Mary Creech Gulledge
Dr. J. Morillo
English 579
September 19, 2008
Will the Real Fool Please Stand Up?
Dorimant
as the Fool in George Etherege’s The Man
of Mode
In George Etherege’s Restoration comedy, The Man of Mode, the obvious fool of the
play is Sir Fopling Flutter, an annoying man who is
ridiculed for his shallow and ostentatious efforts to impress the English
nobility with the latest French manners and trends. Dorimant, on the
other hand, is the noble, irresistible rake who, despite his callous treatment
of women, is well-regarded by his peers.
In Act V, however, Dorimant’s own shallow
concerns for appearance and reputation show him to be as much a fool as Sir Fopling. The
powerful and clever dialogue between Dorimant and
Mrs. Loveit, a result of Dorimant’s
need to confront Loveit for her public affection
towards Sir Fopling, magnifies Dorimant’s
fragile ego; it makes him appear more foolish, more unattractive in his disdain
for women, and more unlikely to be a believable candidate for marriage—especially
to the beautiful and intelligent Harriet, the woman he loves.
Such
exposed foolishness in this charming and enviable ladies’ man, complicates the
plot, and more than suggests that Sir Fopling is the
Epilogue’s “nauseous harlequin in farce,” while Dorimant,
who is more human and less a caricature, is the real “substantial ass.” Dorimant’s disregard for the feelings of women, however,
does little to arouse disdain; after all, this kind of ass-like behavior is
expected from such a man in such a comedy. His foolishness, then, emerges only when he
moves from behaving as the Restoration comedy’s stereotypical rake to a man
with a disturbing, exaggerated fear that his reputation has been
blemished. In his exchange with Mrs. Loveit in Act V, Dorimant’s very
human fear takes full possession of his ego, and causes him to behave so
irrationally that, could he but only understand, he
would see that his behavior is far more humiliating to his character than any
damage Loveit has done him. His bizarre behavior, coupled with Mrs. Loveit’s verbal response to such behavior, makes clear
Etherege’s underlying message that those who are well-liked and successful are
no more immune to being seen as desperate and clueless than anyone else. There is no comfort, says Etherege, in
thinking that people like Sir Fopling are the only
fools. Presenting Dorimant
as his proof, Etherege refuses to let the soothing, conventional comic resolutions
at the end of his play distract his audience from the Epilogue’s final social
commentary that Sir Fopling “represents ye all.”
If Dorimant, then, comes to
be, in the course of the play, Etherege’s less obvious, but more substantial
fool, Dorimant’s inability to refrain from going too
far with his unreasonable and foolish behavior is, ironically, foreshadowed in
Harriet’s response to his first profession of love for her. She says, “When your love’s
grown strong enough to make you bear being laughed at, I’ll give you leave to
trouble me with it. Till
when, pray forbear, sir” (IV. i.186-88). Unfortunately for Harriet, Dorimant’s unyielding demands of Loveit,
in Act V’s first scene, demonstrate that even under the best of circumstances, his
ego cannot withstand ridicule. Though he
has experienced the love and adoration of many women at once and has just
recently found a greater joy in loving and being loved by Harriet, his joy,
surprisingly, does not weaken his intent to seek revenge against Loveit for showing favor to Sir Fopling. At the very moment he rushes to Mrs. Loveit’s lodgings with a crazed insistence that she rectify the wrong she has done him, his easy confidence that
he is revered by the ladies and admired by the men begins to unravel. The more he converses with Mrs. Loveit, the more he reveals, bit by bit, that his forceful
and unruly ego controls him, even when his heart has tasted the possibilities
of true love. Etherege is speaking of Dorimant, as much as Fopling,
when he says in the Prologue, “But tickled once with praise, by her good
will/The wanton fool would never more lie still” (9-10).
Mrs. Loveit, surprised that
Dorimant has come to her lodgings after he has
blatantly rejected her, asks what she has done to enrage him. Dorimant, who is indifferent to the pain he has caused her,
tells her that she has done “a thing that puts you below my scorn and makes my
anger as ridiculous as you have made my love” (V.i.196-197). When she readily admits that she did walk
with Sir Fopling, Dorimant’s
response is unstable; he sounds out of control and ridiculous in his
seriousness about the matter: “You did, madam, and you talked and laughed
aloud—Ha, ha, ha,--Oh, that laugh, that laugh becomes the confidence of a woman
of quality” (V.i.199-201). His
irrationality becomes even more obvious as it accelerates alongside Loveit’s efforts to placate him with careful logic. His voice is surely raised when he says to
her, “…I shall daily be reminded of it.
‘Twill be a commonplace for all the Town to
laugh at me.” Then, after her even
reply, ‘Twill be believed a jealous sprite. Come,
forget it,” he is not pacified in the least and is more determined than ever not
to forget it ( ). Unable to accept even
the slightest chance that he might be laughed at, he cannot see, in his
paranoid state, that Mrs. Loveit’s attentions to Fopling are much too insignificant to make someone of his
position a target of ridicule.
A prey to his
ego, he says, “Let me consult my reputation; you are too careless of it. You shall meet Sir Fopling
in the Mall again tonight”
(V.i.2 -247). Mrs. Loveit,
however, cannot be intimidated into meeting Sir Fopling
for the sole purpose of snubbing him.
For the first time since she has loved Dorimant,
she stands her ground and will not agree to make herself look foolish for the
sake of restoring his reputation.
Particularly because she still has feelings for Dorimant,
Loveit’s strong and clever words of resistance to his
narcissistic request show her awakened good sense and, in contrast, make Dorimant’s pleas look increasingly absurd. She says,
“Public satisfaction for the wrong I have done you? This is some new device to make me more
ridiculous!” (V.i.253-55).
Dorimant looks even more pathetic when he continues to say,
“You will be persuaded,” “Are you so obstinate?” and “You will not satisfy my
love,” and Mrs. Loveit’s firm and final reply, “I
would die to satisfy [your love]…, but I will not, to save you from a thousand
racks, do a shameless thing to please your vanity,” forces Dorimant
to leave with his insatiable ego unsatisfied (V.i.263-65). Clearly, Dorimant’s
erratic behavior shows that he is not strong enough to bear being laughed at,
and that he cares just as much about appearances as Sir Fopling
Flutter. Having played the fool, Dorimant’s demand that Loveit go
to unreasonable lengths to repair his status, and thus free him from possible
ridicule, is as much reason to diminish his plausibility as a potential husband
as is his constant philandering and lack of concern for the feelings of his
mistresses.
Similarly in Act V, Dorimant
and Loveit’s lively dialogue about the
characteristics of the “senseless mimic” and “noisy fools” serves to promulgate
Dorimant’s inappropriate behavior towards women and
liken his behavior to the ridiculous folk he detests. He and Loveit speak
hastily back and forth: each time she
gives a reason to value the fool, she discredits Dorimant’s
bad treatment of her; each time Dorimant responds with reasons why the fool is
insufferable, he, unknowingly, describes himself. Surely Etherege is having great fun with a
man like Dorimant who is twice the fool in this witty
exchange.
First of all, Loveit
devalues Dorimant’s shallow admiration of women when
she defends the company of doting fools, “You’ll despise ‘em
as the dull effects of ignorance and / vanity, yet I care not if I mention
some. First, they / really admire us,
while you at best but flatter us well” (V.i.120-122). Dorimant’s
immediate response, “Take heed, fools can dissemble, too—,” not only says the
obvious, that blatant fawns can hide the truth as much as anyone, but it is a
perfect reiteration of Dorimant’s own role as a foolish
master of frequent, shallow declarations of love.
In their next
give and take, when Loveit says about fools, “…there
is no fear they should deceive us…They are ever offering us their service and
always waiting on our will,” she is letting Dorimant
know that he never was unselfish enough to wait on her will, even when he was
making love to her (V.i.124-127). Dorimant’s immediate retort is, again, a perfect echo of Dorimant’s own ego-driven behavior.
He says of the fool’s willingness to
serve women, “You owe that to their excessive idleness. They know not how to
entertain themselves at home, and find so little welcome abroad, they are fain
to fly to you / who countenance ‘em as a refuge
against the / solitude they would be otherwise condemned to” (V.ii. 128-132). Thinking he is merely criticizing a Fopling-type fool who must always have company, Dorimant is simultaneously disclosing his own shaky ego
that cannot bear being alone. As his
history with many lovers attests, Dorimant must
always find an adoring woman to be with him.
He must either be in the company of a woman he cares for, like Belinda,
and later Harriet, or he must be in the company of a woman who still loves
him—a large part, obviously, of why he must take issue with Mrs. Loveit regarding her interest in Sir Fopling.
When Dorimant
attempts to convince Loveit that fools “believe too
well of / themselves and always better of you than you deserve,” and then
chides her for mistaking the use of fools, that “they are designed for
properties and not for friends,” his words are particularly laden with double
meaning (V.ii.144;160-161). In these instances, Dorimant is describing his own egocentric character and unfeeling
treatment of women even more accurately than he is describing behavior exhibited by Sir Fopling
or any other fool in the play. Not only
is Dorimant the most obvious character who thinks too
much of himself, and most often believes his detestable treatment of women is
still better than they deserve, he is also no friend to women, and can actually
be seen as an egotistical piece of property that the women in his life can
rent. However, when a woman he is with
can no longer pay his required price of beauty, charm, wit, sexual
availability, and non-interference in his affairs, he moves on to a new, more
interesting woman who can “pay” him more.
As a desirable piece of property, which serves as an interesting twist
of identity for the usual patriarchal prototype of the time, he can remain
detached and, likewise, demand that the accountability from any woman always be
on his terms.
Though the clever Harriet may have possibly won his
heart more than any other, Dorimant’s self-centered
attitudes and behaviors—as particularly revealed through his dialogue scene
with Mrs. Loveit, do not leave much room for hope
that he will be transformed into a man wise enough and rational enough to enjoy
the structure of marriage. When Dorimant adamantly declares that he is ready to make
Harriet his wife, the audience must hope beyond reason that Harriet can
continue to meet Dorimant’s property rental
requirements. Alas, Dorimant’s
words and actions during his last visit to Mrs. Loveit’s
home offer more probability than not that Dorimant,
the fool, will never be a fool for love.
Dorimant might have grown to be more
self-reflective had he taken Sir Fopling’s advice in
Act IV to hang a mirror in his lodging. Fopling says, “A room is the dullest thing without one”
(IV.ii.88-89). If Dorimant
had carefully looked at himself and seen his foolishness reflected, he might
have become a more reformed rake and a more believable husband-to-be. Then, Sir Fopling,
though not especially substantial, would have been the greater ass, hands
down.
Etherege,
George. The Man of Mode. The Broadview Anthology of Restoration
and Early Eighteenth-Century Drama. Ed. Douglas Canfield.