Volpone by Ben Jonson - Book Report/Review Example

The Use of Satire in Volpone Ben Jonson was a 17th century playwright who’s most popular play in modern times remains Volpone. This is perhaps because, although the play is originally presented as a comedy and has many funny elements that continue to speak even to today’s sophisticated audience, it has an underlying social satire that remains equally applicable to a 21st century crowd. The vices of greed and lust are combined with extreme lack of regard for morality throughout the plot of the play as they are expressed in the characters that take on animal-like names in true morality play fashion. Through this personification, the main character Volpone because the Fox, his servant Mosca is the Fly, Voltore the lawyer is associated with the Vulture, old Corbaccio is a Raven, Corvino is linked with the Crow and the sad little knight and his wife become associated with the brainless yet talkative Parrot. As these characters struggle for money and control, the artificial features of respectability are called into question and the individuals, representing the Renaissance courts, are exposed as immoral and unethical self-serving hypocrites. This can be seen most in the characters of Volpone and Mosca as they manipulate the strings of the others, through the characters of Voltore, Corbaccio and Corvino as they manipulate their worlds to gain Volpone’s favor and in the characters of Sir and Lady Pol, who do their best to imitate their betters but fall short of the object. Volpone is the central character of the play and quickly demonstrates his inability to show generosity to others or to benefit from knowledge of himself while Mosca is his grasping servant, always eager to promote himself regardless of the expense to others. The nature of these men is brought forward in their first dialogue: Mosca answers his master’s greeting of a new day with the observation, “Riches are in fortune A greater good, than wisedome is in nature.” To which Volpone answers, “True, my beloved Mosca. Yet I glory More in the cunning purchasse of my wealth, Then in the glad possession.” The main action of the play is the result of Volpone’s plot to take advantage of three different treasure seekers by pretending to be seriously ill. While his initial fun is in tricking these three out of the ‘get-well’ presents he receives from them, “What a rare punishment Is auarice, to it selfe?”, he soon expands his goals to include the seduction of Celia, the wife of one of the treasure-seekers. This demonstrates his lack of self-awareness as he fails to recognize the danger of his own avarice. At the same time, this lust for Celia demonstrates the licentiousness of court politics that Volpone would think he’d have a chance at Celia with the promise of inheritance. The power plays of the rich and famous are epitomized in Volpone’s grasping nature and failure to recognize this characteristic in another as well as in Mosca’s overreaching attempt to gain mastery over the master, finally bringing about the ruin of both characters. Volpone’s plot to fake his death is designed simply to torment his victims further, “see, how they do looke; With what degrees, their bloud doth leaue their faces; O, it will afford me a rare meale of laughter”, sounding much like the cruel behavior of the Renaissance elite as they coldly made and ruined the lives around them on little more than a whim. Meanwhile, Mosca, in his plots to bring Volpone to his knees, echoes the desires of numerous servants tired of being slaves to the passions of the rich: “My FOXE Is out on his hole, and, ere he shall re-enter, I will make him languish, in his borrow’d case.” The three treasure hunters represent the next lower class down, the grasping upper middle class, vying for entry into the elite while exchanging their religious convictions from God to gold, specifically Volpone’s rumored sizeable estate, as a means of obtaining it. Little consideration is given to morals, as is most excellently demonstrated in Corvino’s willingness to share his wife’s body in exchange for inheritance despite his extreme jealousy when she throws a mere handkerchief as a token of appreciation, an idea he seems to come to on his own (although in reality with help from Mosca): “Wherefore should not I As well command my bloud, and my affections, As this dull Doctor? In the point of honor, The cases are all one, of wife and daughter … She shall do it: it is done.” In similar fashion, Voltore sacrifices his own passions, for the brilliant use of words to interpret the law and in arguing cases, as a means of gaining Volpone’s favor. In the end, when his many deceits and plays for power are exposed, he can do little more than claim he had been possessed by a demon and accept his fate. Although he is seen to have a fortune of his own, the last of the three treasure seekers also betrays his own treasures as a means of gaining the treasure of someone else. After his ‘get-well’ gift to Volpone at the beginning of the play is found to be unacceptable, a trivial bottle of medicine, Corbacchio agrees to disinherit his own son, a child he had taken pride in previously, in order to make Volpone his heir, hoping that Volpone would reciprocate and then die before Corbacchio. In each case, the call of the money supercedes any consideration of morals or ethics and even jumps over considerations of personal passions and self-pride. This was and is representative of the degree to which people are willing to sell everything they have ever valued in order to gain extra money or more control over others. The final group of characters, Sir and Lady Politic Would-be, represents the next rung down on the social ladder, those individuals who would like to be among the upper echelons of society, or to be even among the group that have an honest potential to be. This is expressed in the words of Peregrine as he identifies the wife of the knight he’s just met in Scene 2: “Your Lady Lies here, in Venice, for intelligence Of tires, and fashions, and behauiour, Among the Curtizans? the fine Lady Would-be?” Because they are not reaching as high and thus do not employ the sophisticated machinations of their social betters, the Would-bes do not suffer the same degree of divine retribution as the others, but their attempts are nevertheless repaid as first the Lady is embarrassed by the idea that her husband has been unfaithful with the beautiful Celia and then the Knight is chastised by Peregrine through public embarrassment. Regardless of the level of society, Jonson illustrates how the concepts of greed and lust lead to the ruin of the aristocracy, at the same time commenting upon the state of the social classes that existed in 17th century Italy. The corruption of court politics is barely disguised in the actions of the characters as they vie for Volpone’s fortunes just as the greed of Volpone for their adulation and jealousy can be seen to be a driving force for greater and greater deprivations. Indeed, the ability to observe the suffering of others as a result of avarice for what he already has is seen as one of the only motivating forces for Volpone’s actions. While he proclaims lust for Celia, even this can be seen as little more than another means by which he can make his victims squirm. By including the lesser characters of the Would-bes, Jonson is able to illustrate how the corruption of individuals at the upper levels of society can have a detrimental corrupting effect on the individuals at lower levels of society. Everything centers around the common idea of possession, a word that applies as equally to gold and land as it does to people and souls. The one who possesses the most wins, yet Jonson weaves the plot around so that no one is left with anything. There are no winners in this game, another comment on the political situation that should have been, and still should be, heeded. Works Cited Jonson, Ben. Volpone. (ca. 1607). Prepared by Hugh Craig, Department of English, University of Newcastle. May 9, 2007 Read More