International Journal of Research p-I SSN: 2348-6848 e-I SSN: 2348-795X Available at https://edupediapublications.org/journals Vol ume 04 I s s ue 02 Februa ry 2017
Re-reading The Way of The World With Its Contemporary Relevance Dr. Samadhan S. Manea Ms. Heena Chelakodanb
a Assistant Professor, Dept of English, K.B.P. College Vashi, Navi Mumbai, MS, India b Student, TYBA, Dept of English, K.B.P. College Vashi, Navi Mumbai, MS, India
Abstract portrayed in several ways, for example, when Waitwell disguises The present research focuses on the himself as Sir Rowland, in Fainall’s study of the people and scenario of affair with Mrs Marwood and in the Restoration Era and how the Mirabell’s attempt to trick Lady contemporary society is very much Wishfort into allowing him to marry similar to the drama under study, Millamant. Congreve presents us The Way of the World by William with a world where morals values Congreve. Congreve’s Comedy of and principles are exchanged for Manners takes the fashionable or prestige and wealth. In addition, the conventional social behavior of the deceit is practiced by all characters time as the principle subject of satire. make this play incredibly comic. Conflicts that arise between and Apart from the presentation of among characters are prompted by incidental wit, Restoration comedy affected and artificial social mores, has two main interests: the behavior especially with respect to of the polite society and of relationships between the sexes. The pretenders to polite society, and drama shows the various characters, particular aspects of sexual how they act in the society and what relationships, which is, to some or their true colors are. There is not more extent seen in our only one but many characters in the contemporary society. drama that has a vivid personality and which can also be found in our Keywords: Deception, infidelity, restoration contemporary society. Deception is comedy, contemporary society.
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International Journal of Research p-I SSN: 2348-6848 e-I SSN: 2348-795X Available at https://edupediapublications.org/journals Vol ume 04 I s s ue 02 Februa ry 2017
Introduction scorns his wife and is having an adulterous relationship with the best friend of his wife. The side-splitting play The way of the World is known as a comedy of manners This conflict between appearance and reality precisely. Any comedy of manners takes as exposes the way in which Congreve is its basis the social shibboleth and etiquette satirizing the society and how this society of its day and then uses that as the basis of was based on the importance of maintaining satire. This is particularly true in the way in an outer veneer of wit and sophistication, no which such texts depict relationships matter how questionable the reality was between men and women in real life. This is underneath that veneer. Congreve indeed why this text concerns social hoax so uses this play to hold a mirror up to his own greatly. In this play, we are presented with a society and to find it wanting. world in which society forces women to Restoration literature deceive and act coyly in the merry dance of courtship and couples deceive each other in Restoration Literature is the English their marriage and even friends deceive each literature written during the historical period other. Marriage is shown to be more about commonly referred to as the English wealth and convenience than true love. Restoration (1660–1689), which corresponds to the last years of the Congreve presents us with a world therefore direct Stuart reign in England, where moral values and principles are Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. In general, the reciprocated for prestige and wealth. In term is used to denote roughly homogeneous addition, the deceit that is practiced by all styles of literature that center on a characters makes this play incredibly comic. celebration of or reaction to the restored In this play, the words that characters speak court of Charles II. It is a literature that and the way that they act to each other are includes extremes, for it encompasses almost never a reflection of what they really both Paradise Lost and the Earl of believe. Consider Fainall as an example, Rochester's Sodom, the high-spirited sexual who, if we look at appearances alone, we comedy of The Country Wife and the moral would imagine to be incredibly happy in his wisdom of The Pilgrim's Progress. It marriage. Reality however shows us that he
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International Journal of Research p-I SSN: 2348-6848 e-I SSN: 2348-795X Available at https://edupediapublications.org/journals Vol ume 04 I s s ue 02 Februa ry 2017 saw Locke's Treatises of Government, the laughable. The poetry of the courtly life of founding of the Royal Society, the the Restoration is summed up in the duet experiments and holy meditations of Robert between these two brilliant lovers, Mirabell Boyle, the hysterical attacks on theaters and Millamant. from Jeremy Collier, and the pioneering Wit of literary criticism from John
Dryden and John Dennis. The period The Way of the World is carried forward by witnessed news becomes a commodity, the witty speeches of the characters rather the essay developed into a periodical art than by dramatic reversals. The play is all of form, and the beginnings of textual one piece, a world of wit and pleasure criticism. inhabited only by persons of quality and “deformed neither by realism nor by farce.” Restoration Comedy The plot is confusing but almost irrelevant, The restoration comedy was critical comedy, and the situations exist really only for the bringing “the sword of common sense” to conversation. Although Congreve seems bear upon the extravagances of the period. almost above such concerns as careful Congreve’s works are perhaps as close to plotting, he is surprisingly artful in some of those of Molière as the English theater ever his stage effects. By delaying the entrance of came; his plays brought an ironic scrutiny to Millamant until the second act, he arouses the affectations of his age, with a style and a intense anticipation in the audience. The perfection of phrase that still dazzle fifth act, crowded as it is with activity, flows audiences. He has been called the wittiest with continual surprises. man who ever wrote the English language in Some critics have held that The Way of the the theater; certainly, his characters speak World is marred by the artificial some of the wittiest dialogue. Without contrivances of the plot, but most audiences question, The Way of the World introduced pay no attention to the complications, a new standard of wit and polish to the relishing instead the characters and the theater. In Millamant, Congreve created one dialogue. The design of the play is to of the great characters of English drama, a ridicule affected, or false, wit. Possibly, the comic heroine at once lovable and
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International Journal of Research p-I SSN: 2348-6848 e-I SSN: 2348-795X Available at https://edupediapublications.org/journals Vol ume 04 I s s ue 02 Februa ry 2017 play’s original lukewarm reception was a Way of the World, particularly in the battle result of its coming too close to the faults of of the sexes. Congreve could not view love the courtly audience to be wholly agreeable merely as a gratification of lust, as some of to them. The dialogue is, also, closely the Restoration playwrights seemed to think woven, and the repartee demands such close of it. attention that it might have exhausted its Characters listeners. The Way of the World is now one of the most frequently revived and enjoyed The characters in The Way of the World are of all of the Restoration comedies. among the best drawn in any Restoration comedy, or perhaps in any play of the Apart from the presentation of incidental period, comic or tragic. The protagonist of wit, Restoration comedy had two main the play, Edward Mirabell is a fashionable, interests: the behavior of polite society and intellectual, and clever man-about-town, of feigners to polite society, and particular popular with the ladies. He was Mrs. aspects of sexual relationships. The wit Fainall’s lover before her marriage to Fainall varied from a hard, metallic kind that and has broken his fair share of hearts seemed to exist for its own sake, with no usually unintentionally by not returning the relation to anything, to subtle satire. sentiments of every woman who fancies Occasionally, even Congreve falls into a him. Now in love with Millamant, he’s pattern of easy antitheses, monotonously ready to develop a mature and monogamous repeated until the sting of surprise is lost. relationship. Though he wants to get His wit is never as blunt or as ruthless as married, he finds himself on the bad side of that of William Wycherley. Considered quite a number of other characters who fairly outspoken for many generations, the concoct plans of their own to ruin his comedy seems primarily to consist of chances at doing so, particularly Lady titillation, to suggest more than it delivers. Wishfort and the adulterous However, the best of the Restoration couple Fainall and Mrs. Marwood. playwrights, such as Congreve, did not rely However, he does have a number of loyal entirely on titillation to get their laughs. followers ready to assist him in his plan to There is also much feeling present in The
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International Journal of Research p-I SSN: 2348-6848 e-I SSN: 2348-795X Available at https://edupediapublications.org/journals Vol ume 04 I s s ue 02 Februa ry 2017 win Millamant, save her dowry, and defeat husband of Lady Wishfort’s daughter, Mrs. Fainall. Arabella Fainall. A kept man, he hates his rich wife and is having an affair with his Spoiled, beautiful, and rich Millamant could wife’s friend, Mrs. Marwood. Together, he have any man she wants and knows it too. and Marwood have developed a plan to She is very fashionable and popular in cheat Millamant out of her dowry, Arabella London. Though she can seem cruel and out of her property, and Lady Wishfort out uncaring towards Mirabell, she does love of her entire fortune. As the play goes on, it him but is very guarded with her emotions. becomes clear that Fainall’s hot-tempered She is very independent and loves poetry. personality is not compatible with effective Before she gets engaged, she enjoys keeping scheming. Susceptible to intense jealousy, Mirabell on his toes and tries to make him Fainall believes (correctly) that Marwood jealous by spending time with the loves Mirabell and is unable to hide his fools, Witwoud and Petulant, even though anger. Once, he even lashes out at his lover, she isn’t romantically interested in them. who almost reveals their affair to all their She mainly supports her aunt Wishfort in all friends. However, he curbs his temper and things and doesn’t initially offer much expends more energy into ruining Mirabell. resistance to her aunt’s proposition to marry Fainall hides his dislike of his wife but many her off to first Sir Rowland and then her people around him suspect that their cousin, Sir Wilfull, in order to thwart marriage is a sham and that he is having an Mirabell. When she does agree to marry affair with Marwood. Mirabell is one such Mirabell, she sets multiple conditions to doubter. By the end of the play, when it is assert her continued independence within clear that Mirabell has triumphed, Fainall the marriage, which Mirabell, after setting unleashes all his rage on his wife, some conditions of his own, readily accepts. threatening her with physical harm.
The antagonist of the play, Fainall is a Fainall’s lover and Lady Wishfort’s best sneaky, insecure, and traitorous fellow with friend, Marwood is cunning and a not so good reputation around town— manipulative. Likely in love with Mirabell, basically, he has all the negative qualities who doesn’t love her, she is able to convince that Mirabell does not. He is the second
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International Journal of Research p-I SSN: 2348-6848 e-I SSN: 2348-795X Available at https://edupediapublications.org/journals Vol ume 04 I s s ue 02 Februa ry 2017
Fainall that she only loves him, while his plan, though she does encourage Sir making him feel incredibly guilty for Wilfull to propose to her cousin, Millamant, doubting her. Marwood is an adept liar, and is noticeably less patient with Millamant particularly around her female friends, Mrs. as the play develops. Mrs. Fainall hates her Fainall and Lady Wishfort. But even despite husband immensely but doesn’t learn about having a questionable moral compass, his affair until Foible reveals it to her. She Marwood also gives very candid advice to distrusts Marwood and suspects that she’s in those who would rather follow fashion love with Mirabell, too. trends at the expense of following their A wealthy, old widow, mother to Arabella hearts. In particular, she Fainall, and aunt to Millamant, Witwoud, advises Millamant to stop pretending to be and Sir Wilfull, Lady Wishfort is a vain and interested in other men and Witwoud to silly woman who tries to act younger than acknowledge his step-brother Wilfull, rather she actually is. As a result, she comes off as than treat him like a stranger. quite foolish and annoying. Lady Wishfort is Known as Mrs. Fainall through much of the eager to remarry and quickly falls in love play, Arabella Fainall is Lady Wishfort’s with Sir Rowland. She wears a lot of daughter and Millamant, Witwoud, and Sir makeup to hide her wrinkles, which calls Wilfull’s cousin. She was once married to a attention to her age. Though throughout rich man named Languish who died and left much of the play, she claims to her his fortune. While a widow, she began hate Mirabell and seeks revenge against him an affair with Mirabell. They ended the for pretending to flirt with her, her hatred is affair before she got married to Fainall and really fueled by her unrequited love. She is remained close friends. Mirabell trusts and the leader of “cabal-night,” a club that admires the steady and clear-thinking Mrs. consists of mostly women who gather at her Fainall immensely and tells her every detail house to gossip about how much they hate of his plan. Mrs. Fainall esteems Mirabell in men, particularly Mirabell. Easily fooled, the same way and still seems to have she trusts the opinion of her best feelings for him. However, she never reveals friend Marwood, who is betraying that she still loves Mirabell and doesn’t ruin her. Foible, her lady-in-waiting, is actually
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International Journal of Research p-I SSN: 2348-6848 e-I SSN: 2348-795X Available at https://edupediapublications.org/journals Vol ume 04 I s s ue 02 Februa ry 2017 working for Mirabell. As matriarch, she is in the World. The lovely and intelligent charge of arranging her niece’s marriage and Millamant herself expresses her belief in the protecting her dowry until she gets married. necessity for a period devoted to such This role, of course, is threatened by Fainall, pursuit if a woman is to attract and to keep who she later claims is not the man she her lover. By playing hard to get, a woman wanted her daughter to remarry. Besides proves her eventual worth. Congreve takes Mirabel and Millamant, one of the most these conventional attitudes and fabricates perfect pairs of lovers in any comedy, the his comedy from them, weaving a play boasts a parade of such personalities as complicated and fascinating satire that Foible, Witwoud, Petulant, and particularly continues to delight audiences and readers Lady Wishfort, who approaches the tragic in after two centuries. In the male-dominated, her desperate attempt to preserve her youth. patriarchal society of Congreve's time, a No character in the play, not even Fainall, woman was little more than property in a fails to surprise the audience with witty marriage transaction. Her dowry (money, observations. In The Way of the World, property, and estate) was relinquished to her Congreve penetrates deeper than any of his husband at marriage and she became, by contemporaries into the mysteries of human law, his chattel, which very much prevalent nature; he possesses more feeling for the to the our contemporary middle class . In the individual and is subtler in his treatment of upper classes, women had little voice in human idiosyncrasies. their own fate, and marriages were usually arranged according to social status, size of Adultery, Dowry and Marriage fortune, and family name. In the play,
The Way of the World reflects attitudes Millamant's dowry is at the center of the concerning sexuality that prevailed for struggle that pits Mirabell, her true lover, centuries; above all, the play suggests, the against Fainall and Mrs. Marwood, the two most fascinating aspect of sexual relations is adulterers plotting to gain control of that of the chase. The pursuit, usually of the Millamant's fortune as well as Fainall's male for the female, although sometimes wife's. Cunningly, Mrs. Fainall has had a reversed, dominates Restoration comedy and large part of her estate signed over in trust is both glorified and satirized in The Way of
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International Journal of Research p-I SSN: 2348-6848 e-I SSN: 2348-795X Available at https://edupediapublications.org/journals Vol ume 04 I s s ue 02 Februa ry 2017 before her marriage to prevent her husband (which includes the plot of having Waitwell from acquiring it. pretend to be his uncle).
While marriages are important economic contracts, they are also convenient vehicles Dishonesty is rampant and it is the means by for protecting social reputations. Mrs. which the plot functions. It is not until the Fainall has made such a marriage, which is final sections of the last act that this socially acceptable and even expected, as dishonesty is balanced by traditional long as the pretense of civility is maintained. morality and by the call to have no However, getting caught in an adulterous falsehood in marriage. relationship puts both reputation and fortune at risk. Hence, when the relationship Infidelity between Fainall and Mrs. Marwood is Unfaithfulness in marriage is a core strand discovered, the two become social outcasts. to this work as several of the main Fainall has staked his reputation on a plot to characters are seen to either be in adulterous disinherit his wife. As punishment, he will relationships in the present or have been in have to bear the humiliating exposure, the past, or are pretending to be in one now continu ing to live with his wife and depend (as with Waitwell in his disguise as Sir on her for his livelihood. Mrs. Marwood's Rowland). The comedy of the play depends reputation is ruined, her future hopes on these deceptions and on the ignorance of destroyed. Congreve's intent is to reflect the the cuckold. This theme is also intrinsic to a way of the world in... play such as this, which questions the piety Deception of the marriage vows and offers instead a bawdy discourse on marriage, adultery and Deception is portrayed in several ways, and love. comes, for example, when Waitwell disguises himself as Sir Rowland, in Marriage Fainall’s affair with Mrs Marwood and in Marriages are central thematic concerns as Mirabell’s attempt to trick Lady Wishfort Mirabell’s machinations are fuelled by his into allowing him to marry Millamant desire to marry Millamant, and Fainall uses
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International Journal of Research p-I SSN: 2348-6848 e-I SSN: 2348-795X Available at https://edupediapublications.org/journals Vol ume 04 I s s ue 02 Februa ry 2017 his marriage to try to extract money from his hardly ever what one really thinks or means. mother-in-law, Lady Wishfort. The state of To judge by appearances, for example, no marriage is depicted as simultaneously one could be happier in his marriage than desirable, and yet to be avoided as a trap Fainall, who in reality disdains his wife and should be. These aspects of marriage are is carrying on an adulterous affair with his used to comic effect, but the play ends wife's close friend. Congreve intimates that, finally with a warning against falsehood in in fashionable society at the turn of the the marriage bed and so reminds the readers eighteenth century, it is crucial to preserve and the audience that it is dishonesty in the outer trappings of beauty, wit, and marriage rather than marriage that has been sophistication no matter how egregious one's questioned here. actions and words might prove.
Social Convention Conclusion
Congreve's ‘‘comedy of manners’’ takes the In the play we find the characters which are fashionable or conventional social behavior very much similar to our contemporary of the time as the principle subject of satire. world. Actually the characters are Conflicts that arise between and among comparatively better than our post modern characters are prompted by affected and era. We find more trickery, cheating in this artificial social mores, especially with era. There is only love for money and vice respect to relationships between the sexes. versa. Friends and family cheat each other; Social pretenses and plot complications there are showy relations, failure of abound in The Way of the World. Women marriages. People are no more loyal to each are compelled to act coyly and to dissemble other. The rakehell people are praised and in courtship; couples deceive one another in seen as heroes. No virtues and morals are marriage; friends are double-dealing, and anymore given importance. People with conquests have more to do with dowries and power and money are the true and right convenience than love. All moral principle ones. In the restoration era at least the is risked for the sake of reputation and hypocrites acted to follow the morals but money. However, what makes the action this era rarely follows the morals. The comic is the subterfuge. What one says is pompous upper class does show good
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International Journal of Research p-I SSN: 2348-6848 e-I SSN: 2348-795X Available at https://edupediapublications.org/journals Vol ume 04 I s s ue 02 Februa ry 2017 manners but all their follies show their true nature. Only the middle class seems to follow the virtues and the morals but again they try to act like the showy elite class, come up to their level and sometimes give up on their morals in order to earn money.
Works cited
Congreve, William (1700) The Way of the
World. Courier Corporation: Bloomberg
Erskine-Hill, Howard & Alexander Lindsay Ed. (2012) William Congreve: The
Critical Heritage. Routledge: New Delhi
McKenzie, Donald (2011) The Works of William Congreve, Vol 3. OUP: Oxford http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guide s8/Wayof.html http://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-way-of-the- world http://faculty.goucher.edu/eng211/william_c ongreve.htm
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