Divorcing the Sullen Squire
The Beaux Stratagem is considered to be the best play written by George Farquhar. Jonne C. Thornton exclaimed, “The Beaux Stratagem is the epitome of Restoration comedy” (4). Unlike its contemporaries, Farquhar uses more theatrical devices, sub-plots, characters, and surprises in the play (Thornton 4). Farquhar has a unique sense of play structure causing a combination of carefree comedy with serious underlying social problems. A social problem that is the main theme in the play is the acceptance of divorce. He is able to write a comical play while also addressing a serious social issue. Farquhar uses his relatable main characters to express his opinions and themes. George Farquhar attempts to reform society in his play, The Beaux Stratagem, through the character Mrs. Sullen.
In the play Mrs. Sullen is married to Sullen. Coincidently, sullen means to be hostile, which can also describe Sullen’s personality. Sullen is a simple country squire. He is constantly drunk. He upsets his wife Mrs. Sullen with his actions and words. They have a miserable marriage. They each married each other for different reasons. Sullen married his wife in order to have a successor (5.4.460). The play always points out Mrs. Sullen’s misery. Her marriage to Sullen is proven to be a disaster. Mrs. Sullen constantly wishes she could separate herself from her husband.
When Mrs. Sullen agrees to marry Sullen she expected a different life for herself. When she is asked for her reasoning of marrying Sullen, she replies “To support the weakness of my sex by the strength of his, and to enjoy the pleasures of an agreeable society” (5.4.460). She wants someone to support her. Mrs. Sullen does not want to have a country life, she wa...
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While he is effective in defining his sacrifices, his self-victimizing diction limits his claim as he blames his wife for his suffering and frustration. He discusses the social sacrifices he made as he no longer has personal time to have smaller liberties such as “time with friends...basketball games, beer” (Bartels 58) However, more importantly, he feels blindsided as he “wasn’t informed that [he] would give up golf altogether...not warned that sex would become a rarer commodity” (Bartels 63). Because Bartels claims he was unaware he would have to sacrifice so much with marriage, he places the blame for his dissatisfaction onto someone else’s shoulders, mainly his wife. Using a militaristic strand of diction, Bartels depicts his wife as an aggressive and offensive threat. Bartels explains how he has a consistent “fervor to confront(defeat)” problems that arise in his marriage, alluding that he exhaustingly fights through the problems he faces to meliorate the situation(Bartels 63). Additionally, Bartels feels as though his “castle, it is under siege. From within” which conveys his experience from menacing frustration and anger as well as his self-victimizing action by describing his sense of peril (Bartels 59). If Bartels places himself as the hero who nobly fights against danger for the greater good of the marriage, there must be an antagonist to the story. He vilifies his wife by portraying her as a constant threat, and consequently, not taking responsibility for his own emotions. Instead, exemplifying the a hasty generalization fallacy, he blames her inability to control her anger for all problems he faces throughout the marriage. Because he does not accept any responsibility and accuses his wife of his stress and sacrifice, his claim crumbles, even though he was able to provide specific examples of the sacrifices he
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In this place where Loisel and her husband live, her husband is grateful, for the items he has, but loisel hates them A case in point of the first page of the passage it says “ she suffered from the poverty of her dwelling…. from the worn out chairs, from the ugliness of the curtain….. made her angry”. As you can tell, Loisel is somewhat selfish in that case and never thought about her husband. And now of the party she was
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In this piece, it can be translated that women would be considered a rebel if she is rude and shrewish to her husband. In all, wives are objects to their husbands, and must do all that her husband says. This limited Katherine’s identity because it took away her personality of being a shrew, and turned her into something she wasn’t; kind and
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The first marriage that we encounter in the book is that of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet. The Bennets are not well matched at all in character or social background. Mr. Bennet is intelligent, and a “gentleman”, while Mrs. Bennet had little money and much “lower social connections” before their marriage. Their union was based on an initial physical attraction-Mr. Bennet found Mrs. Bennet to be beautiful, and Mrs. Bennet wanted the economic and social status that this marriage would provide her with. However, a marriage that is based on this kind of superficial attachment is doomed to failure, because as the years go on and the beauty fades Mr. Bennet is left living with a woman whom he absolutely does not respect at all.