"The Rivals" by Richard Sheridan is described as a comedy of manners.

Authors Avatar

The Rivals is described as a comedy of manners. With regard to this genre discuss Sheridan focus with examples.

Comedy of manners is based on satirizing the style or manner of the way in which members of the social group act or behave. Much of this is physical and can be seen in the way people in a particular culture communicate through body language.

In the rivals the characters play one into the other in a comedy of manners, which pivots on confusion and confessions. This type of humour can also be found in Sheridan’s “school for scandal”, Goldsmiths “he stoops to conquer” and Farquars “the recruiting officer”.

Sheridan focuses on the fables of high society and in doing so focuses on the folys of fashion and social pretension. A prime example of this is countryman Bob Acres, pretending to be something that he is not. Dressing to impress, “I used to dress so badly” he has set out to win the heart of Lydia and to obtain her wealth “I’ll make my old clothes know who’s master.”

Join now!

Another weapon at the author’s disposal is the aping of good manners but not using them “odd minims and crochets.” Acres uses such words to stress points and opinions. ”Odds swimmings!” Odds being short for Gods, Acres has a tendency to blurt out these profound sentences at the most inappropriate times often infuriating and provoking characters like Faulkland. “Jigs, and reels!” He doesn’t really help the situation at hand. He gives a detailed description of Julia singing and dancing which inflames Faulklands jealousy causing him to storm out.

Sheridan makes clever use of wit especially involving plots with ...

This is a preview of the whole essay