Contrasts make up a great deal of the humour in the play, the contrast between town and country is shown by Acres who is a country squire, trying to become a sophisticated gentleman for urban life in Bath, whereas Jack Absolute has a natural confident manner which makes his behaviour seem elegant. The contrast of young and old is shown by the defiance of Lydia and Jack to their elders. We see the struggle as Sir Anthony threatens to disown and disinherit his son, while Lydia can lose her thirty thousand pounds is her aunt, Mrs Malaprop, does not agree. In 18th century society it was normal for marriages to be arranged and the children were expected to comply particularly if there was money and land involved. However, individual self-expression became an increasingly popular attraction among educated men and women, and there was a growing awareness of the problems with arranged marriages.
The contrast between abstract ideas and reality is shown through Faulkland and his jealous nature. We see through his arguments with Julia that his jealousy springs entirely from his own mind, and he has no proof or basis for his thoughts, but yet his love for Julia is real.
During the time in which Sheridan was writing the play wit and artistry was becoming less important and there was more evidence of kindness and the understanding of the difficulties of love being introduced to plays. Sheridan disliked this and like many critics believed that ‘once emotion or sympathy entered the arena, the comedy is in danger of evaporating very quickly’ Sheridan uses Faulkland and his relationship with Julia to mock the trend of sentimentality that was around at the time. Faulkland’s sensitivity is exaggerated greatly to created humour within the play and his relationship with Julia which brings out his jealous nature again parodies the conventions of romance. Again in the times of Restoration anything that contradicted the conventions of society was seen as a target for humour.
The play is a comedy of manners and these are exploited in the play and exaggerated to present exaggerated characters for comedy. Mrs Malaprop is a great example of an exaggerated character, through her own dialogue and her inflated used of words she is subject to ridicule, again creating effective comedy. Her name comes from mal à propos meaning inappropriate, which is appropriate for her nature with words. Fag is another character who shows a lot of wit in his ‘manners’. In the opening scene we are introduced to his disillusioned nature of him being higher than his station in society. Firstly he is very peevish and arrogant in his manner towards a ‘fellow servant’. Then he brings his gloves into the dialogue; Sheridan could have used this for a number of reasons, one being for Fag to boast the fact he has gloves as the higher classes was seen to wear gloves. Also it was bad manners to shake someone’s hand with a glove on; this would show his exaggeration in his manners.
Fag is used to help expose the foolishness and hypocrisy of society. Again it’s with his wit that he shows these themes, his foolishness is shown in his exaggerated mannerisms and in the first scene where he sounds rather pompous talking of how he and his master attend parties and takes part in social activities in Bath. When he describes these to the coachman, he portrays them as though he is taking part, when the audience know; he is still only a servant (lines 65-74). The hypocrisy is shown later in Act II Scene I, Sir Anthony has just left in a foul temper and Fag complains to his master and tells him of how he had been hit, he talks of how terrible it is when someone takes their temper out on someone else, yet when the errand boy enters Fag proceeds to hit and chide the boy.
Bath in the Restoration period was considered a fashionable place to visit and people of distinction often visited. This setting of Bath allows the comedy of contrasts of urban and rural and the social classes. Firstly Acres who is from Devonshire (rural) tries to dress ‘appropriately’ for the town and also practises dancing in an attempt to win Lydia’s affections. From the research into this period I have found the dress code of period was very big and extravagant this could show the contrasts well and Acres doesn’t get it quite right, as it’s hinted his mother had chosen the clothes and to a 21st Century audience the visual comedy of this would still be effective.
Playwrights wrote to please audiences. The Restoration audiences were both smaller and standardized, composed mainly of the upper classes of London. The audience structure provided many reoccurring themes in Restoration Comedy: pursuit of love, cynical manipulation and the condemnation of marriage, the manipulation and deceit between characters in ‘The Rivals’ reflects this. The element of deception is what the plot is based on, and every character is involved. Fag deceives Captain Absolute, Jack deceives his father, Mrs Malaprop and Lydia, Lydia deceives her aunt and Jack, Faulkland deceives Julia, Mrs Malaprop deceives Sir Lucius and Lucy deceives anyone she can. The fact that the characters all deceive each other for different reasons again shows how manners feature more important than morals. For example Lydia is a romanticist and wants to live the life of a book; to do this she purposely creates an argument between Beverley and herself.
As we can see from the research, playwrights are influenced, by the culture and society around them, and use this as a basis of the characters and themes. Many critics discuss the efforts of contemporary playwrights ‘to represent the actual manners of times and to show real characters in familiar settings’ from my research I have found this to be very true.
