by Maureen Cutajar

Created on: July 20, 2010   Last Updated: July 28, 2010

William Congreve’s plays have two main targets. The male characters who pretend to be witty when they are not and the pretenders to honor and virtue. Congreve’s characters pretend to be precise and exact but they take their pleasure where they can find it. In the Way of the World however the judgment is sound and the laughter is contained. The play masterly foregrounds the character of a witwoud and that of a true wit.

Witwoud and Petulant

The most obvious foils in the play are Witwoud and Petulant. Petulant is the would-be man of candour who is soon exposed in all his vanity and hypocrisy as a man pretending to a more wholesome humor than he possesses.

Witwoud is more obvious and he is the epitome of wit without judgment. What Witwoud and Petulant dramatize so well is summed up in Mirabell’s couplet at the close of the first act:

Where modesty’s ill-manners; ‘tis but fit
That impudence and malice pass for wit.

Fainall and Marwood

The figures who are the masters of hypocrisy are Fainall and Marwood. Fainall is a character who is greedy, grasping and disreputable. The disdain in which Fainall holds the world is best seen when he confronts Lady Wishfort with his demands, sparing her no humiliation.

Marwood is not much better. She claims that she hates all men and seems to put up with her lover out of some perverse duty. But like Fainall, she flourishes in those moments when she finds relief from her bitterness in the promise of pain to others.

Mirabell as the ideal of a genteman

Mirabell is the protagonist of the play, in the beginning he is a rake but he is a person who can discriminate between right and wrong, between true wit and false wit. Mirabell is different from the other male characters because of his prudence and discernment. Mirabell has the intention of matrimony with Millamant and his prudence is spelt out when he advises Mrs Fainall to hate with prudence.

Mirabell’s genuine love for Millamant and his attempt to establish a meaningful marital relationship are contrasted with Fainall’s vicious, manipulative, and unsympathetic attitude towards both his wife and his mistress, Mrs Marwood. He is drawn to Millamant both by passion and by reason. He uses his reason to show himself as a true wit. He is the epitome of true wit of the Restoration Comedy proving himself an enemy of the witwoud.

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