Publicity and Secrecy

Just as we are about to get the expected unravelling or public-exposition scene at the end of The Country Wife we get just the opposite; a heap of lies and whispers that protects or creates a system of mutual deceit, secret privilege, and hidden knowledge that is to the advantage of so many characters within the play. The original privacy of certain information has, by end of the play, reached a level of publicity that supports and extends rather than disassembles and limits the advantage it gives to all those who are aware of it and keep it hidden. Also, this web of secrets and lies is not spun by a single great trickster but by the cunning and opportunism of many who seek to gain or be protected by its being spun. What does this mutuality mean for the success of Horner's plot? In other words, does he succeed or fail, or is it no longer a question of success or failure since his original secret has been co-opted by others for their own benefit? Also, what are the larger implications of this more balanced mixture of publicity and privacy toward an understanding of wit as an art-form, moral standard, and/or cultural intelligence? Particularly when set against the more usual calculated leaking of private knowledge into the public as seen in Epicene and throughout most of The Country Wife?