Woman Hater’s Club
To suggest that there is a more than a fair share of misogyny going on in this play is more than stating the obvious. It is stating one of its themes. Nearly every page features a disparaging comment directed toward women. Many take advantage of metaphor:
Charles: “Look narrowly; does she not look like a Shrew?”
Bellamy: “No; she is all sweetness in perfection!”
Restoration-Era Insults
Just like the Elizabethan Era, the drama of the Restoration and immediately afterward was big on complicated insults. The more complicated and difficult to follow the better, in fact:
“Why, thou piece of Clock-work, thou hast no Teeth, no Hair, no Eye-Brows, no Complexion, but what cost thee Money, and, but for Iron Bodice, art as crooked as a Bugle Horn”
Looks that Kill
Ever know one of those women who can still a man with a single glare? The kind woman that can be the life of the party one moment, but at the drop of the wrong word here or there can suddenly seem to become Medusa with the power to turn men into stone? Such is Gertrude, apparently:
“Your Eyes strike at every one you level, like Lightning through a Cloud.”
Speaking of Gert
Gertrude has a talent for letting the metaphors fly as well. All her ability to undermine men is not located in her eyes for she has a tongue as swift as her glare:
“I’ll to London; there I shall be lost to you, like a Hare in a Hare Warren, and you shall yelp no more after me.”
Gertie the Philosopher
Gertrude is not just quick with the man-killing glare or simile. She is also a philosopher. And her philosophical view of life is epigrammatical and proverbial as well as metaphorical:
“Hope is a very thin Diet, fit for Love in a Feaver.”
