Show
how Congreve uses the Comedy of Manners to highlight the vices and follies of society
in The Way of the World.
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.
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.
