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Teachers' Resource Web Study Questions on William Congreve The Way
of the World Questions and Approaches 1. "Finis Coronat" Leech says Congreve gave to a dying age concerned with sex relations the satisfying expression it had been fumbling for in Mirabell and Millamant. Hume sees the ubiquitous tendency to view The Way of the World (WW hereafter) as the culmination of Restoration comedy as well as marking its collapse and the onset of sentimentalism as a pernicious view which ignores the slowness of transition. Also, to see the play as the quintessence of Restoration comedy is "pernicious" because it forces one to focus only on a few comedies--the canon. Philip Roberts (William Congreve, ed. Brian Morris) says that rather than a culmination of Restoration comedy, WW explodes its norms and focuses on a new kind of ideal gentleman in contrast with Horner and Dorimant. Smith and Krutch see WW as Congreve's answer to Collier's attack and the resulting sentimental drama encroaching the stage. Hume sees Congreve in WW as responding to Collier in the design of the play, as seeking to construct a serious comedy in the old mode which yet remained beyond moral reproach. Mirabell and Millamant show a sensibility of the coming age, says Fujimura: Mirabell is a reformed libertine, sententious and sober; Millamant is a true wit but has developed a heart. Cleanth Brooks (Understanding Drama) says the elimination of all traces of sentimentality is one of the striking achievements of WW. 2. Characterization Mirabell Aubrey Williams sees Mirabell as the focus of WW; he is not Machiavellian but confesses and seeks forgiveness. Meuschke says Mirabell is the moral norm; he must suffer for his previous adultery before he is rewarded with a rich virgin. Smith says Mirabell is constant to Millamant out of love, not idealism--he can't help himself. John Wain says Mirabell is a cad. Millamant Dobree says Millamant is the great creation of the play. Perry says Millamant is Congreve's most perfect creation and the epitome of expressing personal feelings under the mask of polished repartée. Lynch says Millamant is the "jewel" of WW and that behind her affectation is a pleading to Mirabell to accept her love without the shame of her having to confess it. Muir sees Millamant as a "sensitive girl in an insensitive society." Fujimura says Millamant's "wit is a shield she holds up against the world." She has a real capacity for deep feeling. In Mirabell judgment predominates, while in Millamant fancy holds sway. L.C. Knights views Millamant as "never enlivened by the play of genuine intelligence," while George Meredith says she is the "type of superior ladies who do not think." Other Views Birdsall says Mirabell and Millamant are the complete lady gentleman and lady, Millamant being the real master of the revels. Philip Roberts says Mirabell and Millamant are the ethical yardsticks for WW. Norman Holland says Lady Wishfort towers over the play. 3. Language Brooks say that in WW--in which speech, manner, and attitudes are more important than plot--talk becomes a very important kind of action. Norman Holland say that each character's diction and style brilliantly distinguish his or her individuality, though you cannot easily tell the hero from the villain. Roper (ELH 40: 44-69, 1973) says the most important aspect of WW is its persistent and precise discrimination between proper and improper speaking and its ability to make the improper both entertaining and (negatively) instructive. Kaufman says the individual languages of characters spoken in WW establish a moral perspective in the play. Speech/language equals character, and through the "clash of languages" we derive a moral. Lady Wishfort uses two types of language--the "boudoir Billingsgate" of the lower classes and a bumbling elevated speech. Both show her energy turned to the pursuit of private, aberrant, and anti-social aims. Witwoud apes the norm, and his self-conscious attempts at wit and similitudes are fatal to the linguistic sprezzatura of a true wit. He is the frightening logical end-product of a society that overvalues appearance; he is barren and impotent. A language of self-awareness, knowledge of society, generosity, and amused irony define the true wit in WW, says Kaufman, and such language provides the play with a moral norm in Mirabell and Millamant. 4. Satire versus Gentle Comedy Satirical Kaufman says Congreve bitterly satirizes Witwoud as the end-product of a society that overvalues appearances. Meuschke says Congreve stringently satirizes the cast mistress, the adulteress, the cuckold, and the rake in WW. Gentle Comedy Dobree says the satire in WW has a gentle nature; it is Congreve's final vindication of mankind; he pleads for a finer way of living. Lynch says Congreve in WW exposes folly with not the slightest intention of correction. His laughter at fools is good-natured, for they are harmless people. Leech says that Congreve lacks in satire and is too gentle and sympathetic to his characters. Other Views Leech says the final impression of WW is that of suppressed melancholy; it has an "elegiac quality." Meuschke says that at its height Congreve's satire goes beyond exposure of evil and reveals good in a spirit akin to tragic catharsis. Smith says Mirabell and Millamant are like the last lovers in a world which was dying and yet was the only one possible for them. Philip Roberts says when Fainall and Marwood leave the stage, it is much like Malvolio and almost melodramatic, exceeding the limits of comic expectation. 5. Plot Detractors Lady Marow (1700): "Congreve's new play, doth not answer expectation, there being no plot in it but many witty things." Perry says WW deserved to be a failure on the stage because of the abstruse plot. It is redeemed by enchanting dialogue, but it should be considered a closet drama. Lynch says Congreve had little natural aptitude for plot-making. Dobree says much of the writing in WW is too fine and rarified for the stage; it is meant for the "inward ear." Defenders Norman Holland says the confusing complexity of plot in WW is intended and an essential part of the dramatic impact. Confusion is the prevailing aspect of the play and becomes a kind of symbol. Roper sees the plot as easily reduced to one infinitive phrase: the action is to bring Mirabell and Millamant together in marriage with all of Millamant's dowry, not half of it. Everything that happens either hinders or forwards that purpose. Hume blasts the "durable myth" that WW failed at its premiere, saying it had a respectable success though nothing like what was hoped for. Peter Holland says Congreve is first and foremost concerned with the possibilities of theater. The tension between the audience's presuppositions about the events of the play (that they should get a clear exposition) and between its prediction founded on the casting (Betterton was usually the hero and Verbruggen usually his rival as the leading male actor) causes the audience to be in a world as fragmentary and confusing as the real world. They are forced gradually to know the characters and action. Only at the end of the play can the audience be sure that Mirabell's plots and his moral virtue are compatible. Some General Views Susan Rosowski, in Studies in English 16: 387-406 (1976), views Congreve's four plays as a whole which shows the necessity for the individual to wrest a meaningful social ideal from a social system seemingly organized for the suppression of that very quality. In WW Congreve thoroughly integrates the individual into society. According to Rosowski, here are the four "ways of the world": Mirabell and Millamant use public life to protect private life. Fainall and Marwood use public life to conceal/exploit private life. Lady Wishfort leads a purely social, not a private, life. Wilful leads a purely private, not a social, life. Maximillian Novak, in Congreve Reconsidered (1971), makes two points about WW: 1. Congreve's moral ideal is a profound, private understanding and lasting love between two people of wit and sensibility. 2. Such an ideal is moving because it is asserted in the face of a society composed of fools and knaves as well as full of public exposure, scandal, and gossip about wrecked marriages and affairs. Individual versus Society Smith sees the play as a struggle between individuals under the tyranny of society's mores. Roper sees WW as about the difficulty of identifying and following a decent private life while still participating fully in the public life of society. Philip Roberts sees Mirabell as weary of the artificialities of society and as perhaps more fitted for a semi-reclusive life than a public one. True Wits versus False Wits Peter Holland says Congreve seeks to show the synthesis of true wit and virtue and the connection between false wit and evil. Fujimura sees WW as a play whose situation deals with true wits doing combat with false wits. Palmer sees it as the highest expression of the antithesis of true versus false wit. Virginia Birdsall, in Wild Civility (1970), sees WW as focusing on the family structure as a microcosm of society. The question is, will it be altered in a creative (Mirabell/Millamant) or destructive (Fainall/Marwood) way? Lady Wishfort is central because she will choose. Congreve shows the hair-thin line between creativity and destruction. Millamant and Marwood are similar in their desire for power, just as Mirabell and Fainall are similar, but the former are constructive while the latter are destructive. The two couples stand as alternate possibilities of love and hatred, freedom and tyranny. Cleanth Brooks, in Understanding Drama, views WW as representing a "symphonic pattern" in which the theme of love is treated in a variety of ways from the somber to the almost tragic to the burlesque. Somewhere between all these extremes, Mirabell and Millamant must plot their course, facing the opposition of Marwood and Fainall, but also a society addicted to extremes (of conventionality, sentimentality, and pretense). They must be disciplined and knowledgeable but remain innocent. In A New View of Congreve's Way of the World (1958), Paul and Miriam Meuschke see the plot as focusing not on the courtship of Mirabell and Millamant but on the legacy intrigue. The focus, then, is on Lady Wishfort and the two adulterous pairs: Mirabell and Mrs. Fainall (who show growing responsibility) and Fainall and Marwood (who show growing irresponsibility). Congreve's is a conventional ethos of the golden rule, modified by the golden mean. In The First Modern Comedies (1959), Norman Holland suggests that WW involves two sets of realities and actions: (A) Two realities: emotional and societal or dynastic. When dynastic relations aren't true reflections of underlying emotional relations, a situation of power results in favor of one who knows the inconsistency; the antidote is to create an overt, social situation which truly reflects the underlying realities. (B) Two actions: unraveling and emancipating. Unraveling peels off bit by bit the surface appearances to get at the real emotions underneath. Emancipating sets up a new social structure based on those underlying emotional realities. Act One defines the outer social framework of family relationships, admitted loves, and professed friendships, but is riddled with hints of underlying emotions. Act Two unmasks to the audience the underlying currents of emotion. Act Three allows the characters to gain partial awareness of these undercurrents. Act Four makes a comparison/contrast of the decorous Mirabell and Millamant with the indecorous Sir Wilfull and deceptive Lady Wishfort. Act Five destroys all pretenses. Mirabell seeks to reconcile appearance and reality. Fainall seeks to separate appearance and reality. Marwood and Lady Wishfort are examples of too much discrepancy between appearance and reality. Witwoud is an example of too little discrepancy between appearance and reality. |