“SIR JASPER: Won’t you be acquainted with her sir? So the report is true, I find, by his coldness or aversion to the sex. But I’ll play the wag with him. – Pray salute my wife, my lady, sir.
HORNER: I will kiss no man’s wife, sir, for him, sir. I have taken my eternal leave, sir, of the sex already, sir.”
Horner is worthy of the audiences sympathy by the end of Act 3, even though he is trying to sleep with other men’s wives, as the men whose wives he is trying to get into bed with laugh at other peoples misfortune. This is a prime example here, Sir Jasper is laughing at Horner’s misfortune of catching the pox. He even goes as far as basically offering Horner his wife as he is so sure of himself that Horner is no longer any use to a woman. Through Sir Jasper’s actions Wycherley creates a sympathetic character in Horner, as we want to see him get together with Lady Fidget, Sir Jasper’s wife, to wipe the presumable smirk off Sir Jasper’s face. The two characters can be linked here as Wycherley makes the audience feel sympathetic towards the one whereas simultaneously he manipulates their feelings to dislike in the case of the other. He plainly creates this feeling through Sir Jasper’s attitude towards Horner and his believed unfortunate situation. The Machiavellian type characters in the play laugh at the misfortunes of others in the play (Sir Jasper laughing at Horner) whilst being malice, stupid, blind and selfish to name but a few characteristics. Also they try to be funny but fall extremely short of becoming a “wit”.
Another method of making the audience dislike certain characters by the end of Act 3 which the author uses is making certain characters plans backfire on them. Pinchwife thought he was being clever when marrying Margery, as he believed because she was from the country, not used to London life and would therefore not commit any acts of adultery across him. Comically Wycherley makes this not to be and when Mrs. Pinchwife learns of a man at the play who also has eyes for her she cannot wait to meet him at the next available opportunity:
“Mrs Pinchwife Why! Oh Lord! Did the gentleman come hither to see me indeed?
Pinchwife No, no. – You are not the cause of that damned question too, Mistress Alethea? Well, she’s in the right of it; he is in love with my wife and comes after her – ‘tis so.”
Pinchwife has tried to be too clever by marrying Margery thinking that the only person she would be interested in once they got back to London would be him. She learns of Horner’s interest in her through her sister, Alethea. Wycherley makes the audience dislike Pinchwife as they can see that he has married his wife for completely the wrong reasons, not for true love but for self-indulgence. However the audience wants Horner and Mrs Pinchwife to get together as we already like Horner as he is making a mockery out of the villainous men and Mrs. Pinchwife is married to a selfish cunning fool who does not value her and she is just serving a purpose to him. The audience would have a certain amount of sympathy towards Margery as her husband does not value her, simultaneously she does not value her husband, as she is more than ready to go after Horner as soon as she hears that he is interested in her. This would reduce the audiences’ amount of sympathy for her but they would be more patient with her rather than Pinchwife who they would have no time for at all.
Sparkish, along with Pinchwife, is another character that the audience would definitely not feel sympathetic towards. Wycherley names this character Sparkish because that is what he is, sparkish opposed to being sparky. He thinks a lot of himself, especially in terms of his “wit”:
“SPARKISH … we speak more wit, and so become the poet’s rivals in his audience. For to tell you the truth, we hate the silly rogues…”
Sparkish is given an extremely arrogant personality by the author, which makes the audience dislike him from the start. He believes that he, along with his peers, are the playwright’s rival, due to the “wit” they obtain. The feeling of dislike towards Sparkish, which would be present in the audience, opens the door in a way for Harcourt to make grounds with Sparkish’s wife to be, Alethea. As they do not like him they are pleased that Harcourt is making a fool out of him by seeing his future wife cheat on him with another man.
Wycherley repeatedly manipulates the audience’s feelings towards his characters through their actions, dialogue and their personality. By the end of Act III the audience feels sympathetic towards some characters where in some cases their feelings are at the different end of the spectrum towards others.