| The state of motherhood is not highly valued or respected in the Restoration comedies written by Sir George Etherege, William Wycherley, and William Congreve, all outstanding playwrights who are fairly representative of their age. Individual mothers have their moments of faint praise, but on the whole, the mothers in these works are portrayed as foolish, manipulative, or greedy. When they are widowed, which is usually the case, then they are also assumed to be desperate--for either sex, or money, or a husband to provide the sex and money. Of the eleven mother characters in the nine plays discussed in this study, nine of them are widows. The only two mothers who are married are stepmothers and not the natural mothers of the children involved at all. These two stepmothers are neither loving nor maternally protective toward their daughters by marriage. There are no idealized, heroic mothers or widows in any of the eleven Restoration plays in this study.;There are, nevertheless, both natural mothers and surrogate mothers who love the child in their care enough to enter into battle with others and, oftentimes, with the child itself, for what they think is right. These mother characters refuse to stand back and shut up--they fight for what they perceive to be best for their child even though their actions are usually not appreciated. These women all feel a great responsibility for their children, which is the expected role of a mother, but they are not respected for it.;There is also not one single theme concerning mothers that is common to every play discussed in this study. The playwrights who created the characters are individuals, each shaped by events personal to them. Consequently, each mother/widow character in this study has her own faults and idiosyncracies, some stereotypical and some not. Just as every woman in reality has her own personality, so do these characters. None of them are perfect or idealized, but many of them are unforgettable. |
