The Way of the World

As with many Restoration comedies, The Way of the World makes fun of the upper classes of society, examining how foolish their fashions, behaviors, and vanity are. Two excellent examples of these problems are Witwoud and Petulant, each of whom are failed socialites, struggling to befriend men and woo women. Witwoud, as his name suggests, wishes he was a wit, while Petulant, similarly named, is a nuisance. Both characters expose the performative nature of the society they fail to seduce, as they essentially mock the performances of the other characters. As Witwoud fails to be witty, he also exposes wit as a performative means of making friends, just as Petulant, in his buffoonery, shows the ridiculousness of the values of the upper class.

Mirabell says of Witwoud, “He has indeed one good quality, he is not exceptious […] he will construe an affront into a jest, and call downright rudeness and ill language satire and fire” (260). In this context, “exceptious” refers to being “quarrelsome,” and Mirabell is noting that Witwoud will pretend to understand a mean-spirited joke as “raillery” and overlook the offense rather than taking an insult seriously.