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Gender Misfits
William Wycherley's The Country Wife exhibits the alternative roles of men and women in society. He emphasizes the importance of gender differences in this social order through the characters of Horner, the rake, Margery, the cross-dresser, and Sparkish, the fop. All three of these personalities present a social and sexual other that seem to have no place within the society of the characters onstage. However, a closer examination of their relationships with the other characters in the play reveals that these characters actually perpetuate the traditional masculine roles of this social order.
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