B.A. (Hons.

) English – Semester IV Core Course

Paper VIII : British Literature–18th Century Study Material

Unit-1
William Congreve : The Way of the World

Editor : Dr. Neeta Gupta

Department of English

SCHOOL OF OPEN LEARNING

University of Delhi
Paper VIII – British Literature : 18th Century

Unit-1
William Congreve : The Way of the World

Editor:
Dr. Neeta Gupta
School of Open Learning
University of Delhi
Delhi-110007

SCHOOL OF OPEN LEARNING

UNIVERSITY OF DELHI
5, Cavalry Lane, Delhi-110007
 Paper VIII – British Literature : 18th Century
Unit-1
William Congreve : The Way of the World

Contents
S. No. Title Pg. No.
1. Introduction: Biographical and Literary Background 01
2. Learning Objectives 02
3. Historical and Cultural Context 02
4. Summary and Analysis of Introductory Notes 03
5. Summary & Analysis 05
6. Themes and Critical Analysis 11
7. Character Analysis 13
8. Summing Up 15
9. Suggested Reading 16

Prepared by:
Binoy Bhushan Agarwal

SCHOOL OF OPEN LEARNING

UNIVERSITY OF DELHI
5, Cavalry Lane, Delhi-110007
 Unit-1

The Way of the World

William Congreve
Binoy Bhushan Agarwal

1. Introduction: Biographical and Literary Background

Born in 1670, near Leeds in Yorkshire, William Congreve grew up in Ireland. Having studied
in Kilkenny School he went to Trinity College, Dublin in 1686. He joined Middle Temple in
London to study law but found himself driven to writing. With praise, support and
commendation from John Dryden, the Poet Laureate, Congreve’s literary talents and
Classical scholarship found expression in translations of Juvenal in 1692.
Following the publication of his first short prose romance Incognita, Congreve in 1693
staged his first play The Old Bachelor at the Theater Royal to a roaring success. His second
play in the same year, The Double Dealer, however, fell flat on expectations and received a
lukewarm response. Dryden continued to support Congreve and bolstered the latter’s
confidence by writing a verse commendation appended to the play. In Love for Love,
Congreve (1695) returned to conventional gay comedy which once again brought him success
and popularity.
Dryden supported Congreve not merely because of his appreciation for the latter’s
creative and Classical learning but also because they shared the same principles and beliefs in
so far the English comic literary tradition was concerned. Congreve’s ‘Essay concerning
Humour in Comedy’ only seems to affirm this when read in the light of Dryden’s Of
Dramatic Poesy and their shared indebtedness to English playwrights such as William
Shakespeare and Ben Johnson.
By 1700 when The Way of the World was staged, the audience’s shift in theatrical taste
and sense of morality was palpable. Jeremy Collier attacked Restoration comedy and the
many practitioners of this genre for allegedly promoting indecency, blasphemy, vice and
vulgarity. In his anti theatre pamphlet, A Short View of the Profaneness and Immorality of the
English Stage, published in 1698, Collier attacked Congreve as well who in his turn retorted
back with Amendments of Mr. Collier’s False and Imperfect Citations.
Notwithstanding this war of words and clash of ideas suited for the age and comic
tradition, Congreve’s The Way of the World was staged in Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre in
March, 1700. The play though tanked is still considered be Congreve’s masterpiece. It also
ostensibly marked Congreve’s withdrawal from the stage. He wrote no more comedies but
kept himself associated with other theatrical ventures such as writing libretto and
collaborating with Vanbrugh in opening new theatre.

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2. Learning Objectives
To better appreciate the themes and issues in Congreve’s The Way of the World, the present
study is divided into sections that will enable you to:
a) Locate the historical context of the Restoration period within which the play is
situated.
b) Gain an understanding of Comedy of Manners.
c) Develop an extensive understanding of the play by focusing on a detailed scene wise
summary.
d) Think of the many social and historical concerns of the age through the prism of the
play.
3. Historical and Cultural Context
3.1 Restoration Theatre and Comedy of Manners
The Puritans viewed theatre as a site of vice and corruption. Consequently, they had closed
down the English theatres in 1648 and it remained so until the Interregnum ended. With the
return of Charles II to the English throne in 1660, theaters were opened which was marked by
jubilance and hope. Despite the Licensing Act of 1662, two new theatres, King of York’s and
Duke of York’s Companies helmed by Thomas Killigrew and William Davenant
respectively, were granted Royal patents. Charles II who had lived in the Court of Louis XIV
in France, brought back with him the French style and tastes which were reflected in the
shifting attitudes to theatre. Abandoning the Puritan hostility to theatre, the Restoration
Comedy was characterized by licentiousness, sexual philandering and lusting after money
and wealth. The rejection of Puritan attitudes to theater also resulted in some major
accompanying changes; the stage machinery saw major developments in terms of moveable
scenery, lighting, introduction of women actors on stage, breeches roles, rise of celebrity
actors and professional female playwrights as well, all for the first time. Nell Gwyn, Anne
Bracegirdle and Thomas Betterton are some notable actors of the time, and Aphra Behn the
first professional female dramatist.
Restoration Comedy is often metonymically referred to as Comedy of Manners. Such
plays are a satire on fashion, tastes, manners and social conventions of the apparently
sophisticated society. While focusing on the lives of upper class society the genre makes fun
of the follies and the veneer of sophistication therein. It is also characterized by plot twists
and is often complicated by subplots centering on a possible scandal. In doing so it satirizes
and exposes the pretentiousness that lies underneath apparent sophistication of the
fashionable society. Wit and polished dialogue become an important tool herein that serve the
purpose. Comedy of Manners can be seen as an obverse of slapstick comedy which relies on
physical and grotesque buffoonery rather than wit and intelligence. The humour is a result of
wit and quick repartee. It is because of this Comedy of manners is also seen as high comedy.

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 The genre has its roots in the ancient Greek plays by Menander who inaugurated New
Comedy. Plautus and Menander later on utilized and popularized the same through their plays
during the Renaissance. In the Seventeenth century it was Moliere who satirized and made
fun of the pretensions behind the façade of sophistication of French society. His The School
for Wives and The Misanthrope being two examples that illustrate the mode of Comedy of
Manners. Some more well-known examples of this genre are William Shakespeare’s Much
Ado About Nothing, William Congreve’s The Way of the World, and Oscar
Wilde’s Importance of Being Ernest. Restoration Comedy was also influenced by Ben
Johnson’s comedy of humours.
As these plays focus on the upper echelons of the society, places like the coffee house,
leisure gardens, St. James Park, gambling houses etc. take a centre stage. They become the
locus where most of the events unfold. Sex, marriage, love, intrigues and adultery become
important thematic concerns in the Restoration plays. Such plays are peopled by character
types classified as wits, fools, rakes, fops, dandies. It is one of the reasons why Restoration
plays in particular have been attacked on grounds of immorality. Another reason perhaps
being that the wayward characters are generally not punished by the end of the play. For
instance, Mr. Fainall, in The Way of the World, despite all his villainy goes unpunished. More
than often, the rake heroes and libertine heroines are ultimately domesticated by the end of
the play for a stable idea of family. Such attempts at domestication embody a societal
aspiration to impose an order in a society that is in flux. It also reflects on the necessity to
maintain the sanctity of the family as a unit for the continuation of the purity of lineage. It is
also because money and property are significantly tied to the idea of family and inheritance.
Perhaps the fear that if the carnivalesque and the acquisitive ethics are not restrained, the
loose morality or ‘predatory sexuality’, as Shirshendu Chakraborty calls it, may lead to a
societal chaos. Thus one finds that the Restoration playwrights, despite an ostensible sexual
frankness, finally resort to the preservation of familial relationships and societal structures.
4. Summary and Analysis of Introductory Notes
4.1 Commendatory Verses
In his Commendatory Verses for Congreve, Richard Steele, the noted English essayist who
later founded The Tatler and The Spectator lavishes fulsome praise on Congreve. Presaging
the audience’s response to the play in a world of changing moral taste, he paints the literary
genius of Congreve in glorious terms as something that offers much more than what the
ordinary minds can perhaps even apprehend. That Congreve’s brilliance is god-gifted, Steele
suggests, when he writes ‘On you from fate a lavish portion fell, In every way of writing
excel’. However, the only ‘drawback’ is that despite such literary flair, a genius like
Congreve cannot appease all which is to be read more as a comment on the ‘rude spectators’
with unrefined taste and not the ‘great author…aspiring mind’, that is, Congreve himself. In
his commendation, Steele also references Congreve’s own works and his odes thereby also
pointing to a common literary practice of having epigraphs and dedications. Such a practice

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functions to establish the author in a long line of literary tradition and accord it respectability
as well.
4.2 Epigraph
The title page of the 1700 edition of The Way of the World carries the following epigraph;
two Latin quotations from Horace’s Satires which translates in English as follows:
i. “It is worthwhile, for those of you who wish adulterers no success, to hear how much
misfortune they suffer, and how often their pleasure is marred by pain and, though
rarely achieved, even then fraught with danger.”
ii. “I have no fear in her company that a husband may rush back from the country, the
door burst open, the dog bark, the house shake with the din, the woman, deathly pale,
leap from her bed, her complicit maid shriek, she fearing for her limbs, her guilty
mistress for her dowry and I for myself.”
This genuflecting to Horace’s works is Congreve’s acknowledgement of the literary tradition
and scholarship that he so values. The epigraph also foregrounds the thematic concerns of the
play and the seriousness of the purpose that he accords to the themes of cuckoldry and
marriage.
4.3 Dedication to the Earl of Montague
Congreve’s own career graph bears testimony to the art of forging literary kinship and the
munificence resulting from such an engagement with systems of patronage. While Congreve
dedicated his first play The Old Bachelor to Charles Boyle he dedicates The Way of the
World to the Earl of Montague as a mark of respect and love. What is equally important to
note here is that in doing so, Congreve also pays homage to the Classical antiquity and his
literary predecessors who are his guiding masters. In his ‘Dedication’, Congreve also
establishes to present a case for himself and his play which received a mild response from the
audience. In it, he also foregrounds a couple of other things namely, his active seeking out the
Earl’s patronage, a brief commentary on the audience-critics who are quick to dismiss the
play as they come with preconceived notions as well as his deliberate creation of characters
embodying true wit and false wit.
4.4 Prologue
In the Prologue to the play, the lines are enunciated by Mr. Betterton, the famous Restoration
actor, who played the character of Fainall. With him as the mouthpiece, Congreve points to
the precarious position of dramatists like himself. That though they be “poets” or gifted
writers luck favours not them but the hack writers who cater to the dull and the coarse spirit
of the audience. In the Prologue that is laced with irony and sarcasm Congreve also reminds
his readers/ audience of the occupational hazards of the poets and the dramatists who run the
risk every time they come up with a new production. In asking the critics to not ‘spare him
for his pains’ he kills two birds with one stone; One, the author establishes his own
superiority and the refinement of his own works. Two, he takes a jibe at the audience for their

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purist standards and their inability to comprehend satire and its function. He thus makes a
comment on the Grub Street culture of hack writers and the attendant literary dullness that is
rampant among them. Before the play unfolds, he leaves it to the audience to decide
according to their own taste and preference. In a smart move, he lays the onus of the failure
or the success of the play on the audience themselves while maintaining his standpoint of not
stooping low to cater to the whimsical tastes of the audience if they prefer not the
sophistication and Classical style of his work.
4.5 Check your Progress
a. How do power struggles and monarchy affect theatre in the seventeenth century?
b. What do Commendatory Verses and Dedication tell you about literary patronage?
c. The Prologue is Congreve’s comment on his own superiority and the impulsiveness of
critics. Do you agree?
d. List some features of the Comedy of Manners.
5. Summary & Analysis
5.1 Act I
The scene opens in a Chocolate-house with two men, Mirabell and Fainall, rising from a
game of cards. As their conversation progresses, one notices an undercurrent of tension
between the two. On Fainall’s prodding, it is revealed that Mirabell is anxious because of
Lady Wishfort, aged fifty five, who is full of anger and resentment against him. That Mirabell
was only dissembling to be her lover and that he doesn’t reciprocate her love for him in
exactly the same way as Lady Wishfort had expected, has her fuming with anger. And since it
was no other than Mrs. Marwood, Fainall’s mistress, who maliciously exposed his intents to
Lady Wishfort, has Mirabell sulking because it has brought to naught his other plan that is
gradually revealed. Fainall, sensing Mirabell’s fear (of losing money in dowry), adds salt to
injury when he reminds Mirabell that ‘half her [Millamant] fortune depends upon her
marrying’ the man who has Lady Wishfort’s approval. And this is precisely where Mirabell
seems to have risked everything- Millamant and her inheritance – by ruffling Lady
Wishfort’s feathers. In defense of his alleged act of infidelity to Lady Wishfort, he cites his
‘reasonable conscience’ that allowed him to proceed and be guided by gentlemanly behavior
and not a sense of debauchery as his ‘virtue forbade’ him from transgressing any further in
his pretended courtship of Millamant’s aunt who controls her fortune.
The conversation is interrupted by a servant who informs him that Waitwell and Foible,
the attendants of Mirabell and Lady Wishfort respectively, have been married. The news
seems to cheer him up. The veiled nature and the brevity of the news both suggest that
Mirabell has some trick up his sleeve. Fainall comes back again and directs the conversation
at Millamant who has many suitors owing to her beauty and coquetry; Mirabell is one of
them who likes her ‘with all her faults; nay, like her for her faults.’

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 Punctuated less by action, and more by narrations, Act I introduces the reader-audience
to its remaining male cast. Soon enough, the scene is interrupted by the arrival of two more
suitors of Millamant - Witwoud and soon after Petulant - thus introducing the false wits and
the fops, the stock characters in a Restoration comedy. Act I ends with the news of the
imminent arrival of Mirabell’s estranged Uncle who poses an economic threat to Mirabell’s
aspirations. More so in light of the fact that Lady Wishfort, who is incensed with him, has
been informed about it which, he fears, she might take advantage of though only out of a
sense of vengeance so as to foil his hopes of marrying Millamant.
5.2 Act II
Act II consisting of only one long scene takes place in St James Park, a fashionable meeting
place. It brings to stage the women characters in the play with the exception of Lady
Wishfort. In drawing a parallel to Act I, Congreve, in Act II, mirrors a similar kind of tension
between the two women character – Mrs. Fainall and Mrs. Marwood – as witnessed earlier
between Mirabell and Fainall. Like men discussing women, here Congreve has women
presenting their ideas on men and lovers, and the precarious position that women occupy in
relation to men for whom aging descends benefits but not so for women. Mrs Fainall and
Mrs. Marwood while projecting an extreme aversion to men are soon revealed to be
dissembling it as both of them still secretly desire Mirabell even though they are committed
to Fainall, one through marriage and the other in her capacity as a mistress. While contending
with their own sexual jealousies for Mirabell, they accuse the other of secretly longing for
him. Soon, upon Mirabell and Fainall’s entry into the scene, we are given an insight into the
context of these relationships. In separate pairings on stage consisting of Fainall & Mrs.
Marwood and Mirabell & Mrs. Fainall, the audience-reader gets to know a couple of things;
one, the sexual jealousy that racks Fainall such that it leads to a bitter quarrel. Two,
Mirabell’s potentially scandalous past with Mrs. Fainall is revealed that could have turned
explosive but was averted because of Mirabell’s shrewd design.
Fainall makes a concerted attack on Mrs. Marwood as being unfaithful since her recent
actions have caused a hindrance in his own plans to extract money from Lady Wishfort. His
lust for money also reveals his villainous character. He stops not from lambasting her until
she takes matters in her own hand and threatens to expose him. In a brilliant master stroke she
at once turns the table on him leaving him to ask for pardons and promise amendments which
she is not quick to accept, ‘Truth and you are inconsistent. I hate you, and shall forever’.
Next, we discover that Mirabell’s womanizing habits had once led him to now Mrs.
Fainall, who is the daughter of Lady Wishfort. But on suspicions that she was pregnant with
his child he got her married to Fainall to protect, as he claims, her honour. Mirabell never
answers the implicit question as to why he himself did not marry her. The answer perhaps is
not too difficult to ascertain considering that to have a child out of wedlock would have
meant public shame. With himself being responsible for it, it could have also resulted in a
marriage without money or dowry. Though intriguing, Mrs Fainall still believes in him when
as a proof of his loyalty he suggests two things; one, when she is bored of her husband she

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knows her ‘remedy’, perhaps implying a sexual favour. Two, his making her a party to his
secret plans thereby giving her ‘power to ruin or advance (his) fortune is a measure of his
love for her on which she can still count. At this point Mirabell’s secret plot is unravelled
whereby he plans to send his servant Waitwell to Lady Wishfort in the guise of his Uncle Sir
Rowland. When Lady Wishfort agrees to marry him, if only to spite him, he will reveal Sir
Rowland’s true identity and as a price for saving her reputation ask for Millamant’s hand in
marriage which would be a sure way of getting her fortune as well. Further, as a way of
ensuring that Waitwell doesn’t betray him out of a temptation for the large fortune that Lady
Wishfort commands, he has already gotten him married to Foible. It is highly anticipated that
the plan will succeed as Lady Wishfort is too eager to get married despite her much advanced
age as is evident from the fun that the two have at the Lady’s expense.
Millamant arrives on the scene with Witwoud, a hanger on, who attempts witticism
trying to match up to her liveliness and eloquence. Upon Mirabell’s entry she deliberately
affects the pose of a cruel mistress thereby adding to the game of love through her coquetry.
Such an adopted pose like a Petrarchan mistress only adds to her playful charms by
intensifying the romance in this game of courtship. She knows the rules of the game and thus
does it on purpose. Unlike other relationships, where bitterness and suspicion is at the heart
of the conflict, here the teasing is more a marker of their passion for each other than malice or
ill will. That they are a match for each other is also suggested in the banter between them
where it is only Mirabell who can match up to her true wit and elegance of style. It is their
confidence and faith in each other that they are not governed by sexual jealousies that
characterize other relationships but passion and faith in their love for each other is what
makes Millamant say, ‘Well, Mirabell, if ever you will win me, woo me now - Nay, if you
are so tedious, fare you well.’
The banter ends with her telling Mirabell that she already knows something of his plans
though he never told her himself. Before Mirabell can explain himself, she is gone. Waitwell
and Foible appear to receive further instructions from him. Foible also reveals how she is
going to whet Lady Wishfort’s sexual appetite for Sir Rowland thereby furthering Mirabell’s
agenda. She, however, quickly departs fearing that it was Mrs. Marwood in mask who has
perhaps seen her with the man her mistress so detests. She is afraid that Mrs. Marwood might
ruin the plans by letting Lady Wishfort know about Foible meeting Mirabell.
5.3 Act III
With Act III the action moves into the private space of Lady Wishfort who the audience-
readers meet for the first time. The scene begins on a note of intense anxiety on the part of
Lady Wishfort who is so worked up with her makeup falling apart. It has the effect of making
her ludicrous though it points to deeper concerns that link beauty with women and authority.
A little later one finds her also wracked with worries that she might have to go against the
decorum of class and gender, and make the first move if Sir Rowland does not propose
marriage to her.

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 Mrs. Marwood who had seen the attendant Foible conversing with Mirabell informs
Lady Wishfort about the same thereby further aggravating her worries. On Foible’s arrival
she hides in a cupboard thus overhearing all that Foible has to say to Lady Wishfort and more
importantly also overhearing the conversation, a little later, between Foible and Mrs. Fainall.
Mrs. Marwood is pleased to know how important she herself has become in the whole
scheme of things that is about to unfold as she is in the know of secrets that give her both
power and edge to trump others. Now that she knows of Mirabell’s dislike of her whom she
like many others coveted, she is driven to intrigue against him. As such she plots to undo his
strategy of getting to marry Millamant and her inheritance. Driven by revenge at her
perceived insult, she prods Lady Wishfort to get Millamant to marry Sir Wilfull.
Millamant soon enters the room with her maid, Mincing, and gets into arguments with
Mrs. Fainall. Their conversation reveals an undercurrent of hostility as they both share a
common interest in Mirabell. Two important strands that briefly emerge here are (a)
Millamant’s sense of assurance in her love, Mirabell, that she fears not losing him, and (b)
her comment that women have the liberty to choose their clothes and not companions is a
matter of regret. The latter points to the limitations within which even the most liberated and
assertive women of her class have to live. An aristocratic lineage and a mind of her own does
not totally free her from the gender constraints within which she has to negotiate as the later
Proviso scene will also confirm.
The conversation between these two ladies is interrupted by Witwoud and Petulant.
Witwoud pretends not to recognize his half-brother, Sir Wilfull Witwoud, who comes across
as a country bumpkin. Sir Wilfull Witwoud is made fun of when Witwoud suggests he is an
exhibition piece from Bartholomew’s fair. Such a hilarious treatment of Sir Wilfull Witwoud
who is naïve to customs of city life helps set up the binary of the country and the city where
the former is associated with coarseness yet simplicity and the city, despite its urbanity, with
manipulations and undesirable shrewdness of human nature. Those who cannot navigate well
the divide end up being fops like Witwoud with their false wit and vain and exaggerated
pretensions to high class. Sir Wilfull tells him as much when he exposes Witwoud’s class
origins which the latter struggles to justify embarrassed as he is by it. In contrast Lady
Wishfort receives Sir Wilfull Witwoud well and does not shy away from acknowledging her
family ties with him which even surprises Sir Wilfull himself.
Act III ends with Mrs. Marwood encouraging Fainall to get rid of his wife and to
forestall Mirabell’s success. In fact, she is the one who engineers a plan for Fainall to
execute. It involves blackmailing Lady Wishfort by threatening to make public Mrs. Fainall’s
(Lady Wishfort’s daughter) affair with Mirabell. And thereby extract the fortune that Lady
Wishfort commands as a price to ‘save’ both her and her daughter’s reputation. The
conversation between the two is striking for their meanness of spirit and, in particular, for
revealing Fainall’s cold hearted villainy towards his wife whom he does not mind abandoning
as he admits “I’ll turn my wife to grass”. That he is prepared for it is evident from the
revelation that he has apparently managed to extract a deed from her in his favour.

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5.4 Act IV
The opening of Act IV once again has an anxious Lady Wishfort worrying about how best to
receive her suitor, Sir Rowland. Masquerading as coquet, she attempts to project herself as an
erotic body which actually has the effect of making her appear ludicrous. Quite unlike her we
have Millamant, the heroine of the play who is confident of herself. Instead of pleasing men,
she thinks about her individual space and inviolable privacy as central to a relationship be it a
marriage. Through her comments and utterances we get a rare insight of Millamant’s
interiority. That it is only Mirabell who can make for a suitable match with her is obvious in
how it is him who can speak the same language of wit and romance. The scene is also
interesting for how it evokes humour by juxtaposing the literariness of Millamant with the
incongruous response of Sir Wilfull. His failure to comprehend her thoughts and match up to
her wit is a clear indication of how incongruous a couple Millammant and Sir Wilfull would
make for, a match that Lady Wishfort is keen on.
The wit combat that is dramatized between Millamant and Mirabell leads us to one of the
most significant moments in the play- the Proviso scene- wherein both of them draw up a pre-
nuptial agreement. Self-willed as they are both suggest conditions in marriage under which
they finally agree to marry each other. The terms that are listed by either of them significantly
act as a critique of love and marriage in the Restoration age. Among other things, the ultimate
fear that Millamant has is that she would ‘dwindle into a wife’ whereas Mirabell fears
cuckoldry, an ultimate embarrassment for a husband which perhaps explains why he bans
cosmetics and masks for her. Mrs. Fainall is a witness to the marriage contract between the
two.
Mirabell leaves and Lady Wishfort enters to announce that Millamant must marry her
nephew, Sir Wilfull Witwoud. Not very excited at the prospect and with a drunken suitor she
cannot tolerate, Millamant leaves the room. Waitwell disguised as Sir Rowland enters the
room and once again a familiar scene is evoked with Lady Wishfort worried about projecting
herself as a paragon of virtue which for women seemingly lies in their sexual passivity.
Further, that she is sure of being made fun of and appear lustful for sex or mocked for her
withering beauty points to the precarious position of women in the Restoration age, though in
a comic way.
Soon enough, Lady Wishfort is in possession of a secret letter, actually sent by the
scheming Mrs. Marwood, that threatens to expose Waitwell disguised as Sir Rowland thus
putting to jeopardy Mirabell’s elaborate plans. Foible with her quick intelligence is smart
enough to save him and Mirabell’s plans from going awry. In an attempt to save his skin,
Waitwell rushes off to get a contract of marriage with Lady Wishfort along with a black box
containing his wills and deeds as a proof of his love for her.
5.5 Act V
In this play about intrigues, one is followed by another. No sooner is one quelled than another
seems to disrupt the stability. Act V opens with Lady Wishfort fuming at her maid, Foible,

9
for having betrayed her trust by furthering Mirabell’s agenda. She informs that with Waitwell
already apprehended, it is Foible’s turn now to follow him in jail. She chastises her in
unceremonious language that exposes the façade of sophistication that polite culture
apparently resorts to.
Mrs. Fainall follows in after Lady Wishfort’s exit to reveal that her past liaison with
Mirabell has been exposed too. However, she is relieved that this might mean an end to her
marriage with the odious Fainall. Foible, with her wit and sympathy agrees to bear witness to
Fainall’s own adulterous affair with Mrs. Marwood. Foible reveals that Mincing too would
testify against them as they both had caught Fainall cheating with Mrs. Marwood. Mincing
soon after enters the room and briefs the audience with all that has transpired in between Acts
IV and V.
Lady Wishfort once again emerges on the scene expressing her gratitude to Mrs.
Marwood for having saved her, mistaken as she still is about Mrs. Marwood’s real nature.
She censures her daughter Mrs. Fainall for her scandalous past with Mirabell which the latter
defends. Mrs Fainall declares that she is even willing to stand trial to prove her innocence.
Mrs Marwood, fearful of her own exposure regarding her own malafide connivance with
Fainall, presses upon Lady Wishfort to avoid the scandal.
Equipped with the recent discoveries Fainall comes to blackmail Lady Wishfort. Eager to
grab her money and property, he has scant regard for any morality, conscience or ethics. In
his offer to prevent a scandal and loss of reputation, so central to the aristocratic class, Fainall
makes three demands; Lady Wishfort must never marry, Mrs Fainall must transfer her
property to him, and Lady Wishfort must transfer half the share of Millamant’s inheritance
that she controls. Mrs. Marwood subtly eggs on Lady Wishfort to concede to Fainall’s
demands. Since contracts and deeds are central to the world of money and property, Fainall
wants it all in the form of a written contract as that has a legal binding. In a curious twist to
the plot, Millamant agrees to marry Sir Wilfull Witwoud, the man of her aunt’s choice, and
Mirabell agrees to renounce his claim on her. Mirabel also offers explanations for his past
behavior with Lady Wishfort which she buys into. The turn gives some hope to Lady
Wishfort, and has Mrs. Marwood fearing that all her devious plans with Fainall will come to
naught. Fainall comes back again and this time with a legal contract in hand. Despite the turn
in circumstances, Fainall does not relent; he asserts his claim on his first two conditions and
even threatens to shame his wife against whom he uses indecorous language. Finding herself
in a fix, Lady Wishfort agrees to Mirabell’s offer to save her from the impending ruin at the
hands of Fainall. In a counterplot that exposes Mrs. Marwood as well, Mirabell has Waitwell
come with a black box that contains the deed whereby Mrs. Fainall / Arabella Languish had,
before her marriage with Fainall, signed her wealth in trust to Mirabell.
With their scheming plans foiled, Fainall and Mrs. Marwood leave. Mirabell, showing
gentlemanly behavior, restores the deed of trust to Mrs. Fainall. With dangers of all kinds
averted and order restored Mirabell can marry Millamant with her inheritance safe. Mrs.
Fainall in all likelihood is to go back to Fainall despite his treachery and ill treatment of her.

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5.6 Epilogue
The Play ends with an Epilogue, the lines of which are spoken by Anne Bracegirdle, the lady
who played the character of Millamant. The Epilogue once again reiterates the points made in
the Prologue about critics too quick to judge and censure wit and satire for they lack both.
Effectively, it also exhorts the audience to exercise restraint in their judgment and try to
understand the complex tasks of a poet.
5.7 Check your Progress
a. How does Act I foreground the Restoration world’s chasing after money and love?
b. Act II mirrors a world of women and their concerns. Comment.
c. What does Lady Wishfort’s obsession with her decaying beauty and a desire to marry
highlight?
d. What is the importance of the Proviso scene when read in light of it being a prenuptial
agreement?
e. The Way of the World is a play about plots and counterplots. Discuss.
6. Themes and Critical Analysis
The Way of the World is found teeming with a multiplicity of ideas that can be read as central
themes of the play. Most of them are intertwined with each other in the complex world of
Restoration society where values and class are in a state of flux. Some of which that can be
clubbed together for a better and coherent understanding of the times are as follows:
6.1 Social Class
Class is an important marker in the world of Restoration comedy. The impetus towards
industrialization, and the movement towards the age of science and technology along with the
enclosures of lands – all combined to displace the aristocracy by replacing them with the
rising middle class. The economic and structural change is reflected in the changing moral
attitudes such that one finds both the middle class and the aristocratic class trying to
tenaciously maintain their status quo. While the rising middle class aspires to attain the social
graces hitherto associated with aristocracy, the upper class in its turn does not mind marrying
into the middle class to retain its place which explains Millamant and Mirabell’s marriage
and Lady Wishfort’s desire to marry Mirabell, and the many other relationships in the play.
Lady Wishfort’s concern with her withering beauty and Millamant tolerating fools and
false wits underlines the ennui ridden lives of upper class women. An obsession with cards
and chocolate houses suggest new sites of pleasures for men along with St. James Park and
the Mall which are thronged by members of the privileged class. The boredom that they so
wish to overcome perhaps also explains the world of intrigue and fashion that so many of
them seem to inhabit.
Further, it is also worth noting that in their attempts to consolidate their position in the
changing socio-economic order, it is the servants upon whom the masters depend to a great
extent. For instance, both Mirabell and Lady Wishfort rely upon their servants for the success

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of their plans. A critical focus on this understudied category offers valuable insights into the
complex world of master-servant relationships. Even while they are integral to the world of
the play, how they are treated is also a comment on the hypocrisies of the upper class. Even
while Mirabell rewards Foible for her assistance, his using her and Waitwell by getting them
married in the first place to serve his own ends also suggest how they are conveniently treated
as commodities by their masters. At the same time one cannot help but notice a rare moment
of honest and unaffected appreciation when Foible, the maid, praises Mrs. Fainall.
6.2 Polarization of the country and the city
In the binary of the country and the city, the country comes to symbolize all that is pure and
uncorrupt with the concomitant values of simplicity and honesty. Duplicity and affectation is
associated with city. Despite their assumed virtuousness, those from the countryside like Sir
Wilfull Witwoud come across as bumbling figures who cannot possibly fare well in a city
like London full of street smarts. This city-county divide becomes more pronounced in the
wake of the growing power of trading classes which while rubbing shoulders with aristocracy
are mortified by their humble origins.
6.3 Idea of Wit in the Culture of Elitism
In this newly emergent social order where earlier sureties of class and morality no more exist,
it allows for a redefinition of sorts. Wit is increasingly valued as a defining marker of an elite
class and literary refinement and is therefore much sought after. True wit is one who can
combine the qualities of intelligence, learnedness with generosity and compassion like Mr.
Mirabell. However, there are many who in their attempt to appear true wits, end up as fops
and false wits like Witwoud, Petulant and Fainall. It is them who make for much of the
comedy and humour that crackles the Restoration plays.
6.4 The Nexus of Money and Marriage, Love and Property
The intricate web of relationships that binds the characters in a paradoxical relationship of
love and hate is a consequence of a desire for both economic security and sexual pleasure.
What complicates it further is the idea of respectability as a function of marriage which
works differently for men and women. While it apparently provides women with economic
security long after the beauty has faded, it allows men like Fainall a veneer to carry on with
their extramarital affair. Women’s dependence on men and marriage is a concern that the
play highlights. The difference though lies in one’s approach and calculations with which
they treat love and marriage. The treatment then is an important trait that would distinguish
the avaricious rogues from gentlemen even though the latter is not fully exempt from the
charge of running after money and financial gains. Mirabell says, ‘… the good lady would
marry anything that resembled a man, though, no more than what a butler could pinch out of
a napkin.’ Despite its gross exaggeration regarding sexual desire in an aging women,
Congreve perhaps wanted his audience to be sympathetic to the same when Mrs. Fainall
responds, somewhat crestfallen, ‘Female frailty! We must all come to it, if we be old and feel
that craving of a false appetite when the true is decayed.’ But that which in a woman is

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depravity becomes a hallmark of male virility and sexual desirability. It points to the
society’s hypocrisy and different standards that they hold out for different sexes as is evident
from Mirabell’s comment when he utters ‘an old woman’s appetite is depraved like that of a
girl.’
Mirabell who is quick to label Lady Wishfort as depraved, does not see himself in the
same light, even though he would not marry Millamant without her inheritance despite his
professed love for her. That he himself has been a libertine rake who in his quest for sex and
amours has severely compromised Mrs. Fainall’s position is not questioned in the play. That
he ends the play with his suggestion that ‘that marriage frauds too oft are paid in kind’ is
telling. When read in light of Mrs. Fainall’s undecided fate, it reveals the limitations of
women’s choices and the necessity of marriage as central to a sense of respectability in
society. And while love is desirable in marriage it is money, property and inheritance that
binds people in conjugal relationships. Even though Millamant has attempted to forge a new
paradigm of marriage as glimpsed in the proviso scene, she can never be free from the fear of
dwindling into the customary role of a wife. That she fears marriage despite her
independence with the money she has through inheritance combined with her literary and
cultural sophistication also suggests the much compromised status of women in marriage.
6.5 Check your Progress
a. In The Way of the World women without marriage seem to be doomed. Do you agree?
Give a reasoned answer.
b. How does The Way of the World critique the conventions of courtship and marriage in
the Restoration period?
c. The Way of the World is a commentary on the emergent bourgeoisie and the falling
aristocracy. Discuss.
d. Comment on the importance of wit in the world of Restoration society.
e. The Way of the World does not so much subvert the social order as it domesticates the
forces threatening to collapse marriage and property. Discuss with examples from the
text.
7. Character Analysis
7.1 Edward Mirabell
Mirabell is the one who embodies the qualities typical of a Restoration hero. He is handsome,
smart and witty with ladies swooning over him. In the play, he is the libertine hero who
finally wants to settle down with Millamant but not without her share of inheritance secured
to him. His womanizing habits though have disgruntled many who have vowed to avenge
themselves. While he displays a mercenary side to his character he is redeemed by the end of
the play because of his generosity and sympathy towards Mrs. Fainall to whom he returns the
property even though she had signed it to him in trust prior to her marriage with Fainall. He
also saves Lady Wishfort from any ruin and scandal even though things had gone awry
between the two. For all his waywardness, he is a knight in the shining armour.

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7.2 Millamant
Millamant is the heroine of the play whom Mirabell wants to marry. She is charming,
vivacious and full of wit and intelligence matched only by Mirabell. While she plays the role
of a Petrarchan mistress so brilliantly, she does so only to heighten the romance in the game
of love and courtship. Her sparkling presence is noticeable also for the ways in which she is
able to assert her independence of mind and space that she sees as central to her being. That
Mirabell complies with them in the proviso scene bears testimony to her will power.
7.3 Lady Wishfort
Lady Wisfort is an aged woman of fifty five years who cannot come to terms with her age.
She is the mother of Mrs. Fainfall and aunt of Millamant who controls the wealth in the
family. She is incensed at Mirabell for having spurned her for Millamant and consequently
despises him and is willing to marry his uncle Sir Rowland. Her obsession with beauty and
age opens a window onto the pathetic position of upper class women in Restoration Society
even though many of the scenes involving her are comic.
7.4 Mrs. Fainall
Mrs Fainall is the daughter of Lady Wishfort and the wife of Fainall to whom she was
married at the behest of Mirabell fearing that she was pregnant with the latter’s child. She is a
smart strategist as witnessed in how she is able to fend off manipulators in the form of Fainall
and Mrs Marwood. In the course of the play, she comes across as a wise, sympathetic and a
dignified character. As an accomplice she even aids her former lover in his plans that include
helping him marry his lover Millamant which goes on to show the warmth of her character.
7.5 Fainall
Fainall is the husband of Mrs. Arabella Fainall. He is treacherous, lacks moral conscience,
and carries on an affair with his mistress, Mrs. Marwood. His ultimate plan is to rob Lady
Wishfort, his wife Mrs. Fainall and Millamant of their fortune by couching it in name of a
contract. In his relentless pursuit of sex and money, he treats his wife worse than a door mat;
even threatening to cause her public ignominy and shame by exposing her past affair with
Mirabell while conveniently forgetting his own adulterous relationship with Mrs. Marwood.
7.6 Mrs. Marwood
Mrs. Marwood is Fainall’s mistress and secretly desires Mirabell. As Mirabell does not
reciprocate her advances, she acts as a malcontent character looking to destroy his
opportunities of finding love and money which he hopes for by marrying Millamant.
Together with Fainall, she is the villain of the play who lack conscience and a moral center.
7.7 Waitwell
Waitwell is the faithful servant to his master Mirabell on whose effective masquerading as Sir
Rowland, Mirabell’s success depends. Married to Foible whom he is hankering after, he adds
to the comedy of the play as can be noticed in his scenes with Lady Wishfort whom he is
supposed to woo.

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7.8 Foible
Foible is Lady Wishfort’s attendant but committed to Mirabell in his schemes. As part of his
plans, she is married to Waitwell and is central to the narrative of the play and saves the day
very often with her gift of quick wit and sharp intelligence. She is also loyal and committed
to Mrs. Fainall to whose rescue she comes when Fainall threatens to soil her reputation.
7.9 Mincing
Mincing is Millamant’s attendant. Together with Foible she also displays a faithful and
sympathetic character when she too testifies against Fainall and Mrs. Marwood to protect the
honour of Mrs. Fainall.
7.10 Sir Wilfull Witwoud
Sir Wilfull Witwoud is Young Witwoud’s elder brother who has come to London. He plans
to travel abroad as was the fashion of the day when travel was a means of education. He
however gets entangled in an incongruous situation because of his apparent stupidity. His
aunt, Lady Wishfort wants him to marry Millamant which leads to humourous scenes.
Through him and his lack of refinement Congreve highlights a crucial debate of the time,
namely city versus countryside.
7.11 Witwoud
Witwoud is a fop who is ashamed of his countryside origins, and has pretensions about being
witty and smart. He is also friends with Petulant.
7.12 Petulant
Petulant is the fool in the play. He along with Witwoud are the hangers on who give
Millamant company. Given his vanity, he likes to give the impression that he is a man much
in demand and even hires people to enact the drama highlighting his importance.
8. Summing Up
Read in today’s time The Way of the World, leaves its readers, particularly women, with a
sense of claustrophobia. For all its veneer of sophistication, polished wit and elegance of the
upper classes that Congreve himself exposes, his position on women seems more ambiguous.
While the scenes of the play are interspersed with fleeting moments of sympathy for women,
the women are mostly used to evoke laughter or are means to an end. That nothing is told of
the fate that awaits Mrs. Fainall who so desperately wants to escape the suffocating marriage
she has been tricked into by none other than her lover to whom she still continues to be
faithful warrants attention. Millamant’s apprehensions of marriage despite the prenuptial
agreement and the fact that she gets to marry the man who reciprocates her love also
underscores the very limited spaces from within which women negotiate. The tragic irony of
which is also underlined in the last line which clearly tells the audience-readers that even
those who cheat their spouse are treated in kind. It points to the (cruel) ‘way of the world’
where women are treated as commodities. What is even more important here however is to

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understand - kind to whom? The answer to which is- to men like Fainall who goes
unpunished despite all his deceit and shame that he brought upon his wife.
Further, when read in light of the lukewarm reception of the play in its own times, it is
obvious that a decadent morality was no more acceptable as it was in the beginning of the
Restoration age. On a concluding note it must be stressed that perhaps Congreve had prior
intuitive realization of this. May be this is why he sought to temper the libertinism of
Mirabell with sympathy and generosity of character as part of his learning curve. In the new
order it is not only women whose sexual passivity would be integral to the materiality of
property and inheritance but men too will have to abandon the hitherto libertine ways of a
rake hero. They too will have to reform themselves and be acceptable to the new social order
for it to survive. That a language of law, deeds and contracts becomes central to the new
system is also indicative of the binding nature of the new rules in the way of the world.
9. Suggested Reading
Congreve, William. The Way of the World. Ed. Shirshendu Chakrabarti. New Delhi: Orient
Longman, 2007.
Congreve, William. The Way of the World. Ed. Brian Gibbons. London: Bloomsbury, 2015.
Etherege, George. The Man of Mode. Ed. Michael Neille. London: Bloomsbury, 2019.
Fisk, Deborah Payne. The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre. UK:
Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Hunt, Leigh. The Dramatic Works of Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh and Farquhar.
London: Routledge, 1860.
Kaufman, Anthony. ‘Language and Character in Congreve’s The Way of the World’ in Texas
Studies in Literature and Language. JSTOR: University of Texas Press. Vol. 15, No. 3 (Fall
1973), pp. 411-427.: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40755227
Lynch, Kathleen M. The Social Mode of Restoration Comedy. New York: Macmillan, 1926.
Lindsay, Alexander and Erskine-Hill, Howard. Eds. William Congreve The Critical Heritage.
London and New York: Routledge, 1989.
Mcmillin, Scott. Restoration and Eighteenth Century Comedy. USA: W.W. Norton, 1997.
McCloskey, Susan. ‘Knowing One’s Relations in Congreve’s “The Way of the World” in
Theatre Journal, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Mar., 1981), pp. 69-79.
Styan, J. L. Restoration Comedy in Performance. India: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

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