Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Flirting in the country

In her covert letter to Horner, Mrs. Pinchwife reveals how she might go about flirting with Horner were they in the country. She says, "I'm sure if you and I were in the country at cards together, - so - I cou'd not help treading on your Toe under the Table - so - or rubbing knees with you and staring in your face, 'till you saw me - very well - and then looking down and blushing for an hour together" (IV.iii.199-204). Such liasons seem innocent in comparison to the overt flirtations we witness in London from Horner and Harcourt. But Mrs. Pinchwife insinuates something that the rest of the play seems to ignore - that infidelity and sexual liasons can indeed happen just as well in the country as they can in the city. Perhaps, then, the country bumpkin Mrs. Pinchwife and the country setting itself are not so innocent as her husband presumes. I guess my question is how dichotomous is the country/city split really in terms of sexual corruption? It seems to me that Pinchwife is being rather reductive in his claim that only the city can corrupt his wife in this way.

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