Show
how Congreve uses the Comedy of Manners to highlight the vices and follies of society
in The Way of the World. / How would you apply the main features of the Comedy of
Manners to The Way of the World?
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 *(The Way
of the World) 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.
Loose morals; illicit
relationships:-- The Restoration was a period of loose morals,
and The Way of the World gives
us an adequate idea of the prevailing morality. Illicit love and adulterous
relationships are fully conveyed to us through Fainall, Mrs. Fainall, Marwood,
and even the hero Mirabell. In the play, though Mr. Fainall and Mrs. Fainall
are husband and wife in relation, yet they throw dust into the eyes of each other
having illicit relations with Marwood and Mirabell respectively.
Legacy- conflicts; worldliness and greed; mercenary motives behind marriage; intrigues: -- Congreve also exposes the worldliness and greed of the young men of the time. Legacy conflicts were common in those days. Young men sought rich heiress in marriage.
