“Dis is de place dat is Fameux for de pretty Garl wid de cheveux blond, de farie haire; my Man and I come for buy de vite lock, indeed to gette de Monee to make de Pot Boyle, my Lor.”
That is some pretty thick dialect there. Imagine sitting in an audience have having to listen to this character speak quite a few lines of dialogue. La Roch is a fairly important character in the plot, but as a mechanism to serve a purpose. In fact, he is pretty much all mechanism because his deeply thick accented manner of speech is part of what had been long-term stage convention for comedy among British dramatists. His very French-ness is what drives his being there in the first place. British audiences have long been receptive to absurd portrayals that ridicule their European neighbors. It may not work as well today.
“I a Wit, Madam? You are resolv’d to use your Soveraign Power over me; and I’ll show you my Passive Obedience. Do you swagger like a Tyrant? you shall find I can bear like slave.”
Shadwell was writing during some of the most turbulent years in British history. It was the period of the Restoration and Glorious Revolution in the aftermath of the Interregnum. A time of deposals of monarchs, executions of monarchs, competition between Protestants and Catholics for the throne, bringing heirs back from exile and even an England without a king or queen. The reference in this quote is directly linked to one of the primary issues of this period: the power to be invested in the monarch. The phrases “Soveraign Power” and “Passive Obedience” are not-so-subtle allusions to the hardcore right-wing Tory desire to invest the monarchy with absolute authority. The ascension to the throne of James II the last gasp effort to see this through, but actually marked the beginning of the end. With the Glorious Revolution would come a bill of rights and a long, slow, persistent chipping away at the power of the throne and subsequent shift in the balance toward Parliament.
“And know, for all my vapouring, 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.”
If one takes Gertrude at her word here, this line brings the curtain down on one of the most disappointing reversals in the history of theater. Throughout the play, it is precise the “vapouring” of Gertrude which has made the weight of misogyny expressed by pretty much every man worth slogging through. By “vapouring” is meant what might be termed feminist espousal of equality or, at the very least, intellectual recognition of the lack thereof. Gertrude stands as one of—if not right there at the very top—of the most impressive, likable and engaging female characters in British drama from this period. What she is constructed to be at every point along the way up to this—her final speech—is exactly the opposite of what she is espousing here. But her words are not merely to be directed toward wifely obedience to their husbands. Not in this play written at this time. Her speech is yet another direct allusion to the swirling political argument of the day about absolute authority, passive obedience, and the divine right of kings.
