"THE PLAIN DEALER"   Term Paper ID:18758 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: (William Wycherley). Examines play as updated English version of Moliere's [The Misanthrope] & critique of Restoration society.... More...

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Paper Abstract: (William Wycherley). Examines play as updated English version of Moliere's [The Misanthrope] & critique of Restoration society. Paper Introduction: The purpose of this research is to examine The Plain Dealer by William Wycherley. The plan of the research will be to set forth the outline of the story, to position the play in the appropriate social and dramatic context, and then to explore meanings that various critics have attributed to it. In this regard, the antecedent of the play, Le Misanthrope (Mis.) by Moliere, will be cited so as to show how The Plain Dealer offers the English version of a story that becomes more than an adaptation--an updating of Moliere's style of social comment on one hand, and a criticism of the Restoration society for which Wycherley wrote on the other. The Plain Dealer charts the efforts of the surly, asocial Captain Manly, betrothed to Olivia and betrayed by her and his best friend Vernish, to not only reclaim the fortune he had Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Hisplaywrighting craft, however, is no more out of control than his moralsense is perverted. The pattern of ideas in The Plain Dealer can be usefully charted byreference to Mis. Mr. Wycherley's world is a cruel world; the laughter is not silvery, but scornful; and the mood is fundamentally one of weariness and disillusion with an age grown old and cold and dreary. John Gassner and Edward Quinn. Alceste reminds them that if one ofthe absent came in sight, "you'll at once / Embrace the man you latelycalled a dunce, Telling him in a tone sincere and fervent / How proud youare to be his humble servant" (II.v). 897-8.Matthews, Brander. Plot resolution in The Plain Dealer is largely contingent on theemergence of Manly's character, particularly as it balances and responds toOlivia's. Twayne's English Authors Series 127. But Wycherley transforms the humor of the pivotal gossipscene, as well as the actions that flow from it and from the misanthropy ofthe central character, into something far more vicious, dark, bitter.Indeed, Olivia and Novel say far nastier things about those who are absentthan that they are tiresome or full of flaws. ELIZA. This line of action reflects a France in which sociallines were rigidly drawn and where there was no questioning of one's placein the social scheme. Rogers, meanwhile,sees (without believing) the movement from the misguided misanthrope of ActI to the moral idealist of Act V, a result of Fidelia's "deadly earnestremonstrations" against his protracted revenge against Olivia. Garden City: Anchor-Doubleday, 1966. William Wycherley. In Mis., the aristocratic characterstraffic in lighter calumnies and devilish wordplay for sport. Richard Wilbur. But Wycherley was less interested in creating ahero than in an altogether different set of themes. WinstonChurchill might be thinking of The Plain Dealer when citing the politicalsituationWilliam of Orange encountered when he arrived in England from Holland in1688: "He accepted double-dealing as a necessary element in a situation ofunexampled perplexity" (Commager 228). " The Plain-Dealer." The Reader's Encyclopedia of World Drama. If The Plain Dealer's chief focus is onManly's character development, then Manly is an inconsistent, undeservingscoundrel and the play has a fault that cannot be overcome. The assessment of thedark tone of The Plain Dealer marks most of the criticism of the play.Weales refers to Wycherley's gossip scene as "much harsher in tone" (Weales374) than its counterpart in Mis. This resolution neither violates nor coddles romantic sentiment.Manly's victory is the victory of social criticism, of an abstraction thatis higher, more decent than is meanness of spirit, and it is a victory thatreaches past sentimental melodrama toward what might be called heroic-ironic allegory of manners. Works CitedCommager, Henry Steele, ed. For Katherine Rogers, for example, the action of ThePlain Dealer and the development of its hero Manly create anunsatisfactorily resolved moral and dramatic tension. 3 vols. In this regard, the antecedent of the play, LeMisanthrope (Mis.) by Moliere, will be cited so as to show how The PlainDealer offers the English version of a story that becomes more than anadaptation--an updating of Moliere's style of social comment on one hand,and a criticism of the Restoration society for which Wycherley wrote on theother. . I draw after the life; do nobody wrong, cousin. Crowell, 1969.Weales, Gerald. They go beyond criticizingflaws and suggest that the flawed are responsible for the ills of theuniverse. "The Plain-Dealer by William Wycherley." Plays of the Restoration and Eighteenth Century. On Rogers's view Manly is hardly theplain-dealer, but rather a sexual schemer who, embarrassed by a false,hypocritical mistress, insists on ruining her in society. "Marriage!" she tells her rather decentcousin Eliza, "what a pleasure you have found out! New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 193 .Gassner, John, ed. His excess of character surfaces in the gossip scene,wherein Celimene, Eliante, Philinte, Acaste, and Clitandre blithely dissectthe foibles of their absent friends. It's literally tit fortat in The Plain Dealer, something the privileged audience for the playwould doubtless find familiar. Wycherley does in his play what he most of all knows no onecould do in real life, inflict plain dealing on the whole of the rest ofthe cast (i.e., society). Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Arranged for One Volume. One would have time, if one had leisure at all, tomake verbal nuance one of the higher social aspirations. But if theplay is chiefly concerned to show an attack on a degenerate, if decorous,society, then it is the attack, not the man, that is rewarded. Draina cannot be fully effective when one's attitude toward the characters is made to fluctuate--nor can satire when faulty conduct is measured against shifting scales of values (89). But why is Manly, who from a conventionally social standpoint behavesabominably, rewarded with the love of the only sympathetic character onstage? Ed. By Moliere. Thisincludes a direct manipulation of his (as he presumes) page into pimping--his word, specifically not a romantic wooing--for him. Not only that, he gets thegirl, and his last words--happy ending, fortune, and girl equally secure--caution against trust: "Yet, for my sake, let no one else confide / Intears or oaths, in love or friend untried" (V.iii). Smith. This explains Manly's studied rudeness with strangers, hisalmost winsome frustration at being forced to participate in WidowBlackacre's litigation, his intense fury for sexual revenge on Olivia anduse of subterfuge through his page to achieve it. To be sure,Olivia deserves to be ruined. As Rogers puts it, in a comparison of Wycherley's attitudetoward Manly and Moliere's attitude toward Alceste: "One's reaction toManly is confused because Wycherley's own attitude toward him vacillatedbetween detachment and identification. No, you hate flattery and detraction! One may allow that Wycherley's notion of thedetails of higher good are idiosyncratic, but that is a matter apart, forone must also allow that he is entitled to his point of view. [m]y husband . The Misanthrope. Introduction. James L. He says flatly that "sentiments should never be masked under vaincompliments" (I.i). Either level of reality could be accepted, but not both together. New York: Twayne, 1972.Waith, Eugene M. So, cousin, I find one may have a collection of all ones acquaintances, pictures as well at your house, as at Master Lely's, only the difference is there we find 'em much handsomer than they are and like, here, much uglier and like; and you are the first of the profession of picture-drawing I ever knew without flattery. But The Plain Dealer isWycherley's mature work, and criticism must begin with some confidence thatWycherley knew what he was doing. The Outline of History: Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind. The plan of the research will be to set forth theoutline of the story, to position the play in the appropriate social anddramatic context, and then to explore meanings that various critics haveattributed to it. New York: Norton, 1979.----------------------- 12 To be sure, the comic potential of Olivia'sfalling for Fidelia and groping for her in the dark is as obvious in ThePlain Dealer as in Twelfth Night, and far more bawdy. Riddled withchicanery though it be in Manly, this abstraction develops a life of itsown as it achieves a series of victories over the society against which itmust deal. Waith notes the satire of the litigation subplotin the play but says that "the main plot sometimes becomes so bitter thatit has tragic overtones" (Waith 661). Trans. As Wells commentsof the court of Louis XIV, "It subordinated substance to style" (Wells2:691). 2 vols. New Mermaids-- A Benn Study--Drama. New York: Harvest-Harcourt, 1954.Rogers, Katharine M. The action and design of theplay, of which Wycherley is from first to last in absolute control, showthat and how alliances between honesty and fidelity, which society needs,might be formed. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 191 .Moliere, Jean Baptiste Poquelin. OLIVIA. The Plain Dealer owes much to the gossip scene, and much elsebesides, in Mis. In this enterprisehe enlists the help of Fidelia, who he thinks is a young man but is in facta young woman of fortune so deeply in love with him that she has disguisedherself as his page. A Treasury of the Theatre. Wycherley's characters are secondary to the idea of showing behavior in aparticular social context and illustrating the truth of its moralcategories. The Plain Dealer isnot a study of character within society as such, but of the society itself. As Connely remarks, "from the beginning theplaygoers had appeared a bit afraid of Manly" (Connely 122). If in the scheme of conventional morality Manlygets better than he deserves, his plain dealing--as a moral category andmore important as something antithetical to prevailing moral culture--deserves no less than it gets, which is the commitment of that rare beingwho is specifically, artlessly atypical of that culture. New York: Harvest-Harcourt, 1954. Rather, Restoration society is both out of control andperverse, and that is what the play is about. For Manlyis not so much a personification of as a stand-in for plain-dealing, justas Fidelia is a stand-in for the rewards to which plain-dealing may aspire. Introduction. Weales puts a bravely caddish face on the love match by saying thatthe ending, "is the play's best joke" (Weales xix-xx). The play is written, therefore, from two incompatible moral viewpoints and deals with two incompatible levels of reality. The purpose of this research is to examine The Plain Dealer byWilliam Wycherley. .. New York: Holt, Rinehart, 1931. Moliere: His Life and His Works. To deplore or rationalize Manly's behavior on moral grounds, asRogers and Weales do, is to miss the real dramatic focus, which is that anabstraction--Manly's plain dealing--is the hero of the play. Wycherley was writingfor an audience that had undergone enormous political, religious, andsocial upheaval, from the civil war and regicide of the 164 s, through theRestoration of Charles II in 166 and the 1688 Glorious Revolution.Wells's comment on seventeenth-century English literature is that it"reflected the less stable and centralized quality of English affairs andhad more vigour and less polish than the French" (Wells 1:692). His view that to savage another'sreputation is acceptable if it be done to the other's face turns back uponhim, when he is summoned by the court to apologize formally for criticizinga rival's love sonnet to Celimene. OLIVIA. On the one hand, there is the ordinary attitude of Restoration comedy, based on cynical observation of life, that a sensible man should make the best of a society which is, after all, not so bad. New York: Greenwich-Crown, 1983.Connely, Willard. By William Wycherley. If Wycherley's intention is to suggest that man is capable ofreaching and living according to something like absolute morality, then hischaracterization of Manly is a mistake. Stakes are higher in The Plain Dealer, where nuance and subtlety arenot achievements but social operating equipment. Wycherley's inconsistency in attitude is manifested formally by shifts into (execrable) blank verse when he wants Manly and Fidelia to display their higher natures--self-sacrificing love or pain at practicing deception. MacMillan and Jones (898) summarizethe shift from Moliere to Wycherley: If Le Misanthrope suffers from thinness of plot, that of The Plain-Dealer suffers by the uneven distribution of events over the play, the end being especially huddled together, but is nevertheless testimony to this writer's wide observation and vigor of description. Taken together, these assessments of the social context of The PlainDealer explain Gassner's comment that The Plain Dealer is "a slashingadaptation of Moliere's The Misanthrope, lacking the latter play's subtletybut possessing a power of its own" (Gassner 1:1 23). Smallwonder, then, that they break into laughter at Alceste's summons; theconsequences of deadly serious honesty are far greater than those ofplayful backbiting. In Moliere's play, the character of Alceste is aparadox, for he is doggedly dour in his rejection of ordinary human comity. Yet it is Manly's character that has been the source of muchcritical controversy. Here gossip is notdiversion but a symptom of deep societal malaise. Yet when Manly asks her to return the money and jewels hegave her, she frames her answer so as to suggest Manly's ill breeding andcontempt for her for asking for them; "I have delivered your jewels to . New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967.MacMillan, Dougald, and Howard Mumford Jones. New York: Thomas Y. (II.i) This isn't honesty; it's malice, very much personified in thecharacter of Olivia, who is not merely coquettish but so programmaticallydeceptive that she lies even to family members about her taste for society,fashion, the court, marriage. 7-1 .Wycherley, William. I dare not ask him for your jewels again, to restore'em to you; lest he should conclude you never would have parted with 'em tome, on any other score, but the exchange of my honour: which rather thanyou'd let me use, you'd lose I'm sure yourself, those trifles of yours"(ii.i). Thetricking of Olivia is consistent with Restoration mores, but Rogers wantsManly to "if not suffer, at least repent for his moral lapse" (Rogers 81).Manly, of course, neither repents nor suffers. The Plain Dealer charts the efforts of the surly, asocial CaptainManly, betrothed to Olivia and betrayed by her and his best friend Vernish,to not only reclaim the fortune he had entrusted to her before going to warbut also avenge the betrayal by exposing her duplicity. The Plain Dealer. . Like Alceste in Mis., Manly disdains virtually all ofsociety. But Manly, whocomports himself as a craggy stoic, acts like a churlish stud. Ed. I nauseate it of allthings" (II. Garden City: Doubleday, 1971.Wilbur, Richard. For suchsneakiness, he is rewarded with the undying love and fortune of an innocentwhom he enlists in debauchery. Here speaks no moralidealist, but a plain dealer who will withhold moral approval gladly andsuffer fools and cheats grudgingly. It is as if wycherley is intent on creating a comically stubborncharacter, a heroic character, and equally intent on proving the hero asordid lecher. Moliere saw good points in Alcesteand at times sympathized with him, but he never lost his sense of humorabout him" (Rogers 88). The Complete Plays of William Wycherley. The Misanthrope. ELIZA. i). xi-xx.Wells, H.G. Mingled with this attitude is the discordant view, based on the concept of some ideal world, that man should be more than a selfish animal, that he should try to approach absolute moral standards, and, consequently, that ordinary worldly behavior is despicable. Matthews also notes the change in tonefrom Moliere to Wycherley when he remarks that "in its form, if not in itsspirit, the comedy of Wycherley and of Congreve is taken from the comedy ofMoliere" (Matthews 359). Brawny Wycherley. 192 . Rogers has--but because of her moral focusmisses--the point, acknowledging that "Wycherley's attack on falsity isboth forceful and highly relevant to Restoration society, in whichdeclarations of love and friendship had degenerated into meaninglessprofessions" (Rogers 89-9 ). Manly's category, whatever his obscure motivations, is that of plain-dealing. Wycherley thus puts Manly's plain-dealing behavior--and not Manly--in the role of the protagonist, with the society in the role ofantagonist. Unlike Alceste, Manly is mercilessly, bitterly persistent inpursuing his revenge on Olivia, even though he is sidetracked by unwillinginvolvement in one of the many lawsuits being pursued by an acquaintance,the Widow Blackacre. Fidelia is theonly one who fits the bill. Then she bestows as unfortunately on her face all the graces in fashion, as the languishing eye, the hanging or pouting lip; but as the fool is never more provoking than when he aims at wit, the ill-favoured of our sex are never more nauseous than when they would be beauties, adding to their natural deformity the artificial ugliness of affectation. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.