The Way of the World

The Way of the World Literary Elements

Genre

Comedy of Manners

Language

English

Setting and Context

Restoration England

Narrator and Point of View

N/A

Tone and Mood

Satirical

Protagonist and Antagonist

N/A

Major Conflict

Mirabell wants to marry Ms. Millamant, but her aunt Lady Wishfort hates Mirabell for a past offense and holds power over Ms. Millamant's inheritance.

Climax

Mr. Fainall attempts to use the exposure of Mirabell's scheme and prior relationship with Mrs. Fainall as leverage to get all of Lady Wishfort's money, but Mirabell and Ms. Millamant foil his plan.

Foreshadowing

Ms. Marwood overhearing Foible's conversation with Mrs. Fainall regarding Mirabell's scheme and promising aloud to write Lady Wishfort a letter to be delivered at a later time, as well as her subsequently creating her own scheme with Mr. Fainall, foreshadows and directly leads to the play's climax.

Understatement

N/A

Allusions

Countless references to poems and novels are made in the play, most prominently to an untitled poem by Sir John Suckling, "The Story of Phoebus and Daphne, Applied" by Edmund Waller, and Don Quixote, less directly, at multiple places in the play.

Imagery

Imagery-full similes and metaphors are employed to create bright and witty dialogue throughout the play. Furthermore, as a visual medium, the play is full of action and emotion to create interesting visual imagery, especially with the importance of fashion and makeup to the play.

Paradox

N/A

Parallelism

The relationship of Mirabell and Ms. Millamont is paralleled and foiled by that of Fainall and Ms. Marwood, a couple less successful in society and in the play's outcome.

Personification

N/A

Use of Dramatic Devices

Metatheatricality is employed in the prologue, epilogue, and a quote discussed in the Act V summary spoken by Witwoud. Oftentimes, action will take place offstage and be discussed, adding to the theme of gossip and to the suspense of the play, as so much is rumor and hearsay.

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