Bring out the
significance of the title of The Way of the World.
It
was perhaps sheer pedantic myopia that, when Jeremy Collier published his essay
A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness
of the English Stage in
1698, he made Congreve a particular target of his criticism. That Collier had a
case is undeniable, but he forgot that a true artist does have as sincere
obligation to society as a churchman. Had he waited before publishing his essay
till the production of The Way of the World (1770), he could have perhaps
understood that truth; for, in the play The Way of the World Congreve seems to
understand the “immorality and profaneness” of a society, upon the matrices of
which Restoration plays were made. He was seriously thinking of an alternative
pattern of behaviour and an alternative set of codes of conduct. The very title
of the play, The Way of the World points to the ‘way’ the hero
and heroine (and by implication the spectators) should adopt in order to come
out of the grip of the fashionable society. The whole story is an illustration
of the process, by following which Mirabell and Millament seek a resolution,
that is, to gain their own world by using and manipulating the existing social
norms, through the winding lanes of that society. Congreve constructed the plot
of the play accordingly with this aim in mind. One can discern a definite
pattern in the movement of the play.
At
the beginning of the play, Mirabell is trying to shape up a situation so that he
can win both hands of Millament and her estate from Lady Wishfort. He has
married his servant, Waitwell off to Lady Wishfort’s maid, Foible and plans to
have Waitwell disguise himself as a noble man, court, and marry Lady Wishfort.
Then Mirabell would blackmail her by threatening to disclose that she has
married a servant and would offer her to release her if she will let him marry
Millament plus the estate. But Mrs. Marwood discovers the plan and tells Lady
Wishfort. Mrs. Marwood also tells Fainwall of his wife, Mrs. Fainwall’s former
relationship with Mirabell. From all these Fainwall plans to blackmail Lady
Wishfort by threatening to reveal all unless she signs over to him not only his
wife’s but also Millament’s estate and even the conversation of Lady Wishfort’s
own estate after her death.
