How Effectively Does Congreve Present The Issues Pertaining to The Time He Lived in His Comedy The Way Of The World?

     The Way of the World by William Congreve was written and staged at a time that was starkly different from that of The Country Wife of William Witchery. The jubilant court that revelled in its dissipated lavishness had come to an end with the end of the reign of the Cavalier King Charles II. His brother Catholic James II was promptly replaced in the Revolution of 1688 by William of Orange. The Dutch-inspired court of William was dour and utilitarian compared to the spectacle of the Carolingian Court. The king himself was said to be hostile towards drama.

     During the reign of Charles II, the Restoration Comedy depicted witty courtly rakes juxtaposed with men of commerce and country people who happened to be Puritan dissenters. By 1700 – the year the play The Way of the World was staged – the real-world power was in the hand of those who had been the subject of many Cavalier jokes. Strangely enough, Congreve maintains the power relations that existed prior the 1685.

     New capitalistic system that was flourishing during this time placed an increasing importance in property and property law. The play contains an unusual amount of legal terminology. The plot of the play is built around the central conflict between Fainall and Mirabell for the estate of Lady Wishfort. Lady Wishfort as a dowager has control over her estate. Moreover, she is the administrator of her husband’s will. She is the one who would decide whether Millamant should be given her inheritance or not. Later, it is Lady Wishfort that was threatened by her nefarious son-in-law that wanted to wrestle her wealth form her. Lady Wisfort who had placed her faith in the socio-political realities does not have any defence against the scheming of Marwood and Fainall.

     Arabella Fainall also enjoyed this privilege of being able to administrate her property during the time she was a widow. That it is this legal context that allowed her to bequeath her property in trust to her lover Mirabell for safekeeping. But married women had very little rights over the property in their names. This is why it was possible for Fainall to exert his will on his wife and make her deed him the lion’s share of her money. But of course we later lean that, that transaction was invalid and therefore her money is safe. The trust deed as Mirabell said “can be a means, well managed, to make (Fainall and Arabella) live easily together” (441).

     One way to avoid unpleasant marital clashes was a prenuptial agreement. The Proviso Scene in effect is a prenuptial agreement. Millamant’s provisos are rally nothing more than postponement of the inevitable, but the provisos of Mirrabell are frankly sexual and measures against concealment and him being a cuckold. The agreement would allow both parties to enter the institution of marriage as more-or-less on equal footing. This genuine negotiation is the anti-thesis of the naked power-play Fainall unleashed on Lady Wishfort and ‘the thing called wife’.    

   

    The idea of love in the play is attached to wealth and sex. According to Nathan Holland, the central image of the play is the sexual union of Millamant and Mirabell. Mirabell wants not only Millamant, but also her patrimony. Fainall had married Arabella, a widow for her property. There is no love involved in that relationship. In fact, Fainall was engaged in an adulterous relationship through the better part of his marriage to Arabella without any feeling of wrongdoing. Fainall’s relationship with Marwood is frankly one of mutual gratification. They are two hunters prowling for weak prey. Mirabell’s relationship with Arabella too was one that served a particular need in Mirabell. There is no doubt that Arabella loved Mirabell ‘boundlessly’ from her behavour towards him, but Mirabell had not found it too hard to foist her off on unsuspecting Fainall when they suspected that she was in a delicate condition.   

     Marriages, therefore, are socio-political contracts. Consequently, as Norman N. Holland put it, marriages were just dynastic realities which were not based on emotional realities. As a result marital fidelity was a thing as depicted by plays like The Country Wife was a rare commodity. Congreve’s characters, other than Fainall and Marwood, though promiscuous to various degrees are not committing adultery. Even Fainall who was at that time engaged in a full blown affair criticizes his wife for her affair with Miravell. He calls her “a very errant rank-wife” but qualifies it by saying that it was ‘the way of the world’.

     Another issue dealt in the play is the tension between the country and the city. Sir Wilfull Witwoud represented the country. He is depicted as a good-hearted buffoon that needs Dutch courage to propose. His answer to problem is to display his ‘piece’ in ‘bear-garden flourishes’. He is compared quite unfavourably with the rake-hero Mirabell with his witty remarks and polished manners. The forty-something Sir Witwoud does not know poetry and therefore cannot be intellectually equal to the feisty young heroin. It must be noted that Congreve has not paint Sir Witwoud as completely beyond redemption. Undoubtedly, he is depicted in much better light than his half-brother and Petulant. Lady Wishfort makes the most scathing of comments of Sir Witwoud – “Beastly creature … thou art not fit to live in a Christian commonwealth, thou beastly pagan.

     The class tension is depicted by the violent reaction displayed by Lady Wishfort, when she realized that Sir Rawland was nothing but Mirrabell’s man servant - “to marry me to a cast serving-man …   I am brought to fine uses, to become a botcher of second-hand marriages between Abigails and Andrews!” Marwood resents Foible being the keeper of secrets probably based on her lower status: “Indeed, Mrs. Engine, is it thus with you? Are you become a go-between of this importance? Yes, I shall watch you. Why this wench is the PASSE-PARTOUT, a very master-key to everybody's strong box.”

     In conclusion, there is no doubt that the play The Way of the World deals with issues pertaining to Congreve’s time. But it must be also noted that in depiction of the socio-political realities the playwrights of the Restoration usually settled for the depiction of the temper of the restoration than duplicating the real life on stage. Playwrights used the things to do with the outward appearance such as manners, interests, speech, etc. but refrained from engaging in a rebellion over the corruption and the vices of the period. On the Restoration Comic Stage, Corruption and the vices were merely topics for discussions and intrigue.