Much declamation may be heard in the present day against “expediency”, as if it were not the proper object of a Deliberative Assembly, and as if it were only pursued by the unprincipled.
During life's day her heart will cling to him — during all the hours of helpless infancy, the waywardness of youth, and the maturity of manhood, the sacred fire burns on the altar of the mother's heart unquenchingly […]
[…] O, O, O, continued the horrible old creature, you billers and cooers, I have been listening to such flatteries, such confessions! Beware, beware, Arthur, there's many a slip.
Furthermore, when the play juxtaposes aristocratic violence with artisanal civility, it shows the artisans as the social group that better embodies civility, and the mocking accusations of bestial inferiority leveled at the mechanicals by the aristrocratic characters are revealed as a hollow discourse that attempts to bolster and naturalize established privilege.
