Reading the World of Congreve's The Way of the World: Mirabell, Is he a Hero? or a Rake?

콩그리브의 『세상만사』 속 세상 읽기: 미라벨, 그는 영웅인가? 난봉꾼인가?

This essay explores Congreve's last play The way of the World in terms of English new identity of the gentry represented by Mirabell in political, social and historical context of the Bloodless Revolution. Particularly, this essay focuses on behavioral differences between Mirabell and Fainall as characters who manage a certain type of acceptable Englishness through their heir. The acceptable Englishness separates what the differences are between two rakes from the outside of normative principle. The Way of the World reflects Lockean republican ideology in personal and familial relationships. Mirabell as a heroic rake represents new expectations for Englishmen who rejects absolute sovereign contrasted by Fainall's foreign tyrannical ways of domesticity. The Foreignness of Fainall's in the play is displaced by corollary change in the new model of English identity exemplified by Mirabell. Through the play, Congreve tends to satirize repressive morality of Hobbesian extremism and emphasizes the Revolution settlement based on consent sand trust instead. Mirabell's normative will harmonizes individual desire for happiness with social demand. In a sense Congreve's The Way of the World is a play reaching typical Restoration ending of intrigue and conspiracy through two rakes's interaction. Accordingly, this essay tries to show what separates the heroic rake from tyrannical libertine through their way of love, money, compromise and negotiation, which is their way of life.