The Man of Mode and Its Ambiguous Ending

Abstract

Dorimant is a Don Juan and is skeptic in matrimony. On the one hand Dorimant is swearing a sincere oath to Harriet; on the other he is telling his mistress (Mrs Loveit) that he is only marrying Harriet for financial motives and trying to see the other mistress again. It is unlikely and cynical that this double-dealer falls seriously in love with Harriet and ends the comedy having certainly won her heart. We know this is a convention of Restoration comedy, but there is no convincing process.

A little ill nature of irony makes this comedy more witty and the essential quality of Restoration comedy is the unlikely ending promoted by this irony: this might be regarded as a defect. Etherege must have recognized the difficulty how to end the comedy. That is why he introduced the device (Sir Fopling's entrance near the end, Old Bellair's concluding lines and the epilogue) to lighten the weight of the moral issues cocentrated on Dorimant and to relieve the unnaturalness seen at the close. As a natural consequence of it, however, he changed the tone of the play, which caused the audience to receive an ambiguous impression.