Throughout The Country Wife, human beings are generally depicted as being at the complete mercy of their baser instincts, revealing the extent to which certain characters entertain reductionist views of their fellow humans. One such means of communicating this reductive worldview comes through comparisons to animals, which happens throughout the play—thus forming a motif based on multiple similes. Horses are common subjects of comparison, with two such similes occurring in Act 1:
ALITHEA (aside). A-walking! Ha, ha! Lord, a country gentlewoman’s leisure is the drudgery of a foot-post; and she requires as much airing as her husband’s horses.
In this moment, Alithea suggests that the kind of free time and "leisure" afforded to a "country gentlewoman" involves the same amount of walking and physical activity that is required of a mail courier. She then drives this point home by using a simile to indicate that, because of this, country gentlewomen need as much "airing"—or fresh air and exercise—as horses that are otherwise put to work.
Similarly, another horse-related simile appears in Act 2:
DORILANT. Ay, your old boys, old beaux garçons, who like superannuated stallions are suffered to run, feed, and whinny with the mares as long as they live, though they can do nothing else.
Both Alithea and Dorilant equate their fellow women and men to horses, a comparison that many would, no doubt, find offensive. This reductive attitude is applied to a wide variety of human emotions and impulses, from sexual appetites to simple things like exercise (in the case of Alithea's simile). The expansiveness of this reduction reveals the general dehumanizing attitude most of the characters in The Country Wife take towards one another.
Throughout The Country Wife, human beings are generally depicted as being at the complete mercy of their baser instincts, revealing the extent to which certain characters entertain reductionist views of their fellow humans. One such means of communicating this reductive worldview comes through comparisons to animals, which happens throughout the play—thus forming a motif based on multiple similes. Horses are common subjects of comparison, with two such similes occurring in Act 1:
ALITHEA (aside). A-walking! Ha, ha! Lord, a country gentlewoman’s leisure is the drudgery of a foot-post; and she requires as much airing as her husband’s horses.
In this moment, Alithea suggests that the kind of free time and "leisure" afforded to a "country gentlewoman" involves the same amount of walking and physical activity that is required of a mail courier. She then drives this point home by using a simile to indicate that, because of this, country gentlewomen need as much "airing"—or fresh air and exercise—as horses that are otherwise put to work.
Similarly, another horse-related simile appears in Act 2:
DORILANT. Ay, your old boys, old beaux garçons, who like superannuated stallions are suffered to run, feed, and whinny with the mares as long as they live, though they can do nothing else.
Both Alithea and Dorilant equate their fellow women and men to horses, a comparison that many would, no doubt, find offensive. This reductive attitude is applied to a wide variety of human emotions and impulses, from sexual appetites to simple things like exercise (in the case of Alithea's simile). The expansiveness of this reduction reveals the general dehumanizing attitude most of the characters in The Country Wife take towards one another.
