The Rivals Critics

Question 1

Maybank.

The intrigues of love in high society, the…

Answer 1

…importance of status, inheritance and income are all referenced

Question 2

O’Toole.

Elegant comedy…

Answer 2

…of manners

Question 3

Lewcock.

Sheridan used the artifices of the stage to demonstrate…

Answer 3

…the masks men use to hide from reality and the consequences of taking the mask to the true face

Question 4

Baldwin.

Sentimentality, the ostentatious parading of excessive…

Answer 4

…and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty

Question 5

Baldwin.

The signal of secret and violent…

Answer 5

…inhumanity, the mark of cruelty

Question 6

Fiskin.

Corruption of…

Answer 6

…reasonable attitudes

Question 7

Fiskin.

Sheridan creates a confusion of…

Answer 7

….identities that attack sentimentality

Question 8

Reade.

Sheridan pushes the manners and stereotypes of the plays…

Answer 8

…and society of the time to extremes…is is attacking attitudes to love and money

Question 9

Dr Johnson.

Lydia is a young woman to be…

Answer 9

…reckoned with, her feistiness and recoursefullness is a taste of things to come

Question 10

Tompkins.

Represents a monumental…

Answer 10

…effort to reorganise culture from a woman’s point of view

Question 11

Maybank.

Her books illustrate what she is meant to be…

Answer 11

…moral and pious, and what she is, fashion conscience and sexual

Question 12

Billington.

The self-torturing Faulkland, forever testing the fidelity…

Answer 12

…of his beloved Julia mixes the neurotic and the erotic

Question 13

Billington.

Scenes melt into each other as we watch Sheridan’s…

Answer 13

…timeless satire on the caprices of passion

Question 14

Fiskin.

The Rivals is the corruption…

Answer 14

…of reasonable attitudes

Question 15

O’toole.

Cliches of traditional…

Answer 15

…melodrama turned on their heads

Question 16

Stern.

Sheridan criticises ideas by promoting…

Answer 16

…them in a preposterous manner

Question 17

Maybank.

Jack enjoys a double identity as it…

Answer 17

…increases his control over others

Question 18

Maybank.

Only self-inflicted caprice in each…

Answer 18

…pair obstructs social harmony

Question 19

Reade.

He is attacking attitudes to love and money…

Answer 19

…marriage and responsibilities, the battle of the sexes and the age

Question 20

Maybank.

Acres’ literalism with language makes him a comic…

Answer 20

…counterpart to Mrs M, his referential oaths betraying his vain attempt to distinguish himself in a fashionable society

Question 21

Maybank.

Lucy embodies the calculated fostering…

Answer 21

…of two traits-simplicity and guile- suggested by her outbursts of O Gemini

Question 22

Maybank.

The play’s imagery takes money as…

Answer 22

…its metaphor, connecting it to intangibles such as love

Question 23

Maybank.

Lydia mounts a vigorous defence of her…

Answer 23

…right to marry who she pleases

Question 24

Maybank.

Faulkland’s obsessions grow in comic amplification throughout scenes. He is presented as….

Answer 24

…a self tormentor, his jealousy arising from insecurity

Question 25

Lewcock. | Sir A represents the man of absolute integrity...

Answer 25

...but is the warning to the audience of being blind to the pretences of others

Question 26

Lewcock. | Where the novels hidden under books of sermons and advice...

Answer 26

...on etiquette can be seen as a metaphor for hiding ones true feelings under masks of sentiment and decorum

Question 27

Lewcock. | Reputations can be sold...

Answer 27

...as easily as painted appearances

Question 28

Lewcock. | The rivals exaggerates the idea of...

Answer 28

...a society that exists by appearances

Question 29

Lewcock. | Lydia's preoccupation with romantic, even erotic literature...

Answer 29

...epitomises the depths of feeling which may be concealed under the mandatory surface of rationality

Question 30

Lewcock. | Faulkland exemplifies the refining of...

Answer 30

...ones sentiments taken to the foolish yet logical extreme

Question 31

Lewcock. | In this context the duel becomes the threat of...

Answer 31

...danger that is needed to bring Lydia to an acknowledgement of reality

Question 32

Lewcock. | He appears concerned not only to show the differences...

Answer 32

...between appearances and reality but the consequences of false impressions

Question 33

Lewcock. | He illustrated many of the ways people consciously and unconsciously...

Answer 33

...deceive themselves and others

Question 34

Lewcock. | The Rivals portrays the shifts and stratagems...

Answer 34

...contemporary life might force people to adopt if they carried their ideals to extremes

Question 35

Ericson. | It is Jack's inventiveness that...

Answer 35

...establishes him at the heart of the play

Question 36

A.N.Kaul. | Sheridan is concerned with nothing less than the problem of women's...

Answer 36

...freedom in a society that looks upon women as property and upon marriage as a business transaction

Question 37

Groag. | The rivals addresses that the conflict between the illusion of Romance and...

Answer 37

...the warning signs of common sense

Question 38

Groag. | Lydia believes that...

Answer 38

...love conquers all adversity

Question 39

Groag. | Mrs Malaprop hopes love...

Answer 39

...will restore lost youth

Question 40

Groag. | Bob Acres expects it to...

Answer 40

...give him style and courage

Question 41

Gross. | The rivals addresses the...

Answer 41

...conduct of life

Question 42

Groag. | All believe that love conquers all, that love...

Answer 42

...can overcome even poverty and sadness and death

Question 43

Groag. | Jack and Julia are the children of...

Answer 43

...the Age of Reason, who see everything from a perspective that propels the social world forward

Question 44

Groag. | The world clearly could not...

Answer 44

...function if we all loved like Lydia and Faulkland

Question 45

Groag. | There should be little regret...

Answer 45

...about the loss of the idealism who love not too wisely but too well

Question 46

Conflicts

Answer 46

Elegance and absurdity, wit and farce, realism and modernity of the dialogue

Question 47

Sheridan presents us with a society struggling with the rivalry...

Answer 47

...between the tyrannical old order and a softer new order.

Question 48

Language: it's power to entertain, subvert and to capture...

Answer 48

...social and cultural behaviour. Accuracy and truth