That rage is the only large, heroic thing about him, and even though it expends itself on absurdities, it is in some sense praiseworthy. A psychologist, I think, would say that Manly felt too guilty about his own failings. His guilt makes him aggressive and hostile and makes him punish himself by attacking insincerity or "adjustment" in others. By these attacks he not only punishes himself by tempting others to dislike him, but at the same time he persuades himself that he is better than they are because he judges them. His concept of plain dealing is simply raw hostility. Eliza is highly significant, even though she scarcely appears except to defend The Country Wife against Olivia. Their argument, in which Olivia hypocritically attacks the morals of the play and Eliza tolerantly defends them, is a rather striking feature in the play. Actually, it is an organic part of the action — and not a new trick with Wycherley. In The Gentleman Dancing-Master, two characters in the play discuss the merits of two of the actors in the play (see above, p. There, as in The Plain-Dealer, the effect is to emphasize the "playness" of the play, to break the dramatic illusion and remind the audience that the actors are really just play-acting. As such, this episode keynotes the theme in The Plain-Dealer — pretense. Eliza is by no means "principally a mouthpiece for the author, without any real part in the dramatic action. Though she does not play any causal part in the plot, her presence develops a tension. There is a natural relation between her and Freeman. They are much alike and ideally suited to each other, and the fact that this relationship is conspicuously and completely undeveloped constitutes an important part of the meaning of the play as a whole. Like Freeman, she knows "the Town. Fidelia, like Eliza, is another odd and highly significant factor in the play. The most important thing about her is that she is unreal, scarcely more than a literary convention — the girl who, disguised as a boy, follows and serves the indifferent object of her affections. It is almost as though Wycherley had borrowed her from heroic drama. Her unreality makes her in some sense an ideal of sincerity and devotion: "There is nothing certain in the World, Sir," she tells Manly, "but my Truth, and your Courage" (161). Her presence, putting an unreal, ideal goodness in a realistic situation is, by the way, an important step toward eighteenth-century sentimental comedy, but typical of sentimental comedy, she cannot really be considered an ideal, not, at least, by any sensible standard. Significantly, Fidelia was willing to follow him to both these places. Not even a twentieth-century father would care to have his daughter disguise herself and join the Navy to pursue a man like Manly. Her name, Grey, embodies the ambiguity of her nature. Click here for more info! Or visit our site >> marketing research paper topics More info about: school essay writing how to write a movie evaluation english dissertation ideas writing high school essays write college research paper writing a thesis for a research paper definition essay research paper on death penalty
