William Congreve’s Love for Love as a Comedy of Manners

Love for Love , written by William Congreve is a comedy of manners that deals with the issues or contemporary society. As a comedy of manners, the play highlights the traits of satire on upper class society , wits , love intrigues , superficiality and sophisticated lifestyle and others. The play clearly shows the social liberty from Puritan government and the lifestyle behaviour of the Restoration Period. William Congreve’s Love for Love is considered to be the most satirical plays ever written.

The play contains the characteristics of comedy of manners. It exposes the superficial lifestyle and engagement of characters into debts. Valentine is such a character whose father is rich yet he is in a huge debt. He lavishes all his money and he is soon in debt. He tells his servant Jeremy and Scandal about his debts and tries to convince his father Sir Sampson to give the property to him so that he can clear all of his debts. Valentine’s behaviour clearly reflects the superficial lifestyle of the upper class society who were engaged to worldly desires and pleasures.

As a comedy of manners , it exposes the hypocrite behaviour of the upper class society. The characters such as Mrs. Frail and Mrs. Foresight share a sisterhood bondage. They both belong to the upper class society yet both are fortune hunters. When Mrs. Frail realised that Ben is going to inherit the property of Sir Sampson , she decides to break off the engagement of Ben with Miss Prue and even became successful. The hypocrisy is that Miss Prue is attacked and sarcastically mocked because of her social status in the society and belongs to the lower section the society. This also reflects the class consciousness of the society exhibited in the Restoration Period. Mrs. Frail wanted Ben only because of the property and money so that she can live a lavish lifestyle like Mrs. Foresight.

The comedy of manners also shroud love intrigues in the play. The characters shows relationships among each other and we see different levels of intrigues such as the relationship between master and servant who is Valentine and Jeremy. The relationship between sisters including Mrs. Frail and Mrs. Foresight. The relationship between two friends including Scandal and Valentine and the relationship between father and their sons including Sir Sampson , Ben and Valentine. The relationship between uncle and niece that includes Angelica and Mr. Foresight. There is also a love between Valentine and Angelica and hence justifies the title “Love for Love”.  These characters shares a different type of relationships with each other and through their relationship there are exposure of hypocrisy and pretensions of upper class society is exposed. For, instance Angelica does not like his uncle Mr. Foresight because she thinks her of a disguise and pretension practitioner of astrology who knows nothing about astronomy and calls him a “cuckhold” implying his wife’s infidelity. This reflects the superficial lifestyle and sophisticated life of the upper class society.

Click to know on Comedy of Manners

Click To Know William Congreve as a Restoration Dramatist

The comedy of manners also creates an atmosphere of laughter and entertainment with the use of wits. In the play the conversation between Sir Sampson and Mr. Foresight as well as Mrs. Frail and Scandal and Ben as well as Tattle and Miss Prue is full of witty dialogues. The characters such as Sir Sampson is witty enough to make a fool out of Mr. Foresight who was directly exposed by him that created laughter and entertainment. Mrs. Frail seduction of Ben got no response from Ben is a bit ironic and ultimately shift to Scandal is also bit ironic because he also has no response. Their wits are enough to create humour in the play giving a sense of pleasure and laughter to the audience.

Oliver Goldsmith She Stoops to Conquer as a Comedy of Manners

Click Here to know Wycherley The Country Wife as a Comedy of Manners