Hello and welcome to the Discourse. George Farquhar was an English Irish actor and playwright who played the role of Young Bellaire in George Etherege’s drama The Man of Mode. However, he achieved greater success as a dramatist and produced some popular comedies. His first successful play was The Constant Couple (1699). The other two more famous plays authored by George Farquhar were The Recruiting Officer which was first performed in 1706 and The Beaux’ Stratagem which was first performed in 1707. The drama satirizes Army recruitment and shows the corruption in Army ranks. The recruiting officers are shown as corrupt and unscrupulous and cowardly. Another theme is greed to attain a higher class and wealth. All the characters continue to look for someone from higher and wealthier background to love. Love in the upper class of society is shown as shallow and fickle.
Characters: The play contains many stock characters such as Mr. Balance, Mr. Scale, and Mr. Scruple who are the three judges. The main characters are Captain Plume who is the titular recruiting officer. He is a corrupt officer who is willing to engage in any means necessary for recruiting new soldiers. His main goal is to somehow make Sylvia his mistress by letting her believe that she is married to him while he is in no mood to marry her at all as she isn’t as wealthy as he would prefer. Sylvia Balance is a young bubbly girl who dearly loves Captain Plume and wishes to marry him at any cost. As she finds that Plume is trying to evade her, she masquerades as a man, a competing false recruiting officer. Mr. Worthy is a friend of Captain Plume while Sgt Kite is his aide. Sgt Kite is as corrupt as Captain Plume. Melinda is a cousin of Sylvia whom Mr. Worthy loves. He proposed to her to be his mistress as she is of poor background but Melinda got offended. As her aunt died, Melinda got a fortune in her aunt’s will. Now as Melinda is richer, Mr. Worthy wants to marry her. On the other hand, Melinda chooses to use Mr. Brazen, another recruiting officer to make Worthy feel jealous. Justice Balance is Sylvia’s father. He is the local magistrate who presides as justice of the peace over potential recruits accused of vagrancy. He doesn’t want Sylvia to be with Plume as he knows that Plume is corrupt. When he finds that Sylvia has disguised as a soldier named Mr. Jack Willfull just to be near Captain Plume as he recognizes the clothing used by Sylvia which is of her brother, he eventually allows her to marry Captain Plume.
Summary of The Recruiting Officer
The play begins as Sgt Kite reaches the town of Shrewsbury, in Shropshire, England for recruiting new Army officers. He openly calls for those men in the town who are not happy with their life to enlist in the Military. However, no one is interested in his call. So he decides to offer free booze and the whole crowd gathers him. Meanwhile, his senior recruiting officer Captain Plume arrives with his friend Mr. Worthy. Captain Plume is in love with a girl named Sylvia but doesn’t wish to marry her. He is planning to deceive her into believing that she is married to her while having no legal responsibility to her so that he may marry some other girl of higher status. Mr. Worthy loves Sylvia’s cousin. Some days ago, He proposed to Melinda to be her mistress as he didn’t wish to marry her especially because she is of poor background. However, Melinda got offended by his indecent proposal. Meanwhile, as Melinda’s old aunt died, she got 20000 Pounds in inheritance. Now Mr. Worthy wishes to marry Melinda but she isn’t listening to him. Instead, Melinda has increased closeness with Mr. Brazen, another recruiting officer, a competitor to Captain Plume, and now to Mr. Worthy too. However, Melinda has yet not met Mr. Brazen, rather she sent her servant Lucy to meet Captain Brazen pretending to be Melinda.
Sylvia goes to meet Melinda. Sylvia tells her that she is determined to get married to Captain Plume. Melinda is still upset with what Mr. Worthy did to her and this makes her more jealous. She wonders why will an officer marry a judge’s daughter? Sylvia is of no higher class than her. Furthermore, Melinda believes that Captain Plume is a characterless libertine. She feels that Captain plume is ruining Mr. Worthy too. Both argue over it and Sylvia says that just some days ago, Melinda was even willing to go to Worthy for maintenance as a mistress. Melinda fumes over this as Sylvia goes away. She decides to write a letter to Judge Balance informing him about how Captain Plume is a bad influence on Sylvia.
Justice Balance had two children, a son, and a daughter. He had saved 15000 pounds as dowry for her daughter. However, his son dies and now his daughter Sylvia is the sole heir and this increases her worth from 15000 pounds in total that Judge Balance was ready to give to Captain Plume if he marries Sylvia, but for Plume, that was too less. Now, as Sylvia is Judge Balance’s sole heir, Captain Plume will get 1200 pounds every year along with 15000 pounds and Judge Balance thinks this huge money will ruin Plume’s head. Thus, Judge Balance tells Sylvia Know yourself price and throw Captain Plume out of your head." He asks her why Melinda wrote that letter to him to which Sylvia says that she quarreled with Melinda and she wrote it to take revenge. Judge Balance is happy to know that Captain Plume is not actually characterless and the letter was a lie. Yet, he doesn’t want to let Sylvia go near Captain Plume. Instead of arguing with Judge Balance, Sylvia tells him that she is going to Wales to get rid of memories of Captain Plume. However, she disguises herself in the male uniform of her dead brother and goes to Shrewsbury to be near Captain Plume.
Sylvia reaches Shrewsbury and pretends to be Mr. Jack Willfull. Both recruiters, Captain Plume and Captain Brazen try to recruit Jack Willfull on their list. Jack says that he will get enlisted with whoever offers him more money. Captain Plume then challenges Captain Brazen to a duel and as they start sword fighting, they realize that jack has disappeared. They soon give up their argument and start talking like close friends.
Sylvia goes to a local wench named Rose to stay overnight. She is still in Jack’s disguise. Captain Plume pursued Rose to recruit her brother into his regiment and he succeeded. At night, Rose decides to rob Jack and when she fails, she accuses Jack of sexual assault. She is arrested and taken to the court where Judge Scruple, Judge Scale, and Judge Balance hear Rose’s cases. Sylvia doesn’t give up her disguise and pretends to be Jack. She insolently accuses the army of being corrupt and her remarks force Judges to send her to imprisonment. Judges notice the remarks of Jack on the corruption of army recruitment and decide to check on Sgt Kite but do not take any action against him.
Captain Plume decides to help Mr. Worthy in wooing Melinda. Sgt Kite disguises himself as a fortuneteller while Captain Plume disguises himself as his controlled spirit. As Melinda visits the fortuneteller, he makes her believe that she must not let Mr. Worthy go away as it will ruin her life. Melinda agrees with him and accepts Worthy’s proposal. At the same time, Captain Brazen visits and shows Sgt Kite a letter apparently written by Melinda in which she promises him to marry. However, Mr. Worthy doesn’t believe the letter, and Melinda opposes it. Worthy decides to match the handwriting and finds that the letter sent to Captain Brazen is written by someone else. He rightly guesses that Melinda’s maid Lucy wrote that letter as she was the one who met Captain Brazen in place of Melinda. He assumes that Lucy is in love with Mr. Brazen and he is correct too. However, Mr. Brazen doesn't want to marry Lucy as she is poor.
Sgt Kite takes all prisoners to the courtroom where Judge Scale, Judge Scruple, and Judge Balance rethink their case. The first prisoner is not charged and Kite frees him. The second prisoner is accused of being too honest. Captain Plume wishes to recruit at least one honest man in the military so he goes to Captain Plume’s list. Next comes Jack Willfull. As Judge Balance sees jack closely this time, he recognizes the clothes Jack is wearing. These are his son’s cloth. He then sees the hand of Jack and realizes that Jack is Sylvia in disguise who got there just to pursue Captain Plume. He apparently gives his nod to Sylvia and order Plume to take Jack with him and never let his new soldier run away from him.
The play ends as Captain Plume realizes that he got Sylvia’s hand in marriage.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards.
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