EXAMINING THE RESTORATION COMEDY OF ENGLISH DRAMA

Biography of William Congreve

Thomas Shadwell (1642 – 1644), Mrs. Aphra Behn (1640 – 1689), the first English woman playwright, Sir George Etherege (1678 – 1691), William Wycherley (1640 – 1716), Sir John Vanbrugh (1664 – 1726), George Farquhar (1678 – 1707), and John Dryden (1631 – 1700) are notable Restoration comic playwrights, but William Congreve (1670 – 1729) “usually takes pride of place as the greatest of the authors of Restoration Comedy” (Vargas 131 – 132). He is selected for discussion because his play, The Way of the World is regarded by many critics as “the apotheosis of the Restoration manners comedy” (Downer, 213).

Born on January 19, 1670 at Bardsey, West Yorkshire, William Congreve attended Trinity College and upon graduation; he enrolled in law at Middle Temple. After matriculation he got attracted to literature. He was a disciple of John Dryden and a friend to Jonathan Swift whom he met in Ireland where his father lived as a cavalier.

He wrote plays between 1693 and 1700. His career in theatre was short-lived because the puritan critics made sexual comedy highly unacceptable. Collier’s “A short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage” was a major stumbling block that turned his mind away from writing for the stage to politics and the writing of poems. Congreve never married but he had a daughter from a noble woman, Henrretta Godolphin. In 1728, he sustained an internal injury in a carriage accident. In 1729, he died and was buried in poets’ corner’ in Westminster Abbey, London. His short but brilliant theatrical adventure yielded five plays to the theatre repertory. The plays are as follows:

• The Old Bachelor – 1693
• The Double Dealer – 1693
• Love for Love – 1695
• The Mourning Bride (Tragedy) – 1697
• The Way of the World – 1700.

A Study of The Way of the World

Congreve’s The Way of the World reflects a society in transition. It paints a picture of moral decadence that characterised the court of King charles II of England, as well as charts a course for a new tight moral forthrightness that blossomed fully in the 18th century.

Synopsis

The play is written in five acts. In Act I, Mirabell and Mr. Fainall are engaged in aristocratic past time of card playing, which Mirabell does nonchalantly because Millamant a woman he bleeds for disappointed him the previous night. From Fainall it is gathered that Mirabell’s problem is caused by Lady Wishfort Millamant’s guardian who has a longing desire for Mirable. Though the rakish Fainall pretends to love Mirabell, he does not want him to succeed in his quest to marry Millamant. This is to ward him off from sharing the wealth of the Wishforts. His wife is lady Wishfort’s daughter and he wants to be the only custodian of their estate. To worsen Mirabell’s condition, Witwoud, a follower of Mrs. Millamant hints that Mirabell’s rich uncle who is rumourd to be in town has an eye for Millament. Meanwhile, Mirabell has arranged a marriage between his servant, Waitwell and Lady Wishfort’s maid, Foible. He hopes to get lady Wishort do his wish through this relationship.

Act II starts with Mrs. Fainall and Mrs Marwood’s gossip about their hatred for men. Mrs. Fainall advocates extreme feminst position of shunning men completely. Although Mrs. Marwood pretends to hate men, she does not share Mrs. Fainall’s extreme stance. According to her:

True, it is an unhappy circumstance of life that love should ever die before us; and that the man so often should outlive the lover. But say what you will, it is better to be left than never to have been loved… for my part, my youth may wear and waster, but it shall never rust in my possession.

Also, Mrs. Fainall says that her current tendency to “love without bounds” is because she is married to a sham man, a match which Mirabell helped to make when his affair with Mrs. Fainall after losing her first husband resulted in pregnancy. Mirabell and Millamant meet face to face but Millamant taunts him and leaves him all the more longing. Mirabell explains his feeling thus:

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.

Having been financially rewarded by Mirabell, Foible agrees to convince her mistress that Mirabell’s uncle, Sir Rowland who has just arrived in town sees, her picture and is burning to wed her without delay. Meanwhile, Waitwell Mr. Mirabell’s servant has been positioned to act as Rowaland.

In Act III, Lady Wishfort talks about her hatred for Mirabell. Foible uses the opportunity to tell her how badly Mirabell spoke of her. The aim is to cause her to hate Mirabell violently and to accept to marry his uncle without delay. Foible is able to get her mistress excited about Sir Rowland.

Act IV shows Lady Wishfort in high-spirit, eagerly awaiting the arrival of Sir Rowland. She tells Foible to get sir Willful Witwoud her nephew who has just arrived in town to woo Millamant, but instead of doing so, Foible tells Millamant about Mirabell’s urgent need to see her and convinces her to see him. Meanwhile, Mrs. Fainall locks Sir Witwoud and Millamant in a room for him to propose marriage to Millamant; but Witwoud who is heavily drunk begins to talk nonsense. He can only request Millamant for a walk, an idea she rejects.

This is followed by the proviso scene where Mirabell and Millamant state their conditions for consenting to marry each other. They seal their plan with a kiss. Furthermore, Waitwell as Sir Rowland is in Lady Wishfort’s house for the marriage business. In a dissembling tone of urgency, he tells lady Wishfort:

My impatience, madam, is the effect for my transport; and until I have the possession of your adorable person, I am tantalised on a rack, and do hang madam, on the tenter of expectation.

As the marriage is about to take place, a letter comes to reveal the odious marriage game. But Foible tells lady Wishfort that the letter is a dubious plan by Mirabell to disrupt the marriage. Rowland (Waitwell) supports Foible and promises to show her Mirabell’s letter in order to prove that he is the author of the letter.

However, in Act V, the blackmail plays up and lady Wishfort is terribly angry especially against her own daughter Mrs. Fainall for being part of an effort to deface her publicly. She wants Foible to disappear from her house without delay. In the heat of all this, Mr. Fainall comes to place claims for the entire estate and other things.

However, through Sir Wilful’s assistance Mirable comes to apologise for the blackmail. Wilfull rescinds his plan to marry Millamant and surrenders her to Mirabell. Lady Wishfort is grateful. When Fainall insists on having his way, Foible and Mincing reveal his amorous encounter with Mrs. Marwood, while Mirabell proves with a deed that Mrs. Fainall gave him her estate in trust before getting married to him. Mr. Fainall is devasted; but to ensure a reunion of Fainall and his wife, Mirabell restores the deed of trust to Mrs. Fainall.

Critical Analysis

The Way of the World presents two worlds, the first is a world in outer darkness, characterised by sexual perfidy, deceit, and all kinds of Machiavellian stratagems of wealth acquisition, without labour. The second world is a world groping for light, earnestly yearning for trust in a world that is bereft of it. Activities in the two worlds are carried out within the context of love, marriage, and sexual intrigue.

In the first world of hypocrisy, drinking, gambling, gossiping, hatred, and sexual manipulation, we find characters like Mr. Fainall and his wife, Witwoud, Petulant, Foible, Waitwell, Mrs. Marwood, Mincing and Lady Wishfort. These characters dissemble, presenting an appearance that is quite antipodal to their nature. Charles Lamb’s attack on the Restoration characters best describes this set of characters. Of such immoral personalities, Lamb (1973) notes:

When we are among them, we are amongst a chaotic people. We are not to judge them by our usages. No reverend institutions are insulted by their proceedings for they have none. No peace of families is violated for no family ties exist among them. No purity of the marriage bed is stained for none is supposed to have a being. No deep affections are disquieted – no holy wedlock bands are snapped asunder – for affection’s depth and wedded faith are not of the growth of that soil.

The above statement indicates that the characters that inhabit the first world of the play are morally vicious and deplorable. Mr. Fainall and Mrs. Marwood, for example, are manipulative and unreliable. Fainall pretends to be Mirabell’s friend, but he works behind to frustrate Mirabell’s effort to marry Millamant. He does not want Mirabell to share the Wishfort’s estate with him. Both Fainall and Mrs. Marwood, according to Bryson, are “entirely disrespectful to the conservative moral and social tastes. Mrs. Marwood pretends to hate men and claims that the only reason she will marry preferably Mirabell, is to put him “upon the rack of fear and jealousy” for being “insufferably proud”. She pretends to be lady Wishfort’s trusted friend, but she works assiduously to help Fainall to realise his plan of taking away her estate.