is what the Mueschkes call "an honest hoax" - devious means to achieve an honest end.^^ Mirabell's courtship of Lady Wishfort can be seen as a "strategy" or a "move" or a "play" (and even, ultimately, a "gaffe") in Erving Goffman's terms^^, to ultimately win her permission to ask for Millamant's hand in marriage.

The proviso scene incorporates an attempt by Mirabell and Millamant to evaluate and ensure their future requirements in their identities as individuals, as a couple and as units of society.^^ The hero and heroine decide to explicitly avoid the sort of lovers' cant that the Fainalls use, superficial and devoid of any real meaning. Mirabell and Millamant are ahead of their times and are more mature than their contemporaries. They concoct between them an ideal world and it is to this oasis they will retire. Their understanding of each other is not limited to the ability to complete each other's quotations but promises "a marriage of true minds". In Restoration comedies it is always implied that the marriage of the hero and heroine is to be a successful one although we are not shown any happily married couples. From what we see of shallow

32 Bevis, English Drama 154.

33 Fujimura, The Restoration Comedy of Wit 186.. s"* Mueschkes, A New View of Congreve's Way of the World 71.

35 Erving Gof&nan, Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction (1961; Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1963) 35, 45.

35 Alan Roper, "Language and Action in The Way of the World. Love's last Shift and The Relapse". ELH 40 . 1 (Spring 1973): 67. 184

beings like Dorimant and Harriet, it is certainly difficult to prophesy any conjugal felicity for them. While Dorimant is concerned to the very end with the safe-guarding of his reputation as a wit (and this necessarily precludes a commitment to any woman) ,3^ Harriet tells him that she would have him "devout" but would not have him turn "fanatic" (133). On the other hand, Mirabell and Millamant share a serious and mutual commitment to each other.

The proviso scene reveals not only the independence of Mirabell and Millamant but also the maturity of both. The basic Restoration problem was that Wits and Witwouds tried to live their roles totally, tried to become the roles they were playing. The hard role of the Wit is incompatible with the idea of constancy, adjustment and tolerance so necessary in a wedded relationship. Angelica shows some of Millamant's understanding when she declares she would like to have a wit for a lover but not for a husband (110). It is Mirabell and Millamant's realization that the role of the wit is all very well as long as it remains only a role that will save them from the disillusionment that could so easily set in. Dobree eulogizes their "exquisite relationship", their "affectionate teasing",^s while Myers^^ and Barnard'^" speak of their likely success in creating a Lockean society based on mutual co-operation. Brooks and Heilman give the proviso scene the seriousness it deserves in their analysis in Understanding Drama. They show that the success of the lovers lies in their ability to master the "way of the world", "to come to terms with it without being brought to terms by it".'*i Millamant insists

37 Dorimant tells Medley, "The hour is almost come, I appointed BeUinda, and 1 am not so foppishly in love here to forget; I am flesh and blood yet." (100).

38 Dobree, Restoration Drama 143.

35 William Myers, "Plot and Meaning in Congreve's Comedies", William Congreve. ed. Brian Morris (London : Earnest Benn, 1972) 86.

''0 Barnard, "Passion, 'Poetical Justice' and Democratic Law" 106.

•^i Cleanth Brooks and Robert B. Heilman, Understanding Drama (New York: Holt, Rinehart 85 Winston, 1948) 448. 185 upon the substance rather than the mere forms of a good marriage. "I'll not be called names," (85) she says, reminding us of the hypocritical endearments of the Fainalls. "My dear", "jo}^, "jewel", "love" are all "nauseous cant" (85) as far as Millamant is concerned. All too often, she has seen, the public demonstration of affection is merely a sham, not at all a reflection of the real thing. It is often only histrionics that cloak the reality of mutual perfidy. In the same way as Shelley refuses to use the word "love" for the sublime feelings he harbours for his beloved because it is "one word too often profaned" (as Shelley puts it), she too finds that these expressions of love have been misused too many times. She would far rather keep her private life closed to others. The role she prefers to play in public is one of severe decorum. Her expression of her love would be safeguarded for their private life. The exchanges between the two lovers have abundant humour but the outcome of the scene is the serious confirmation of their mutual trust in each other. There is an avoidance of cliches of emotion but the existence of the emotion is undeniable. The ironic contrast between the apparently trivial minutiae discussed and the real importance of the deeper implications is a masterstroke by Congreve, one of the several that raises the play above the ordinary.

Since they decide to be "strange" (85) to each other, they mean to continue one kind of role playing. They choose to retain their artificial poses in public in order that their private selves may remain sacrosanct, sheltered from the prying public gaze. "Let us never visit together, nor go to a play together; but let us be very strange and well-bred: let us be as strange as if we had been married a great while; and as well bred as if we were not married at all." (85). 186

Mirabell agrees that Millamant would be "sole empress" of her tea table and that he would not intrude upon her either in her "closet" or anywhere else she might be without first knocking. He will not try to censor her correspondence or her friendships. By admitting these conditions Mirabell basically seeks to reassure her of his respect for her good sense and his trust in her. Their relationship is to be based on their genuine mutual trust and respect. It would be far removed from the typical marriage of those times - one founded too often merely on convenience, whether in terms of property, title or reputation.

Millamant seeks a continuation of the relationship of lovers (rather than a movement to the typical married relationship in which the husband dominates the wife) wherein a woman has power. She is afraid that in the married state her status might "dwindle" (86) while that of her husband will be too greatly "enlarged". She hopes to have a relationship in which she would be "solicited to the very last" (84). Maximillian Novak calls the proviso scene "a way of saying something very serious and very important in the only way they can communicate - through wit and art." He is confident that "what Eric Berne calls 'game testing' has been going on for some time but, in the proviso scene, Mirabell and Millamant match complete 'scripts' in a final rehearsal before the ritual of marriage."'*^ The carefully articulated stands of Mirabell and Millamant in the proviso scene are the outward manifestations of the game they are playing with each other. Not only have they "playfull}^ made their points but, as Frank J. Warnke says, they also play in such a way as to allow the beloved other to shine. Thus their playing at adversaries achieves a clearing of the air, an articulation of their mutual hopes and desires regarding their future married state and establishes their utter

•"s Maximillian E. Novak, "Love, Scandal, and the Moral Milieu of Congreve's Comedies", Congreve Considered by Aubrey Williams and Maximillian E. Novak (University of California, Los Angeles: William Andrewrs Clark Memorial Library, 1971) 26. 187 compatibility in terms of wit and gamesmanship.'''^ Millamant stands out as a thinking person who has given a great deal of thought to the subject of marriage. Both her hesitation before she accepts Mirabell's proposal and her resolute statement of the bill of rights she means to enforce after she is married indicate the importance she gives the relationship and how much she is aware she will depend upon it for her happiness. She knows only too well that if she makes the wrong choice now she would be utterly helpless. If courtship is coded in the form of a game in this society, she is conscious that it is "the greatest adventure and gamble of air .44

In the proviso scene is found one of the most interesting demonstrations of the use of the mask. Millamant sports a flippant attitude and poses as if she were making wildly unrealistic and arrogant demands. She adopts a challenging stance. In actuality she is testing Mirabell and seeks his understanding of her conviction that marriage should not mean a total loss of her "dear liberty" (85) and of her own unique individual identity but should be a mutual give and take between two lovers who are equally solicitous of each other. Mirabell reveals his real nature in his response to Millamant's challenge. He responds in the same vein. He too makes demands so apparently audacious that they bring the colour to her cheeks. For instance, she is not to "straitlace" when she is pregnant, he insists. While Millamant seeks the preservation of her "dear Liberty" which would be jeopardized by marriage, Mirabell is concerned to forestall unhampered liberty from straying into license. Thus, a seemingly minor premise he advocates is that she should not go to a play in a mask. It seems somewhat ironic that the hero of a play that deals so

'^^ Frank J. Wamke, "Amorous Agon, Erotic Flyting: Some Play Motifs in the Literature of Love", Auctor Ludens: Essays on Play in Literature (Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1986) 109.

''t John Harrington Smith, The Gay Couple in Restoration Comedy (1948; New York: Octagon Books, 1971) 76. 188 much in dissembling, posing and the wearing of masks should forbid the heroine a mask. It is true that both Mirabell and Millamant are master dissemblers and clever wearers of masks. What is more, they intend, if we are to believe their statements in this scene, to continue wearing masks in the future. However, Mirabell is only too conscious that the wearing of a mask in certain places (like a theatre where all sorts interact) would only invite trouble. His demand seeks confirmation of Millamant's understanding of this.

The proviso scene in The Way of the World stands out as a serio­ comic revelation of the complete mutual understanding that exists between the lovers and their creation of two separate planes of existence. In the public arena masks will protect them from the underdeveloped sensibility of the others they will come across and interact with. The moral ideal for Congreve's comedies, as Novak perceives, is a profound, private understanding and lasting love between two individuals of wit and sensibility. Such an ideal is particularly wonderful and also moving because it is asserted in the midst of a society made up of fools and knaves. Faced with a society in which corruption, scandal and a general levity rule, Congreve seems to rest his faith on private love between couples of matched superior wit."^^

Never before have lovers received such a "frank premarital airing".''^ This is the first instance we have in English drama where the desirability of role playing is elaborated without any reservations. Both Brooks and Heilman and Harriet Hawkins are impressed by the "discipline"''^, the "measure of control" and "degree of

15 Novak, William Congreve. (New York: Twayne, 1971) 47.

'ts Bevis, English Drama 154.

'''' Brooks and Heilman, Understanding Drama 444. 189 calculation" the lovers demonstrate to protect their love in a world where "some... artifice and a large degree of economic and social realism are necessary in order to survive."''« Heilman categorizes the lovers as "deviants" but it is significant that they manage to live in the world on their own terms rather than trying to leave it in the way symbolically selected by Lady Wishfort and Moliere's Alceste. Even more important is the fact that Congreve does not choose to romanticize them as "lonely prophets" who must flee this imperfect world.^"^ The maturity they display is such that Kelsall's remark that Isabel Archer seems a goose when compared with Millamant gains some credence.5° When William Archer makes his adverse comment on the proviso scene by saying "This is pretty prose, granted; but it is the prose of literature, not of life", J.L. Styan is quick to point out that it is the prose of stage life though not of a realistic Nora or Helmer such as Archer may have had in mind.^'

Styan makes an excellent case for the genre of the Restoration comedy of manners as a powerful albeit artificial and self-conscious stage form. He includes passages from Grotowski's Towards A Poor Theatre and S.L. Bethell's Shakespeare and the Popular Dramatic Tradition to show that a "hypnotic" illusion of reality was well nigh impossible to achieve in the conditions of the theatre as it existed. Instead, the Restoration theatre cleverly makes positive use of the "distancing" and "double consciousness of the play world and real world" to establish the critical gaze that is crucial to comedy.

•"s Hawkins, Likenesses of Truth 136.

''9 Robert Heilman, The Ways of the World: Comedy and Society (Seattle: Washington U P, 1978) 241.

50 Malcolm KelsaU, Introduction, Love for Love by William Congreve (London: Ernest Berm, 1969) xix.

51 J.L. Styan, Restoration Comedy in Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986) 196. 190

Indeed, the Restoration plays are highly self-conscious and devoted to perpetuating the idea of the play as a play. The self-conscious witty speeches, the masks, mirrors, disguises and dissembling present in the plays serve to remind us that the play is but a play. In The Way of the World there is a song presented by a professional singer in Act III (which serves as a comment on the exchange between Millamant and Marwood just before), a song by the delightfully drunk Sir Wilfull and a dance presented in Act IV for Lady Wishfort's guests. Further, as Grotowski points out, when a member of the audience finds himself placed in a lighted area "he too begins to play a part in the performance".^2 T^g artificiality of the characters and the conditions in the Restoration theatre encouraged the audience to be critical of the play, to remain outside it and judge it rather than identify with the characters.

Whereas Millamant plays the coquette's role that is suitable at her age, Lady Wishfort, though past the age for the role - "superannuated" (56) as she is called - nevertheless casts herself in the same role. She contemplates adopting the dreamy look ("a swimmingness in the eyes" - 58) that Millamant affects. Lady Wishfort fancies she is likely to carry the pose more successfully since, after all, her niece "wants features". She is thrilled by Mirabell's "courtship" (of which we hear in Act I), never realizing the incongruity of their match. In fact, even after she has discovered his role in her humiliation, she still admits that his presence brings the colour to her cheeks. Unable to accept the fact that she is old, she tries to simulate youth by painting her face. Sir Wilfull, in a communicative mood, says it is "none of her own" (113). So artificially created is her appearance that her own footman cannot recognize her until she is fully painted and her "persona" prepared for the day. "I cannot safely swear to her face in a morning, before

52 Grotowski, quoted by J.L. Styan, Restoration Comedy in Peformance 12. she is dressed. Tis like I may give a shrewd guess at her by this time." (68).

Her own youthful portrait is to "sit" (58) for her and a work of art to be created on the face that nature bequeathed and subsequently aged. "A little art once made your picture like you," Foible reminds her, "and now a little of the same art must make you like your picture." (58). Peering into the mirror, she sees that she looks like "an old peeled wall" (57) but rather than take the backseat that her age indicates she forges ahead to "repair" (58) the damage and ensnare Sir Rowland. She reminds us of Lady Toothless in The Double Dealer who "lays [paint] on with a trowel" (III. i). She is surely the inspiration for characters like Sheridan's Widow Ocre and Miss Vermillion in The School for Scandal.

Such is the artificial construct of society that the best way Mirabell can think of paying an extravagant compliment to Lady Wishfort is by getting a friend to put her into a lampoon with the audacious imputation of an affair with a younger man. The overtly malicious lampoon subtly and ironically pays her a compliment when it airs a suspicion that she is pregnant. (14). Her own declaration (as reported by Mirabell) that she would prefer the company of a friend and a bottle of ratafia to that of a lover and "let posterity shift for itself, shell breed no more" (14) indicates a similar sort of "cultivated stance"^-^. In the world of Restoration comedy a woman is esteemed only when she is young and attractive. Lady Wishfort yearns to be a part of the social mainstream and craves acknowledgment of her participation in society. When Mirabell decides to trick Lady Wishfort into a rushed marriage with his supposed uncle (to be enacted by Waitwell) he can be quite sure of his success. She is pathetically and transparently enamoured of the image of herself in the roles of wife and lover (a desirable woman). That Lady Wishfort

53 W.H. Van Vorris, The Cultivated Stance: The Designs of Congreve's Plays (Dublin: Dufour, 1967). 192 takes Mirabell's mock courtship seriously is a clear indication of her inability to realize that she has become old. Kelsall tries to make a case for her as a sympathetic character of some dignity and not utterly devoid of self-knowledge. He attempts to present her as a victim of the "loss of power which is the tragedy of age".^'' The comedy is bitter-sweet when Lady Wishfort perceives the cracks in her make up and reacts with horror: "I look like an old peeled wall. Thou must repair me, Foible." However persuasive Kelsall's attempts to prove the contrary, it is undeniable that Lady Wishfort is sadly self-deceived. She sets herself up as a butt of satire by incessantly and unrealistically looking for a stellar role to play in a romance.

We cannot really accuse the other characters of being unfair to the dowager since her actions create a quite definitely negative impression. Her rough, almost hysterical, berating of Peg and Foible does not render her endearing. Her bringing up of her daughter to interact only with the female of the species in order to keep her pure is the stuff of farce (106). She has been a resolute player of roles throughout. Her continued interest in the sexual does not shock the modern reader but from the conversation between Mirabell and Mrs. Fainall it is clear that her appetite is considered unnatural by the values of the times. It is "depraved" (43). Her ridiculous coyness and attempt to cover up her sexual interest is amusing. She insists that there is not the least element of carnality in her attraction to Sir Rowland. However, her own daughter agrees with Mirabell when he says that "the good lady would marry anything that resembled a man, though 'twere no more than what a butler could pinch out of a napkin" (43). She plays the role of the chaste lady to Sir Rowland's Prince Charming - she is "all camphire and frankincence, all chastity and odor", the very "shrine of virtue" (97).

s-i Kelsall , "Those Dying Generations" 115. 193

She presides over the cabal meetings at which the "murdered reputations of the week" are considered in the manner of a "coroner's inquest" (14). Although this activity is not elaborated upon by Congreve, one can quite safely conclude that, like Lady Sneerwell's school for scandal, the cabalists are bound to be concerned with the image of a person and the role he plays rather than the reality of his actual character and deeds. For example, three of them profess a hatred of men that is clearly dissembled.

Lady Wishfort likes to think that she rules her little menage but it is the others who outline her role for her. First, Mirabell acts the suitor and extracts a performance as a coquette from her. Then, once that game is exposed, he sends "Sir Rowland" for a continuation of the same role. With Fainall she is the victim and with Mirabell, at last, the grateful rescuee. Even Marwood (so-called friend and confidant with whom she would abdicate from all social roles and games and retire to a remote place as a "shepherdess" - 106) uses her. Her revelations are hardly for Lady Wishfort's sake. They are a part of her own games devised to impede a marriage between Mirabell (her chosen lover) and Millamant. Lady Wishfort's extravagant and meaningless gesture of offering to leave this world for another (if Marwood would accompany her) denotes only her comic self- misunderstanding.

Mrs. Marwood is the only character who actually wears a mask in this play. She seeks to hide the tears her argument with Fainall has given rise to. Her masked appearance in the Park emblematizes her tendency to dissemble. Masks were commonly worn to disguise identity or to enable the wearer to mingle with crowds not otherwise of his social level, or even to arouse curiosity.

Mrs. Marwood, actually enamoured of Mirabell, would have Fainall believe that she hates Mirabell, is constant to him (Fainall), and fools the rest of the world by playing the part of a man-hating virgin. 194

With Mrs. Fainall (in Act II) she first plays the part of a libertine and then dissembles the man-hater. She convinces Lady Wishfort that she is her well-wisher and, under this guise, maliciously reveals Mirabell's schemes to her with an air of righteousness. The dowager is completely taken in by her role playing and thinks of her as her "good genius" (107). She is pathetically beholden to her for her disclosures about Mirabell and begs her to stay with her and advice her when Fainall shows his fangs in the last act. Mrs. Fainall recognises her for what she is - "a leech, to suck your best blood; shell drop off when she's full." (107). Mrs. Fainall is justified in seeing the opportunist in Marwood. She is an arch game player and her real motivation lies in her desire to dissuade any contact between Millamant and Mirabell, the object of her desire. It is her idea to initiate a match between Millamant and Sir Wilfull. In her pretended prudishness and her venomous nature she is reminiscent of Arsinoe. Like her, Marwood too is a little past the age for coquetry and lacks the grace to carry off her roles, ending up a loser in the game of love and life. She comes off much the worse in her exchange with Millamant. Millamant, enjoying the power of her youth and beauty, dares to imply that Marwood is a "decayed beauty" and a "discarded toast" (63).

Indeed, Marwood is one character in The Way of the World who has neither the sympathetic handling nor the lightness of touch that sets Congreve apart from his contemporaries. She has a heavy vehemence and spitefulness that renders her quite unlikable. Totally lacking sincerity, she switches from role to role. She is false in every way - her only true passion seems to be her penchant for Mirabell. This arch-dissembler has been caught red-handed in her surreptitious affair with Fainall and tries to force the silence of the maids who discovered them in the blue garret - the venue reeks of the unsavoury, as does the nature of the affair. Still, her loss of youth is, perhaps, even more pathetic than Lady Wishfort's. 195

The Marwood-Fainall affair can be summed up as a "play", an enactment utterly insincere but convenient to both at the given time, in the given circumstances. Marwood carries on an affair with Fainall while simultaneously trying to win Mirabell's attentions. Fainall makes use of both her and his wife's fortunes for his pleasure and schemes to acquire much more.

It is ironic that Marwood, that wearer of masks, is also the prime remover of others' masks. It is she who uncovers Mirabell's ploy of winning Lady Wishfort's good opinion to further his courtship of Millamant, it is she who overhears the crucial conversation between Foible and Mrs. Fainall and uncovers both her earlier affair with Mirabell and Waitwell's impersonation of the mythical Sir Rowland. Ultimately, her own hypocritical role as friend and well-wisher to Lady Wishfort's household is exposed to reveal the unscrupulous and conniving woman beneath. She is the typical character of intrigue comedy, eternally and tirelessly playing games.

From Marwood it is a far cry to Sir Wilfull. It is Sir WilfuU's remark that focuses attention on the "playness" of the play. At another moment he confesses that he is "in disguise", referring to his intoxicated state. As a matter of fact. Sir Wilfull is presented as a country squire - "all substance and no manner''^^ - all essence and no false role playing. He knows nothing of the town mannerisms that have spoiled his brother. He is about to set off on a European tour to learn the manners of the world and to broaden his horizon: it is sincerely to be hoped that "this flower of knighthood" (78) will not return a Fopling Flutter. Congreve presents a very human figure of a country squire who is content with his own life style. "The fashion's a fool", he says, contradicting his half-brother's new priorities. He is droll in his confusion when his own brother pretends not to recognize him, warm in his censure of his brother's uncaring

55 Holland, The First Modem Comedies 191. 1% forgetfulness, disarmingly simple in his reaction to his sophisticated cousin, unable to understand or respond to her literary quotations and superfine wit.

Millamant quotes "Natural, easy Suckling!" Sir WilfuU's reaction is hilarious outrage: "Anan? Suckling; no such suckling neither, cousin, nor stripling: I thank Heaven, I'm no minor." (57). Raillery is lost on him and a command to pay his addresses to his fine cousin so petrifies him that he is soon found comically "in disguise." (78).

Despite his unwillingness to play the role of the would-be wit, Sir Wilfull does play a significant role in the play. At first he is hastily recruited as a player in the "play" master-minded by Marwood. He is to marry Millamant and make the young heiress inaccessible to Mirabell. Having thus taken revenge on Mirabell, Marwood would then enjoy, with Fainall, the fortune wrested from Mrs. Fainall. Although least willing, Wilfull is coerced into assuming the role of suitor and is thrust into Millamant's room and the door locked to prevent his escape. Millamant, out of humour, does not allow him to pay his addresses but, together with Mirabell, persuades him to play another role - that of accepted suitor. Though Millamant thinks of him uncharitably as "a superannuated lubber" (89), he is good natured enough to want to help the lovers. Also, it releases him from the necessity of playing the part of suitor to Millamant, a part uncongenial to him and beyond his capacity as an actor. So it is that Sir Wilfull convinces Lady Wishfort of Millamant's tractability and respect for her by announcing their contract.

We learn later that it was but a ploy to forward the lovers' design. Sir Wilfull shows good humour in his actions, Mirabell shows wit. Sir Wilfull is perhaps the only character in Restoration comedy who cannot be classified as a Wit but is still shown sympathy by the playwright. That Mirabell and Millamant too can appreciate his genuine good qualities is one more reason to applaud the deepening 197 and extension of Restoration values which it was the special greatness of Congreve to have created. Mirabell quite correctly says "He is my friend" (121), thus giving Wilfull a status higher than that granted Witwoud and Petulant. It speaks well of the lovers that they are able to cut across the whole elaborate scale of social values to see that he is an honest man and that this is more important than the superficial social gloss that is sometimes the only achievement of the Witwouds.

Petulant and Witwoud both belong to the general category of Witwouds - lower than the Wits in the near-Hindu caste system^^ of the Restoration period. They display the excruciatingly painful attempt to be witty. MILLAMANT. Dear Mr. Witwoud, truce with your similitudes; for I'm sick of 'em - WITWOUD. As a physician of a good air. I cannot help it, madam, though 'tis against myself. MILLAMANT. Yet, again! Mincing, stand between me and his wit. WITWOUD. Do, Mrs. Mincing, like a screen before a great fire. I confess I do blaze today, I am too bright. (44).

Witwoud's wit is a mask through which, however, his dullness is perceptible. Mirabell points out that Witwoud is so keen to project the image of a man who understands raillery that he even accepts an insult as a jest and can call "downright rudeness and ill language satire and fire" (20). The Witwouds are involved in constant role playing but emerge as targets of jokes and mockery. It is their aim to achieve the poise of the Wit, or at least to muster up as good an imitation of it as they can. What extents they can go to in order to project a smart image is exemplified by Petulant in Act I. We learn that Petulant has hired three bawds to pose as gentlewomen and

56 Donald Bruce, Topics of Restoration Comedy (London: Victor Gollancz, 1974) 60. 198

come and enquire for him at the chocolate house. Also, sometimes he leaves the place, disguises himself, and comes back to ask for himself. The role he fancies is clearly that of the popular man about town and towards the accomplishment of this he is willing to play several parts if need be. The extent of his involvement in role playing becomes evident when he decides to refuse to meet with the "gentlewomen" because, he says, he is plagued with the constant onslaught of visitors.

Petulant is part of the group of admirers who trail Millamant. He even proposes to her, after his own fashion. "Look you, Mrs. Millamant, if you can love me, dear nymph, say it, and that's the conclusion. Pass on or pass off; that's all." (90). This strange and off­ hand statement is almost like one of Millamant's perversities - when she tells Foible to send Mirabell away or send him to her or when she tells Wilfull that she hates the country but hates the town too. However, there is one major difference to be noticed. Petulant is affecting what he considers a sophisticated stance while Millamant consciously plays fickle. In Congreve's book there is a great deal of difference between the two. Affectation, which is semi-conscious, is criticized but the deliberate playing of roles came to be understood as necessary and a gracefully enacted performance considered laudable. There is a greater degree of consciousness and shrewdness involved in role playing than in affectation. Only a wit like Millamant can manage to perpetrate a role she knows to be attractive to the milieu (or frustrating to Mirabell) while simultaneously being quite conscious of its fatuousness. Millamant's role ensures her a place in society while her greater awareness raises her above that society. The play makes a powerful and informed case for the adoption of purposeful role playing and the rejection of semi-conscious affectation by mocking the witwouds and valorizing the hero and heroine.

200 husband and wife at length in the proviso scene. Appearance, according to the understanding of the Restoration age, not only is but even ought to be different from the actuality within. Indeed, "the way of the world", it would seem, involves an acknowledgement that even husband and wife may be unknown quantities to each other: neither Mr. Fainall nor Mrs. Fainall are aware of each other's real natures. Mirabell is able to win against Fainall because, it would seem, he has a greater sense of the difference between appearance and reality: he suspected that Fainall's suave social mask might conceal a devious core and therefore took the precaution of taking Mrs. Fainall's property under his management.

In spite of this intellectual energy underlying the action of the play (or, perhaps, because of it) The Way of the World failed in box office terms. Robert Markley suggests that Congreve's audience was probably disoriented by his use of the style of wit comedy for the creation of "a morally serious brand of comedy".^^ Gamini Salgado calls the play "the most serious (with the seriousness appropriate to comedy) in its investigation of the relationship between passion and society, the turbulent surging of emotion and the restraining disciplines of marriage".^^ After Collier's stinging attack on Restoration theatre Congreve may have modified his stance in an effort to garner a larger audience for his play. However, the opposite happened. The afficianadoesj>i wit comedy resented the intrusion of seriousness while the Collier faction still did not find enough of it. Actually it is clear that Collier basically hated the theatre per se rather than contemporary comedy in particular. Similarly, L.C. Knights reveals his basic contempt (while describing the emptiness of Millamant's life which makes her "overvalue" the pleasures of the chase) for the aristocratic way of life depicted in the plays. He points

5« Markley, Two-Edg'd Weapons 250

59 Gamini Salgado, English Drama: A Critical Introduction (London: Edward Arnold, 1980) 158. 201 to the depiction of "merely" "the public surface" as the play's fault/>" In actuality, however, Congreve has given us a brilliant picture of a society, each member of which is engaged in multiple roles. He has shown the public and private faces of his main characters. Above all he has analyzed the use of the mask and demonstrated his new and mature conclusion that role taking and game playing can be legitimate and powerful tools in maintaining satisfactory participation in society as well as defining successful personal relationships.

While the general statement of Restoration comedy indicates that masks, disguises, roles and games are intrinsic to society and integral to human nature and thus are to be wholeheartedly condoned, it is Congreve alone who goes the extra mile to establish a definitely positive kind of role playing. Mirabell and Millamant's decision, in the proviso scene, to continue social role playing in public specifically in order to erect barriers that will preserve the true nature of their relationship in privacy constitutes a major statement in support of positive role playing.

60 L.C. Knights, "Restoration Comedy: The Reality and the Myth", Scrutiny VI (1937): 138-40.