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?