Question- Write a note on Congreave's art of characterisation with special reference to "The Way of the World."

Or
Consider the portrayal of women in the play The Way of the World'.
Or
Discuss humour and affection in the characters in the play 'The Way of the World”.

Answer -

Critics have described The Way of the World as a comedy of manners but according to Dr. Pierpoint the play is first a comedy of character. The episodes and events have litle significance. It is the characters that lend vitality, charm and force to the play.

Comedy of manners depicted the aristocratic society of the day. The presence of upper class at the centre of the comic action marked the comedy because the comedy of manners was realistic in character and focussed the attention on life, manners, ways, love intigrues and foppery of the upper class and the aristisocratic classes of society. In The Way of the World' most of the characters belong to this class as Mirabell, Millament, Fainall and Mrs. Fainall. These are the people who know "the ways of the world" the manners of aristocratic society. The others group who is ignorance of these ways include characters as Witwould, Petulant and Sir Wilfull.

Since Congreave wanted his play "The Way of the World" to reflect the manners of the age he has carefully selected his characters from the groups of society which could represent the age. The gents and ladies of this period loved floppery and snobbery, gaiety and frivolity. Members of this group professed contempt for sentiments of pity and treated spirituality with ridicule. To these people love and devotion was not a sentiment that glorifies and sublimates human nature but to them it was simply a beastly physical passion. For instance Mirabell is held up for praise inspite of his adulterous relations with Mrs. Fainall while her faithlessness earns for her husband the stigma of cuckoldom. It is because the adultery was the calling of a fine gentleman as a grace without which his character would be imperfect.

Congreve has taken care not to select his important character from the ways of life in general but from the artificial life of the upper class of society in the fashionable quarters of London. In this little closed world there is not a single pretence of morals. Lady Wishfort is an old woman of fifty five but not old in her desire for wedlock. In order to look charming for the purpose she takes great pains to hide the furrows of age on her face with the aid of paint and powder. With sensual fire still ablaze in her heart she could not perceive that Mirabell was false in his a vowful love towards her.

Though all characters in the play have been carefully designed and superbly drawn by Congreve but the greatest proof of his creative genius lies in protrayal of Millamant the bewitching heroine. Hazlitt calls her "the ideal heroine of the comedy of high life" that is the life led by fashionable men and women belonging to the royal circle of the day. In dress, in speech and in acts she is elegance personified. She is not simply a decorated doll, she possesses polished manners and cultured habits. She is brilliantly witty and intelligent and can meet an argument with a counter argument of devastating import. When Mirabell asks her how can she find delight in the company of group of fools she retorts in a way to put an end to future arguments on this topic.

Mirabell: How can you find delight in such society? It is impossible they should admire you, they are not capable; or if they were, it should be to you as mortification; for sure to please a fool is some degree of folly.

Millament: I please myself besides, sometimes to converse with fools is good for any health.

Mirabell: Your health! Is there a worse disease than the conversation of fools?

Millament: Yes the vapours; fools are physic for it next to assafoetida. The beauty of the Congreve's art of characterisation lies in protraying Millamant's follies so naturally and artistically that they become her and those affectations which in another woman would be odious serve but to make her more agreeble. Her qualities and character more artfully reflected in the finest and wittiest bargaining scene where she proposes conditions to Mirabell on the acceptance of which she would consent to marry him. She is a woman who loves Mirabell violently but does not want to sacrifice her womanly chastity at the altar of Mirabell's masculine charms as Mrs. Fainall and Mrs. Marwood would have easily, willingly and readily done had Mirabell chosen to take advantage of their advances. In the form of Millamant Congreve has portrayed a character who, in the midst of a circle of sensual and sexual perverts and being pursued by dignified gallants, can keep her emotions under discipline and control.

The portrayal of Millamant goes to prove that Congreve's characters are both individual and types. They represent real men and women with all their passions, thoughts and interests. Millamant is at once looking angry, pleased, displeased, sympathetic, cold, indifferent, gay, melancholy and so on. This is real human nature full of mystery and surprises. In the form of Millamant Congreve has explained the mystery of womanhood.

Mirabell is presented as a lover, a friend, a master and a gentleman with varied interests. His generousity is emphasised and his honesty and sincerity projected. He helps Mrs. Fainall as a disinterested friend and even helps his enemy Lady Wishfort from being blackmailed by her son-in-law. He is intelligent, shrewd and a sincere lover. His love for Millamant is genuine but his conception with Mrs. Fainall can not be excused.

The characters in the play may be broadly put into two groups; one consisting of those who know the way of the world and the other of those who unfortunately do not. Mirabell, Millamant, Fainall and Mrs. Fainall belong to the farmer group and Witwod and Petulant and Sir Wilfull to the latter group. Sir Wilful Wit would is a country squire; simple and unsophisticated. He is an amusing character and represents the natural, plain and corrupt millions of England leaving away and a loof from London's court circle. He is not hailed and greeted because of his rural breeding.

On the other side of the curtain are Witwod and Petulant a pair of fashionable fops who pretend to the persons of good breeding. But their real role consists of amusing dialogues upon which according to Hazlit "half the business and gaiety of comedy turns". Except these two characters all other characters in "The Way of the World" are concerned along the same line. All other character are rounded wholes not partial representation of oddities and humour (characters of Witwoud and Petulant an humourful and one sided). Withwoud and Petulant are shown as fools among wise.

"Congreve's heroes and heroines are animated by greatness; which is above circumstances, seems to be its own end; raises life higher than itself and to carry the painter of character on the plane of poetic touch, with an accent of cynical impertinance, in which one catches the ring of epoch, is a rapture of imagination, recalling the early comedies of Shakespeare; at the same time they are idealised and strikingly true to life."

...Prev | Next...