AI ToolsNew
Tools to make learning and teaching easier
Act 5, Scene 5
Explanation and Analysis:
The style of the play is witty and comedic. While the rich and powerful are away from London due to an outbreak of the plague, characters such as Face, Subtle, and Doll live by their wits and cunning, hoping to trick the foolish and dull out of their money through ingenious but absurd schemes. Though many of their actions are illegal and unethical, the play is ultimately a comedy, and there are no serious consequences for the schemers nor their victims.
When Lovewit, master of the house, returns at the end of the play, he responds with amusement to the schemes and ploys attempted in his absence, and he even benefits from Face’s scams by marrying the wealthy Dame Pliant:
Lov. That master
That had received such happiness by a servant,
In such a widow, and with so much wealth,
Were very ungrateful, if he would not be
A little indulgent to that servant's wit,
And help his fortune, though with some small strain
Of his own candour […] Therefore, gentlemen,
And kind spectators, if I have outstript
An old man's gravity, or strict canon, think
What a young wife and a good brain may do;
Stretch age's truth sometimes,and crack it too.
Speak for thy self, knave."
As his name suggests, Lovewit appreciates the “wit” of his servant, Face. Rather than punishing Face, then, he watches with detached amusement as his servant attempts to untangle the bundle of lies, deceptions, and assumed identities that he has maintained in Lovewit’s absence. Lovewit states that he can be “a little indulgent to that servant’s wit” both because he finds it entertaining and because he has benefited directly from it, enlarging his own fortune through marriage to Dame Pliant. Throughout the play, witty or intelligent characters take advantage of the foolishness of others.
