A Marriage By Any Other Sign: Social Signification in The Way of the World

This paper analyzes William Congreve’s The Way of the World through the lens of Derrida’s theory of différance, arguing that the play destabilizes the fixed social categories of marriage and identity through linguistic performance. While many critics read Congreve’s portrayal of marriage as either reinforcing or satirizing Restoration social structures, this analysis emphasizes how language itself resists fixed meaning. Drawing on key scenes between Mirabell and Millamant, Waitwell’s reflections on autonomy, and Fainall’s contradictory claims of masculine selfhood, the paper demonstrates how the signs “husband,” “wife,” and “man” shift and defer meaning rather than affirm static roles. Characters do not simply reflect legal or economic structures—they reshape them through ironic and strategic language. By exposing how identity is produced relationally, not essentially, Congreve turns marriage from a social institution into a field of rhetorical play. Ultimately, this reading reveals that The Way of the World enacts not just social critique but linguistic subversion, showing how even love and resentment are performed through unstable signs.