The Way of the World
The Way of the World is a comedy of manners in five acts by William Congreve.Performed and published in 1700 the play ridicules the assumptions that governed thesociety of his time, especially those concerning love and marriage. The plot concerns theefforts of the lovers Millamant and Mirabell to obtain the permission of Millamant's aunt,Lady Wishfort, for their marriage. Despite a scheme that goes wrong and after severalmisunderstandings are cleared up, the two finally obtain her consent. This essay will discuss the actions of Mrs. Marwood. Though she is a minorcharacter, her motives in the play lead her to help in the distruction of Mirabell's scheme.In the second act we find that Mrs. Fainall and Mrs. Marwood both hate men. As theybegin to conspire, we see Marwood's manipulative abilities going to work, convincingMrs. Fainall that she should divorce her husband. In Public the Fainall's seem to get along,they even seem to be able to tolerate one another. However, following their shortinteractions, both husband and wife go off with a lover, either past or present. Fainall
For example, Fainall worked with Mrs. The characters that workedtogether tended to have some type of loyalty to the other character(s). Through these conversations, the plot to wed Mirabell and Millamant is revealedto the audience. Lady Wishfort in turn was scolding Foible and proceeded to basicallythrow her out of her home. She writes a letter that reveals to Lady Wishfortthe entire plan including Waitwell's impersonation of Sir Rowland, and even Millamantsinvolvement with the unapproved contract. Fainall went off with Mirabell, oneof her long time lovers before her marriage. She also told Lady Wishfort that Mirabell had insultedher, which made Lady Wishfort extremely mad and so she desired to seek revenge on sucha bold and stubborn man. Waitwell tries to justify the letter and so offers to prove his identity as Sir Rowland. The characters themselves were not necessarily deep, but theinter-relationships were important to the overall storyline. Marwoods action overallwere not honorable. However, since Fainall knew about Marwood's plan to use the letter, he was waiting toarrest Waitwell. This seems to be a long and intricate plan with a lot of things dependingon the reactions of Lady Wishfort and the secrecy of the plot. Nebraska: University of Nebrask Press.
Common topics in this essay:
Lady Wishfort,
Fainall Marwood,
Lady Wishfort's,
Fainall Mirabell,
Congreve Performed,
lady wishfort,
Millamant Mirabell,
Public Fainall's,
Marwood Foible,
Mirabell Millamant,
Paper1 Draft,
millamant mirabell,
fainall marwood,
sir rowland,
william congreve,
mirabell's scheme,
entire plan,
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Acceptance Essays
