Provisos and reprieves: William Congreve’s The Way of the World and Howard Hawks’s His Girl Friday

William Congreve’s Millamant and Howard Hawks’s Hildy Johnson enter their respective comedies with confidence and self-possession. Mirabell describes Millamant as she approaches him in St. James’s Park: “Here she comes i’faith full sail, with her Fan spread and her Streamers out, and a shoal of Fools for Tenders” (2.1.323-24).1 Although Mrs. Fainall revises the portrait with regard to the “shoal of Fools” (“I see but one poor empty Sculler; and he tows her Woman after him” [2.1.326-27]), we nevertheless get the impression that Millamant moves through life with confidence, aplomb, and style. She toys with Mirabell throughout the scene, always one step ahead of him, eventually leaving him feeling as though he “lives in a Windmill” or a “Whirlwind” or some other “whimsical Dwelling” (2.1.494, 491, 494). Yet, a few scenes later, Millamant has agreed to “dwindle into a Wife” (4.1.227).