Discuss The Way of the World as a Comedy of Manners.
The Comedy of Manners:-- The comedy of manners, the glory of the
Restoration Period, prospered in England during the 17th century. It
is so called because it presents the habits, manners, conventions and follies
of a particular section of society- the gay, elegant and carefree aristocracy.
It makes fun not so much of individual human beings as of social groups and
their fashionable manners. Love, marriage, adulterous relationship, amours and
legacy-conflicts are the major contents of such kind of comedy, all of which
form together the orbit round which the life of the gay aristocracy circles
round and the characters that generally include are fops, fanatics, fools,
imitators of French customs, conceited wits, and flirts. It found a rich
flowering mainly in the hands of Etherege, Wycherly and Congreve.
‘The Way of the World’ as a
Comedy of Manners:- Congreve’s The way of the world is
the most suitable example of comedy of manners. Actually this comedy contains
almost all the qualities which we find in a Restoration comedy and thus
representing the peak and the perfection of this type of comedy. It presents a vast vista of contemporary social morality and
principles. This play maintains a satirical tone from the beginning to the end.
It gives us valuable information about the sophisticated class of society in
England at that time. How they were involved in their Life style; and how women
of that period were crazy about fashions and love-affairs, such sort of things
have been brilliantly depicted in The Way of the World.
