45 pages • 1 hour read
William CongreveThe Way of the World
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1700A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Performative Aspects of Social Interaction
As with many Restoration comedies, The Way of the World makes fun of the upper classes of society, examining how foolish their fashions, behaviors, and vanity are. Two excellent examples of these problems are Witwoud and Petulant, each of whom are failed socialites, struggling to befriend men and woo women. Witwoud, as his name suggests, wishes he was a wit, while Petulant, similarly named, is a nuisance. Both characters expose the performative nature of the society they fail to seduce, as they essentially mock the performances of the other characters. As Witwoud fails to be witty, he also exposes wit as a performative means of making friends, just as Petulant, in his buffoonery, shows the ridiculousness of the values of the upper class.
Mirabell says of Witwoud, “He has indeed one good quality, he is not exceptious […] he will construe an affront into a jest, and call downright rudeness and ill language satire and fire” (260). In this context, “exceptious” refers to being “quarrelsome,” and Mirabell is noting that Witwoud will pretend to understand a mean-spirited joke as “raillery” and overlook the offense rather than taking an insult seriously. This “one good quality” reveals the delicate nature of professing “wit” in society. As one increases one’s wit, they also increase the risk of offense, while Witwoud risks neither in his failure to either perform or identify wit with others. The main criticism levied at Witwoud and repeated by Millamant is that he too frequently makes comparisons to seemingly unrelated things. In an essay published in The Spectator, Joseph Addison—playwright and essayist—refers to this as a kind of false wit, noting that a comparison must compare both resemblance and ideas (“Friday, May 11, 1711.” The Spectator). Nonetheless, William Congreve is highlighting how narrow this line between “true” and “false” wit is, and he undermines each by showing how both are performative.
On the other hand, Petulant is particularly “exceptious,” often starting fights even without an initial quarrel. The most directly performative action Petulant enacts is hiring women to call on him, thus creating the appearance of being wanted and popular. Though the other men laugh at this, it shows how superficial the idea of desire can be, as many people would likely fall for Petulant’s trick. However, the true root of Petulant’s exposure of upper-class performativity comes in his inconsiderate behavior around women. When Petulant expresses his interest in making women blush, Mirabell recites, “Where modesty’s ill manners, ’tis but fit / That impudence and malice pass for wit” (266). However, Petulant lacks malice, nor does he claim to be witty; rather, Mirabell is both malicious and a wit. Reversing this idea, Mirabell indicates that modesty is, in some cases, ill manners hidden behind the performance of kindness or compassion.
The Manipulation of Appearances for Personal Gain
Much like the performativity of social interaction, Congreve uses the ways in which upper-class characters manipulate appearances as another avenue to critique upper-class society. Waitwell’s appearance as Sir Rowland is a less notable example, since Waitwell is, himself, not upper class. Instead, Mirabell is the more devious member of the Rowland plot. Both the way Mirabell convinces Lady Wishfort to meet with Sir Rowland and Lady Wishfort’s efforts to convince Rowland to marry her demonstrate a manipulation of appearances to varying degrees. While Lady Wishfort, for example, uses makeup, pictures, and performance to draw in Sir Rowland, Mirabell’s deception involves convincing multiple parties of falsehoods, hiding key information, and finally employing blackmail under the guise of a savior to end the play looking like an altruistic member of society.
Though her manipulation is largely benign, it is crucial to examine Lady Wishfort’s behavior to see the superficial means by which upper-class women manipulated their appearances in a literal sense. In preparing to meet with Sir Rowland, Foible notes to Lady Wishfort, “Your ladyship has frowned a little too rashly, indeed, madam. There are some cracks discernible in the white varnish” (280). These are cracks in Lady Wishfort’s makeup literally created by her expression of genuine emotion. The makeup, then, is both a means of hiding her true face and a physical limitation on how she can express herself. Still, Lady Wishfort then remarks, “For if he should not be importunate, I shall never break decorums” (280), referring to the polite behavior of an upper-class couple meeting for the first time. Lady Wishfort reveals that she would prefer for Sir Rowland to break with decorum, as that would allow her to be more forward with him. Such decorum, like the makeup, serves both to obscure each person’s true feelings and limit their possible performances.
Mirabell’s manipulation of his appearance is more malicious, however, since Lady Wishfort is simply trying to function within her station while still pursuing her desires. Mirabell’s desires are grounded in deception, as he admits to deceiving Lady Wishfort into thinking he loved her, all while courting Millamant. After deceiving Lady Wishfort into falling in love with Rowland, Mirabell sees that his plot is ended, leaving him looking like the enemy. When Mirabell returns with the means to resolve Lady Wishfort’s new conflict with Fainall, he says, “Aye, madam, but that is too late; my reward is intercepted […] But be it as it may, I am resolved I’ll serve you” (315). Mirabell pretends to aid Lady Wishfort, though he knows he is effectively blackmailing her into arranging his marriage to Millamant. By manipulating his appearance into that of an altruist, Mirabell subverts his malice, achieving his own ends in the meantime.
The Complexities of Gender Dynamics in Personal and Financial Power
The Way of the World provides a close examination of how power and wealth operated in the upper classes of Restoration and 18th-century English society. Though all the characters are presumed to have wealth, some are wealthier than others. Like in many 18th-century works, such as Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders, the women in the play have greater wealth, and yet they appear to have less power than their masculine counterparts. This distinction leads to a divergence of desires along gendered lines, with women seeking stability and happiness while men seek wealth and control. The plots of the primary two men in the play, Mirabell and Fainall, center on finances, with both men trying to gain wealth through marriage. The women they marry, however, seek freedom, stability, and happiness, and they are wary of how men might misuse them.
In Act I, Fainall reveals the problem with Mirabell’s desire to marry Millamant, asking, “What? Though half her fortune depends upon her marrying with my lady’s approbation?” (256). For Mirabell to secure Millamant’s money, he needs Lady Wishfort’s approval; however, were finances not his concern, he could marry her and live on half the total fortune. Similarly, Mirabell reveals how he convinced Fainall to marry Mrs. Fainall for the same reason: to secure his part of her fortune. The climax of the play occurs when Mirabell reveals to Fainall that “before [he] had by [his] insinuations wheedled her out of a pretended settlement of the greatest part of her fortune” (317), she had already secured her money with Mirabell. Both men are desperately trying to manipulate these wealthy women into giving them their money, and terms like “wheedled” and “settlement” give their desires a tone of malice and dishonesty.
The desires of the women, though, are rarely centered on money. For Millamant, she loves Mirabell but fears that he will be an oppressive husband, demanding “liberty to pay and receive visits […] to write and receive letters […] to wear what [she] please[s],” and “to have no obligation upon [her] to converse with wits that [she] do[esn’t] like” (297). Millamant’s demands betray her love for both Mirabell and her independence, and none of the demands center on finances. Mrs. Fainall is also more concerned with her unhappiness in her marriage than in her money. When Marwood asks if Mrs. Fainall hates her husband, she replies, “Most transcendently; aye, though I say it, meritoriously” (267), meaning that she considers it fair to hate such a bad person as Fainall. In the end, Mirabell’s trust, which prevents Fainall from taking his wife’s money, serves more as an excuse to get Mrs. Fainall independence and freedom from Fainall than to secure her wealth.
