# Mr. Sparkish — The Country Wife character guide

> Mr. Sparkish in The Country Wife by William Wycherley.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Sparkish, Master Sparkish

**First appearance:** 0005-act-i

## Snapshot

A vain fop engaged to Alithea who mistakes his own credulity for wit and cheerfully hands his betrothed to the man courting her.

## Who they are

Sparkish considers himself a man of wit and says so often enough that only he is convinced, treating his engagement as a stage for his own cleverness. He invites Harcourt to test Alithea's wit in a corner, laughs at Pinchwife's outrage, and cannot see that he is being cuckolded in plain sight before the marriage even happens. His blindness is not innocent but self-satisfied, and it makes him both the play's easiest laugh and its most pointed warning about mistaking confidence for love.

## Links

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