The Way of The World William Congreve Questions and Answers 5
1. Elaborate on the significance of the proviso scene in The Way of the World.
[The Way of The World William Congreve Questions and Answers 5]
In the famous proviso scene in act 4, Millamant and Mirabell discuss the conditions under which they would be prepared to get married. On the face of it, it would appear that a relationship so completely hedged about with conditions is utterly devoid of love; to the uninitiated, the proviso scene seems like a discussion between two lawyers haggling over the finer points of a contract.
Yet in actual fact, Millamant and Mirabell are very much in love. It’s simply that in keeping with established conventions they conduct themselves with nothing less than the expected level of decorum. Here, as in many Restoration comedies, a conversation between a man and a woman develops into a battle of wits, an opportunity for both parties to display their verbal dexterity. In such a battle, there is invariably a winner and a loser. Crucially, however, the proviso scene in The Way of the World departs from this dramatic convention. In this case, both sides win in that they agree to abide by the conditions they’ve set down together.
And the proviso scene doesn’t just play with dramatic convention, either; it subverts the norms of polite society by showing that a woman can be the equal of any man. The very idea that a woman can lay down conditions for being married is subversive, to say the least. In so-called polite society at that time, women would’ve been expected to do as they were told in matters relating to marriage as in much else. Yet here we have Millamant making demands of her future husband, albeit in a spirit of mutual love and respect. Though she may be very far from approaching contemporary ideals of liberated womanhood, Millamant, by insisting on certain conditions to safeguard her independence after marriage, challenges the prevailing gender relations of her age. And that in itself is significant.
2. Why do you think Congreve wrote The Way of the World?
The Way of the World, keeping in mind Mirabell’s climactic success, seems to satire social etiquette and society’s focus on money and reputation but also lauds those who succeed in these times. Mirabell, the closest character to a protagonist, fulfills the stereotypes of Restoration fops in that he is a womanizer, schemers, and money-focused, but perhaps because of his true love for Ms. Millamant, he is allowed to succeed and even save others from woeful fates.
To that end, Congreve has written the play like any satire to expose the humorousness of certain societal customs, but he does not go so far as to punish those who partake in upper-class society. The latter can perhaps be attributed to his and his audience’s position in the upper class, as he also seems focused on the dedication, prologue, and epilogue with commercial success and popularity.
3. Explain the relationships between the various main characters.
At the beginning of the play, Fainall and Mirabell appear to be friends having just finished playing cards with each other. It is later suggested that Mirabell has earlier been in a relationship with Mrs. Fainall and Mrs. Marwood, Fainall’s mistress. Mirabell has also plotted and pretended to be in love with Lady Wishfort, the mother of Mrs. Fainall, until Mrs. Marwood exposed this as untrue, and all because he wants to marry Lady Wishfort’s niece, Millamant. Lady Wishfort is reluctant to give her permission for Mirabell to marry Millamant, and it is suggested that this is because she has also been infatuated with him. She finally gives her consent when Mirabell bargains this point with her in return for him helping to stop Fainall in his attempt to blackmail her.
4. In William Congreve’s “The Way of the World”, why does Millament read Suckling and Waller in Act 4?
Mrs. Millamant quotes liberally from Suckling and Waller, as they perfectly express her profound cynicism concerning love and marriage. In the words of Suckling, “There never yet was woman made/Nor shall but to be cursed.” An apt description, we might think of Mrs. Millamant, who spends most of her life completely bored out of her mind, surrounded by flatterers, fools, and unwelcome suitors. Then there’s Waller who, in “The Story of Phoebus and Daphne, Applied,” refers to an emasculated male following a gorgeous nymph around like a lovesick puppy.
In quoting from this poem, Mrs. Millamant reveals her unwavering contempt for the very idea of love and the damaging effect it has on both men and women. Both these poets reinforce Mrs. Millamant’s increasingly bitter and cynical worldview, especially with regards to matters of the heart. It’s little wonder, then, that Mrs. Millamant sees marriage as nothing more than a business arrangement, a transactional exchange between contracting parties.
5. Discuss the significance of the masks in the play.
Throughout much of the Restoration period, masks were often considered part of a fashionable ensemble for ladies and gentlemen attending evening theatre performances. In many early Restoration plays, masks symbolize flirtatious behavior and covert love affairs. In Congreve’s late Restoration play, however, the mask no longer seems to be quite the fashion statement it once was. Mirabell forbids Millamant from wearing a mask to the theatre in their marriage contract and she is outraged that he thinks she would ever wear such an unfashionable article.
According to Witwoud, the foolish Petulant wears a mask to disguise his true identity when he goes around and tries to make himself look popular by asking people about Petulant’s whereabouts. But during the play, only Marwood actually wears a mask, wearing it at the park in full daylight to hide her tears from those who might see her with Fainall and begin to speculate.
But the mask doesn’t do what typical Restoration masks are supposed to do, like make her seem more fashionable or prevent her from being recognized by Mrs. Fainall and Foible. Finally, it does not even provide cover for what Marwood really wants to hide: her affair with Fainall. If anything, wearing a mask, particularly in daylight, suggests to other characters her lack of innocence and, throughout the course of the play, comes to symbolize her role as betrayer and adulteress, someone whose own face is a kind of mask for her double-dealing behavior.
6. In The Way of the World, when does the climax rise?
Congreve expertly advances key elements of the plot to lead the reader to the climax in act 3. For example, in act 2, the reader gains insight into the complex plot and relationships as the characters discover they know each other far better than they are willing to admit initially. Subsequently, Congreve provides another clue with act 2’s closing distich (a distich is two lines of verse, often rhyming; see citation link below for further explanation) when Waitwell says,
Aye, there’s my grief; that’s the sad change of life; / To lose my title, yet keep my wife,
Waitwell means that when all is done, he will no longer have the title of lord but will remain married, even though the marriage will have occurred as a favor.
The closing distich of act 2 leads the reader to uncover the climax in act 3. Here, Mirabell employs Waitwell to play the role of aristocratic Uncle Rowland, who is to convince Lady Wishfort of his admiration and desire to marry her, hoping she will agree and then allow Millamant to have her fortune and marry. Afterward, the plot is exposed, and Fainall unsuccessfully attempts to use this to obtain Lady Wishfort’s wealth. Congreve uses another distich at the close of act 3 to provide further commentary and signal the dénouement.
7. What does the Restoration audience’s reaction to the play say about society at that time? What does the play’s contemporary success say about audiences after that time and about the play itself?
Despite Congreve’s focus on the dedication, prologue, and epilogue on audiences giving The Way of the World fair criticism, the play was not successful at the time. This is generally attributed to its bawdiness, with scholars noting that audiences felt the plot and dialogue gratuitously sexual.
However, Congreve might also point out that audiences are quick to criticize, especially when they feel that the satire in a play is pointed at them. Because later audiences are able to feel more distant from the characters and context of the satire, this allows them to appreciate the humor and intrigue of the play, especially because society has become less prudish on issues of sexuality. However, the play could not be as successful as it has become if much of the satire (the focus on gossip, discussions of same-gender friendships, and the intermingling of problems of love, money, and reputation) did not continue to ring true in modern parallel.
8. Explain the quote from The Way of the World. “Female frailty! We must all come to it, if we live to be old, and feel the craving of a false appetite when the true is decayed.”
This quote is uttered to Mirabell by Mrs. Fainall in this masterpiece by Congreve that focuses on the double standards and hypocrisy of the upper classes. There is of course massive humour and irony in having Mrs. Fainall uttering these words, as she is hardly able to tut disapprovingly at the weakness of her own sex when she is currently engaging in an adulterous relationship that clearly reveals the same “female frailty” that she bemoans so loudly at this particular juncture in the play. In fact, if we examine this quote more deeply, we can see that in a sense it acts as a kind of motto or thematic quote for the entire play, as the play itself concerns the way in which truth is decaying and replaced by falsity in the lives of so many characters in terms of what they say and do and who they pretend to be. Truth is in very short supply in this play, and the description of truth “decaying” is therefore very pertinent and relevant.
9. Explain this quote from The Way of the World. “The coldness of a losing gamester lessens the pleasure of the winner.”
Fainall has just beaten Mirabell at a game of cards in a chocolate house. Mirabell offers to play on if it will “entertain” Fainall. At this point, Fainall, says no, because Mirabell is too distracted. The quote, in context, is as follows. Fainall says:
“No, I’1 give you your revenge another time, when you are not so indifferent; you are thinking of something else now, and play too negligently: the coldness of a losing gámester lessens the pleasure of the winner. I’d no more play with a man that slighted his il fortune than I’d make love to a woman who undervalued the loss of her reputation.”
When Fainall says “the coldness of a losing gamester lessens the pleasure of the winner,” he means it is no fun to play against someone who is not invested in the game and doesn’t care if he wins or loses. It adds spice to the win when the loser is upset. Actually, Fainall doesn’t want Mirabell to suffer. He simply doesn’t want to play with someone whose mind is elsewhere. This comment becomes a prelude to Fainall questioning Mirabell about his love life. As Fainall suspects, all is not going well with Millamant. .
10. Does The Way of the World have a protagonist? An antagonist? Explain
The closest The Way of the World has to a protagonist/antagonist structure is Mirabell (and Ms. Millamant) and Fainall (and Ms. Marwood). However, this is based more on the rise and fall of the plot (largely driven by Mirabell and largely blocked by Ms. Marwood) and the happy ending following the success of Mirabell’s new scheme in response to Fainall’s demands. However, since The Way of the World is a satirical play, all of the characters portray parodied versions of societal faults, including the charming, womanizing, and manipulative Mirabell and the wealthy and beautiful Ms. Millamant who cares little for the feelings of many of her male suitors, tossing Sir Wilfull away when he stops being of use in the play’s denouement.
11. What is the definition of “wit” applied in The Way of the World?
It is important to recognise the way in which this play is a satire of society, and in particular we can see this through the use of the term “wit” as applied to the characters that Congreve presents as being fools and rather risible individuals. These characters are referred to as “wits,” though it is clear that they are foils for Mirabell and Millament and act as a way of indicating the way in which manners have declined. “Wit” then in the play applies to a level of cultural sophistication that is theory indicative of good breeding, though Congreve subverts this for his own satirical purposes. Wits are therefore presented in their reality as fools.
Witwould and Petuland are used as symbols of the superficial nature of fashionable society and the way in which they confuse fashionable behaviour for good manners heightens the satire. Wit then is a concept that Congreve chooses to focus on by taking the ideas and expectations of society and turning them on their head to make us think about the ways in which what we believe to be “wit” is actually not decorum at all but rather the current fad of society.
12. Analyze the portrayal of marriage in this play.
As befits a Restoration comedy, this play is infused with a wit that undermines the received morality that marriage is or should be divine. Time and again, the characters reveal their hypocrisy and promiscuity and Fainall’s name, for example, exposes immediately that he rarely tells the truth. The question of whether to marry for love or money is also broached here and it is with Mirabell and Millamant that the concept of marrying for love appears to be established. Saying that, Mirabell’s attempt to trick Lady Wishfort is based on his desire to gain her consent and so be a beneficiary of Millamant’s inheritance.
Fainall’s attempt to blackmail his mother-in-law reveals how his marriage is based on economics. His wife’s contract with Mirabell similarly reveals how she too was concerned with this, as she protected her assets before marriage, and so recognized the dangers that a woman of means could potentially lose her wealth once she married.
13. In William Congreve’s “The Way of the World”, why is Lady Wishfort so repulsive?
It would be somewhat unfair to deem Lady Wishfort “repulsive” because she does change towards the end of the play. She shows some positive qualities and she also proves to have her maternal instincts in check by protecting her daughter from being duped. Yet, to agree with your argument, Lady Wishfort does reunite a number of qualities that might seem shocking to her peers, and maybe repulsive to men.
First, she literally blobs herself with face paint (make-up) to hide her signs of aging. Second, she acts as if she were a love-crazed teenager when, in fact, she is a woman in her 50’s (quite old for the time this play was produced -1700’s) and openly displays the behaviors of a man-eater,
Hence, the image of a big, older lady, laden with makeup, and making advances at younger men, could indeed prove repulsive to those who are the victims of the advances. Lady Wishfort’s inability to recognize herself as an aging, hefty lady and her wild, sexual desire for men definitely play a part in finding her character somewhat repulsive.
14. How do issues of gender affect the plot of the play?
Gender is an incredibly important issue in the play, and each scene is colored by the genders of the characters in it. Both male-male and female-female relationships are fraught with feigned sincerity while rife with a subtext of deception and distrust, but male-female relationships are especially unbalanced in terms of power. Women seem much more desperate to hold onto their power through looks, leading to Lady Wishfort’s long scenes of dressing and putting on makeup and the desperation that causes her not to see through “Sir Rowland”‘s ruse.
Furthermore, Ms. Millamant embodies the concept of women not having power over their finances, leading to their potential entrapment in marriages they do not wish to be in. Mrs. Fainall demonstrates the interplay of this disempowerment of women in the domains of money and reputation as her husband wields her adultery or current lack of love for him over her while he, hypocritically, has a mistress of his own that he seems unworried will ruin him as much as it may his wife.
15. What do you learn of fashionable society of the time The Way of the World?
Congreve’s comedy of manners The Way of the World is quite illustrative of its genre in that it uses salient character traits to portray a so-called fashionable upper class society which is otherwise hypocritical, superficial, vindictive, facetious, and oblivious to the world outside their realms.
Fainall and Mrs. Marwood are at the epicenter of a circle of greed, social destruction, and self-aggrandisement. As lovers, they are the key schemers and double dealers of a wider so-called circle of friends that include Fainall’s wife, her former lover Mirabel, his friend Petulant and Sir Wilful Witwoud, among the most influential.
What is most salient about the dynamics and dealings of this circle of spoiled and scheming aristocrats is the fact that they hold no loyalties; they tend to move with the changing tides of favor, and use their wit to back-stab, cheat, or steal from one another. The key goal is to catch Fainall and Marwood in their tricks and beat them at their own game. This is Mirabel’s ultimate goal as the “hero” of the play.
In the meantime, the play ties and unties tangled-up relationships such as Millamant and Mirabell, Mirabell versus Lady Wishfort, and the former relationship of Mirabell and Fainall. There are also declared “wars”, and never ending feuds, all covered under the guise of politeness, good manners, and witty jokes. One can very well see how this “Yashionable set” operates under a shallow and and mechanical group of dynamics all design to serve themselves as best as they can. Therefore, the goal of entertaining is highly accomplished by Congrave in presenting us with a group of so-called friends of a social stratum that holds a strong sense of entailment and which is supposed to be refined and quite polished. In reality, they are just as shrewd, scheming and low as any other peasant. This is what Congrave ultimately wishes to satirize.
16. What is the importance of social class to the play?
– Social dass seems to have two facets in the play – economic class and level of culture and/or education. Sometimes these two go hand in hand, like in the case of the servants Foible and Waitwell. These characters are working class and lack education, so they are bossed and manipulated by upper class people though these upper class people do not seem to have to work or be objectively better people to wield this power.
On the other side of the spectrum is a character like Mirabell who is upper class, though always hungry for more money, and well-mannered and educated, as demonstrated in his witty repartee. However, characters like Petulant and Sir Wilfull demonstrate that one can be upper class but still not garner a good reputation because of an apparent lack of social grace or learnedness. To this end, social class depends upon many facets induding job or economic status, level of education and social grace, gender, and age, and anyone that falls below the top of all of these is able to be manipulated and left scrambling for reputation by those at the top.
17. Which characters contradict this attitude and perform generous acts?
Actually, so many of the central characters are shown to be incredibly selfish and acting for their own interests, and even characters that we like and are presented in “good” ways show that their governing trait is their own selfish desires and wants and their willingness to do anything to achieve their ambitions. This is why characters such as Mirabell, in spite of his attractive nature, does not fit your criteria as she shows himself willing to do anything to gain what he wants.
Perhaps one character we could look to therefore is minor character, who nonetheless plays an important role in the plot of the play. Foible, the waiting woman to Lady Wishfort, helps Mirabell in one of his schemes to trick her Lady. However, she the few characters in the play who act out of something more than self-interest. She gains nothing by tricking Lady Wishfort, and she does it in the name of love.
Nobody one of is injured or hurt because of her tricking, and thus she is pardoned at the play’s close. In addition, let us remember that it is thanks to Foible that the schemes and stratagems of Fainall and Marwood are exposed and Lady Wishfort is protected from having her wealth stolen. Although Foible is not above acting for her own advantage, as she gains herself a husband through supposedly looking for a husband for Lady Wishfort, at the same time these two examples show excellent ways in which she acts generously for the benefit of others in the play.
18. Explain this quote from The Way of the World: “I nauseate walking; `tis a country diversion, I loathe the country and everything that relates to it.”
This quote is uttered by Millamant in Act IV scene 4 and is said to Sir Wilfull Witwoud as he describes how he has sought a walk with Millamant. The irony of this quote taken in context is that in this scene Millamant outwits the poor Sir Wilfull Witwoud with a series of puns or play on words that leaves poor Sir Wilfull quite at a loss as to how he should continue the conversation.
As his name suggests, Sir Wilfull Witwoud is defined by his desire to be a wit: he “would” be a wit if he was clever enough, but as the keen intelligence of Millamant displays, he is quite incapable of reacing the same level of sophistication with words that Millamant and others of his ilk have. The quote then needs to be understood in context. Millamant is not being strictly truthful when he says he hates the countryside. He is merely playing with Sir Wilfull and teasing him and his pretensions of being a wit.
19. What is the significance of the barganing scene between Mirabell and Millamant in “The Way of the World”?
Though Mirabell is a libertine, he admires Mrs. Millamant, a “woman who is not a fool.” Short on cash in a material world, he’s forced to live by his wits. Thus, he’s a self-aware individual in a shallow, status-conscious era, and so views his prospective lover’s failings accommodatingly: “I like her with all her faults-nay, like her for her faults. Her follies are so natural, or so artful, that they become her.” If he can align himself in marriage with Mrs. Millamant, despite obstacles, a significant dowry is at stake.
For Mrs. Millamant’s part, she is willing to be pursued and won—highly conditionally. The war of the sexes meets the war of wits. Their bargain articulates a free-spirited woman’s intent to avoid the diminishment of conventional wifely morality (and also his judgement), while he counters that she must avoid womanly vanity, provocation, artifice, and gossip, “spoiling reputations, railing at absent friends, and so forth.”
20. Consider the portrayal of women in this play .
Lady Wishfort is the most powerful female character in the play in terms of wealth and status and is also drawn as a figure of ridicule as when she is mocked for aging and for being wrinkled. Her femininity and vanity are used as weapons against her, and her appearance is used as a butt for jokes. Read simply, this characterization may be interpreted as overtly patriarchal in its construction. Conversely, however, this work also critiques patriarchal dominance and invites us to regard sex and adultery as commonplaces rather than amoral activities.
Female sexuality, in particular, is referred to intermittently throughout the play and it is a given that the female characters are as likely to be unfaithful as the male characters. From this perspective, Congreve may be read as endowing his women with a form of sexual liberation as he depicts them as sexual beings rather than victims of male predators.
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