Sex and the Siege
A popular convention at the time was imagery which created a metaphor of women's bodies as a fortress against which a siege much be launched in order to fulfill sexual activity. One of the many episodes of witty back and forth taking place between Gertrude and Wildish play upon this metaphor:
Gertrude: "Do you call this making love? Why, this is making war, worse than Blockades and Sieges, which they write of in Gazettes."
Wildish: "It is a gentle Siege; bit I will never raise; I may fall dead before your Fort."
Absolute Monarchy
The play was written during a period that would become the tipping point for the concept of an absolute monarchy in England. The author was born at a time when British kings were making their greatest claims toward absolute supremacy eventually embodied in what came to be known as the doctrine of non-resistance. By the time would die, the balance of power had begun a centuries-long shift away from the throne and to Parliament. This debate over where power should lie in the government is pervasively used as imagery to point up the balance of power between men and woman, finally reaching its climax in Gertrude’s final speech (disappointing if interpreted literally and keeping in character only if interpreted ironically):
“I can obey, as well as e’r a meek, simpering Milksop on ‘em all; and have ever held Non resistance a Doctrine fit for all Wives, tho’ for nobody else.”
The French are a Funny Race
For British audiences throughout history, nothing is quite as funny as a Frenchman. The Frenchman who speaks broken English through a molasses-thick accent is as much of a stage convention in British comedy as men in drag. The imagery is anything but subtle, but nobody seemed to mind:
“vat is dat Gibberish? Oh, lette me see; de Fader is de Lawyerre, and she learne of him at de Temple: is the Law French. I am amaze! French Looke, French Ayre, French meen, French movement of de Bodee! Morbleau. Monsieur, I vill gage 4, 500 Pistol, dat dese two Sisters were bred in France, yes. Teste bleau, I can no be deceive.”
The Fair
The imagery throughout describes the actual fair of the title as common location where social division momentarily collapses and the focus shifts from the result to the negotiation which result in social divide. Only a handful of scenes actually are set in the fair and take place there which further inscribes it as being a setting set apart from the real world, but integral and essential to the establishment of convention and rules of the real word:
"Scene the Fair, with a great many Shops and Shows, and all sorts of people walking up and down."
"Enter several Gentlewomen; two Country Wenches, and two Country Fellows, and People of all sorts, and walk about the Fair."
