Hello and welcome to the Discourse. William Congreve was an English dramatist and poet of the Restoration period. He was known for his satirical dialogue and he had a great influence on the comedy of manners style that was prominent during that period. However, he rose to the stage at a time when the style of comedy of manners was declining and the public was turning away from the sort of high-brow sexual comedy of manners. It was the same period when Jeremy Collier scathingly attacked the Restoration comedies and dramas in general in his pamphlet A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage. Thomas Rymer was already resisting the comedy of mannerism with his call for poetic justice. William Congreve gave a lengthy reply to Jeremy Collier in his pamphlet "Amendments of Mr. Collier's False and Imperfect Citations” but he did leave the stage.
William Congreve studied at Kilkenny College along with Jonathan Swift who was his classmate. At the age of 17, he moved to London to study law and during that time, Congreve wrote his first play "Incognita: or, Love and Duty reconcil'd" which was published in 1692 under the pseudonym Cleophil. That won him praise from literary critics including John Dryden who became his mentor. In 1693, Congreve’s first play The Old Bachelor was performed, and John Dryden promoted it as a brilliant first piece. It was a comedy of manners. His other plays include The Double Dealer (1694) and Love for Love (1695) which were both comedies and The Mourning Bride which was a tragedy and was first performed in 1697. Congreve’s last play was performed in Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1700 and it was titled The Way of the World. The play didn’t succeed at that time. It was one of the last comedies of manners of the Restoration period. However, the play proved to be an important one later on.
George Farquhar raised the issue of women trapped in abusive wedlock in his play The Beau Stratagem in which he devised a way to offer monetary support for the divorcing wife Kate Sullen. John Vanbrugh also raised the issue of women trapped in abusive marriages in his plays Relapse, Or Virtue in Danger, and The Provoked Wife. William Congreve also mentioned the troubles of a mismatched marriage and the issue of the property rights of a woman. One of the major themes of The Way of the World is inheritance and a woman’s right to her parent’s property. As the title suggests, The Way of The World is a satirical comedic commentary on the then society and norms of England.
Characters of The Way of The World
Mr. Fainall is a married man who married Mrs. Arabella Fainall who was a widow, for the money that she inherits from her late husband and her mother Lady Wishfort. He is a greedy person who was already in a relationship with Mrs. Marwood before his marriage to Mrs. Arabela. Mrs. Marwood continues to be his mistress as his only intention to marry Mrs. Fainall is her money. Mrs. Arabella Fainall on the other hand was in love with Mr. Edward Mirabel who once was a womanizer but now has changed. Mr. Mirabel isn’t of a wealthy background. He helped Arabella and Lady Wishfort in engineering Arabella’s marriage to Mr. Fainall to protect Arabella from scandal in the event of pregnancy. However, Arabella didn’t get pregnant. Arabela and Mirabel are now friends while Mirabel fell in love with Miss Millament who is a niece and ward of Lady Wishfort, cousin of Mrs. Arabella Fainall. Miss Milament has a huge inheritance of 12000 pounds but she holds only 6000 pounds of it while the remaining 6000 pounds are in the custody of Lady Wishfort. Lady Wishfort doesn’t approve of her marriage to Mirabel and wants her to marry Sir Wilfull Witwoud who is a nephew of Lady Wishfort. He is an inept bumbling man who tries to pursue Ms. Millament romantically. His half-brother Anthony Witwoud is also a suitor of Ms. Millament. Waitwell is a servant of Mirabel who marries Foible, a servant of Lady Wishfort without her knowledge. Later on, Mirabel and Ms. Millament devise a plan to project Waitwell as Sir Rowland, an uncle of Mirabel who will woo and propose to Lady Wishfort to marry him and then lead situations to convince Lady Wishfort that Mirabel is the best man for Ms. Millament. Foible is aware of his plan. Lady Wishfort is uncomfortable with her age and looks, and this allows Mirabell's plot with the fake Sir Rowland to succeed as far as it does.
Summary of The Way of The World
The Way of The World is a five-act play. The background of the play is that Mirabel, a young, handsome but poor man used to be a womanizer who got into an affair with a rich widow named Arabella. However, Arabella’s mother Lady Wishfort didn’t approve of his marriage to Arabella because of his poor background. To protect Arabella from any scandal because of his affair with her, he helped Lady Wishfort to arrange the marriage of Arabella with Mr. Fainall who is a reputed but greedy and corrupt person. He marries the widow Arabella only for the fortune of Arabella that he needs to finance his affair with Mrs. Marwood. Meanwhile, Mirabel changed as a person and puts an end to his affair with Arabella while he remained her well-wisher and a close friend. Later on, he falls in love with Arabella’s cousin Miss Millament who is the niece of Lady Wishfort.
Miss Millament loves Mirabel and wishes to marry him. She has a huge inheritance of 12000 pounds but half of it is in the custody of Lady Wishfort who is completely against her marriage with Mirabel. Lady Wishfort wants Millament to marry Sir Wilfull Witwoud whom Ms. Millament finds inept and undeserving. Lady Wishfort is aging but she still believes that she is very attractive. Mirabell had earlier offended Lady Wishfort; she had misinterpreted his flattery as love.
Mirabel and Ms. Millament devise a plan to save her inheritance while they get married and for this, Mirabel takes the help of his servant Waitwell. They plan to introduce Waitwell as Sir Rowland, an uncle of Mirabel. As Mirabel knows that Lady Wishful has the desire to fall in love and get married, he plans to fake uncle Sir Rowland to woo and win Lady Wishfort’s love. Then Mirabell will reveal the reality of Sir Rowland to save Lady Wishfort and in response will get the approval of Lady Wishfort for his marriage to Millament. To make their plan fool-proof, they arrange the marriage of Waitwell to Foible before he pretends to Sir Rowland so that he may not be able to trap Lady Wishfort to his contract. Thus, Waitwell is secretly married to Foible without Lady Wishfort’s knowledge and Foible becomes a part of the plan. As Waitwell is already married to Foible, his fake marriage to Lady Wishfort will be illegal and will be nullified.
The play begins as Mirabel is playing cards with Mr. Fainall. Mr. Fainall isn’t happy with Mirabel as he knows that he has tricked him twice. He suspects that his wife Mrs. Fainall is a former mistress of Mirabel. The more troubling fact is that Mrs. Marwood, who is Mr. Fainall’s mistress, appears to be more interested in Mirabell. Mrs. Marwood wishes to marry Mirabell as Mr. Fainall is already married to Arabella. Thus, Mr. Fainal has been stung by Mirabel twice. Meanwhile, Ms. Millament is in true love with Mirabel but playfully teases him while their marriage is uncertain.
Mirabel is nervous about his plan but it is going well. Foible and Waitwell are now married and Waitwell has taken the disguise of Sir Rowland to woo Lady Wishfort.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Marwood is flirting with Mirabel and as he goes away to confirm the marriage of Foible with Waitwell, she follows him. Accidentally, she overhears the conversation between Mrs. Fainall and Foibel as they discuss the former love affair between Mirabel and Mrs. Fainall as well as his current plan of marrying Ms. Millament. Furthermore, she also overhears Mrs. Fainall cursing her as Mr. Fainall wastes her money on his mistress. Foible also makes fun of Mrs. Marwood by commenting on how she is trying to woo Mirabel. This makes Mrs. Marwood vengeful against Mirabel as she now knows that she cannot get him. She goes back to Mr. Fainall and tells him about his plan for Mirabel. She further reveals that his wife used to be a lover of Mirabel. Mr. Fainall gets enraged but instead of acting rashly, he along with Mrs. Marwood devise their own conspiracy to gain the most profit out of the situation.
Meanwhile, Mirabel introduces Sir Rowland to Lady Wishfort as his uncle and Sir Rowland soon starts flattering and flirting with Lady Wishfort who again feels her desire to get in love rekindle. On the other hand, Miss Milament declares that she will marry Mirabel and rejects Sir Wilfull Witwoud’s proposal. Mr. Fainal then comes into action as he catches Sir Rowland and unmasks him as Waitwell, a servant of Mirabel. He then blackmails Lady Wishfort with the threat of ruining her and her daughter’s reputation. He says that since Millament has decided to marry Mirabel by rejecting Sir Wilfull Witwoud, her balance fortune controlled by Lady Wishfort should be forfeited and transferred to him. He further demands that Lady Wishfort should assure him that she will never marry and hence he will remain the sole heir of his wife’s property.
When Ms. Millament listens to all this, she decides to save her balance of inheritance controlled by Lady Wishofort and changes her decision, and declares that she will marry Sir Wilfull Witwoud. This ruins Ms. Fainall’s plan. Yet, he continues to press that Lady Wishfort should immediately hand over all his wife’s money to him and should declare him the caretaker of her wealth too. Mirabell tries to dissuade the situation and put some pressure on Mr. Fainall by bringing Waitwell and Foible upfront as witnesses of Mr. Fainall and Mrs. Marwood’s extramarital affair, he brazenly ignores it and asserts that he will still drag Mrs. Fainall’s name in scandal and ruin lady Wishfort’s reputation.
Now is the time for Mirabel to reveal his trump card. He says that he and Arabella always knew that Mr. Fainall is a corrupt, greedy person, and hence, to protect herself, Arabella appointed Mirabel the trustee of her fortune much before her marriage to Mr. Fainall. Thus, Mr. Fainall has no claim on her fortune nor Lady Wishfort can offer it to Mr. Fainall as Mirabel holds that right. Mr. Fainall is now completely defeated as neither Mrs. Fainall nor Lady Wishfort controls their money and he can put no pressure on Mirabell. He is very angry and frustrated and decides to go away with Mrs. Marwood. Meanwhile, Sir Wilfull Witwoud takes his proposal to marry Millament back and claims that Mirabel deserves her. Lady Wishfort is also convinced that Mirabel will take good care of Millament like he saved her and her daughter Arabella’s fortune. She forgives the servants and offers her wishes to Foible and Watwell for their married life and agrees to offer her consent for the marriage of Mirabel and Millament.
The play ends in reconciliation as Mirabel and Millament conciliate despite Millament giving up her love to save her fortune. Sir Wilfull Witwoud also forgives Millament while Lady Wishfort forgives Mirabel, Waitwell, Foible, and Arabella for fooling her around. The theme of the play includes fashion, courtship, seduction, property rights, and women’s rights to their inheritance in marriage.
William Congreve was known for witty and intelligent dialogues in his plays. One of the famous dialogue from The Way of The World is “"One's cruelty is one's power; and then one parts with one's cruelty, one parts with one's power; and when one has parted with that, I fancy one's old and ugly." While this quote is said by Millament, it shows the fear of Lady Wishfort, who is losing her power, her cruelty, and her strength, and becoming old and helpless, which makes her desperate to be confirmed as beautiful and powerful.
Just like George Farquhar’s Kate Sullen from The Beau Stratagem, William Congreve’s Arabella also saves her fortune despite getting divorced or separated from their husband.
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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