The Country Wife

Truthfully I did not find the “Country Wife” all that interesting and I did not really see a point to the whole play. I realize that the “Country Wife” was intended to be funny but, I was not sure what parts were supposed to be funny and I also found it hard to understand what was happening at times.  

This play really seemed to focus on jealousy, mainly because Mr. Pinchwife did not want his wife to fall in love with someone else. To try to prevent that from happening, she was locked up in a room of her house whenever her husband left, which I thought was really stupid, since locking your wife in your house the entire time will only push her away. If Pinchwife was so worried about his wife falling in love with somebody else, I do not understand why he brought her to London in the first place. I also find it sad that the people at that time seemed more concerned about marrying into land and money and less about love and actually caring for that person, like Pinchwife. The whole play seems to have a bad attitude towards love and marriage, even though the characters have different opinions on love and marriage it mostly comes back to having to do with status.

I thought that it was interesting how Harcourt and Mrs. Pinchwife managed to dress up as somebody else and tried to persuade others into thinking they were who they looked like but, most of the characters were too smart to be fooled that easily. Although, in a way the characters appeared as if they were meant to look foolish and stupid like Quack the doctor who was not really a doctor, and Pinchwife who was freaking out basically the whole play because he did not want his wife to love someone else and be made a fool of.

I found it interesting that Wycherley gave the character’s names that describe what kind of person that they are and how they act in the story.  For example, the characters Mrs. Squeamish, Mrs. Dainty, and Lady Fidget were quite judgmental in the play, since they seemed to be very concerned with a person’s status and how a man should not marry out of his own rank, so his honor is not lost.

Discussion Questions: 

 If the character’s names did not have an allegorical meaning, would the play have been as effective in showing the type of people the characters are?

If Mr. Pinchwife had acted like a normal husband that cared for his wife, would Mrs. Pinchwife feel compelled to fall in love with somebody else?  

Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave

                I found the story of “Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave” by Aphra Behn, to be quite sad, but I thought he died bravely since he took his brutal death very calmly. I realized that Oroonoko was destined to end up in a bad situation ever since his grandfather, the king, sent the veil to Imoinda. If the king had never forcefully interfered, then Oroonoko and Imoinda could have lived happily without any problems. I also feel bad for Oroonoko since he was betrayed many times by his friends and started to lose trust in people. The only positive person that Oroonoko seemed to have in his life was Imoinda, she would most likely never betray him and always love him. Even when Oroonoko killed her, she was happy to die by his hands and not live the life of a slave with their unborn child. Trefry also seemed to be a good friend since he did not want any harm to come to Oroonoko and tried to make Byam leave so he could not hurt Oroonoko again.Also,the way that Byam executed Oroonoko seems as though it would convey a powerful message to other slaves to not mess with the Europeans, since Oroonoko was royal and Byam showed no mercy in his execution.

   

In the story, Oroonoko is portrayed with having European features, is well educated, knows two different languages, and is a prince and a general of an army. Which the Europeans admire and respect, but they still treat him as a slave, because of his skin color. I find it quite sad to see how the other “common” slaves were treated worse, since they did not have the same features, abilities, and status as Oroonoko. It seems to me that the slaves that were better and different looking were more appreciated and treated better, which is definitely not fair. If Oroonoko had not looked the way that he did then he would have been treated as a regular slave and even worse things might have happened to him throughout the story.

Throughout the story I also found many of the Europeans to be highly annoying, since they did not care about anyone but themselves. For example, when Oroonoko is being punished for running away and they did not want Imoinda to see him being punished and die of fear, because they might lose her and the unborn slave.

Discussion Questions:

Why do you think the author found a way to put the narrator into the actual story and started telling the story from her point of view?

If the Europeans on the plantation had let Imoinda and Oroonoko go home, would they have lost credibility and be thought of as weak?

Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”, and the “Irish Colonial Experience” Blog

 After reading Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”, and the “Irish Colonial Experience”, I thought that it was quite amusing how he proposed that the poor people living in Ireland could start selling their children to be used as food. I was also impressed that there was an actual point to this article and Swift used the subject of cannibalism to try to get across his point so people would actually take Ireland’s well being into prospective. Even though “A Modest Proposal” is a satirical piece, I found it interesting that Swift could easily write about actual positive advantages about selling and eating children, that could work if many of the Irish were cannibals and were willing to take care of their children until a certain age when they can be then sold for a profit, killed and eaten. But if that really was the case then I would see a reason to try and stop the practice since many would probably be opposed to that idea. But in the “Irish Colonial Experience”, the one thing that I was against was that I did not think that it was right for many of the Irish to be killed in 1641, mainly because many were Catholics and the Protestants of England thought that their ways were “barbarous”. I also do not see how it is fair that the Irish Catholic’s had special laws, because the English Protestants did not like them.  

I have never read anything like this before and I find it rather appalling that certain people are killed just because they have a certain religion others, like the English Protestants at that time did not like. I now realize that “A Modest Proposal” was written to inform people that Ireland really did have a problem with beggars and children getting into trouble when they got older. Therefore, I think that the idea of cannibalism was good for getting people’s attention to focus on the important issues and how they need to be solved in Ireland.   

Discussion Questions:

If the English government at that time was not set on having one certain religion would people be able to live in peace or would people with different religions still not get along and would eventually lead to rebellions and massacres?

Was Swift clever in writing “A Modest Proposal” the way that he did, or could Swift have wrote it differently without the use of cannibalism in order to get his point across?