preview

Role Of Servants In Volpone

Decent Essays

The portrayal of servants in Shakespeare’s and Jonson’s plays is contrasting. In Jonson’s city comedies servants are depicted as unethical, manipulating their masters’ greed and egocentrism in order to fulfill their own plans and goals. On the other hand, in Shakespeare’s pastoral comedies servants are portrayed as loyal, devoted, reliable and helpful to their masters.
To be more specific, in Jonson’s city comedy “Volpone” the city is portrayed as a dog- eat-dog, antagonistic competitive world which is profit orientated, where everything is commodified. In other words, it is a society that is governed only by greed and profit. Therefore, almost all of his characters are greedy for power, money, food, alcohol or sex. Jonson satirizes that …show more content…

Jonson’s connection to Aesop's Fables is obvious, as all the character names in Volpone recall animals, insects or birds. For example Volpone means fox in Italian, Mosca means Fly etc. In that sense, “Volpone” draws from a tradition of Aesopian beast fables. Jonson wants to create an allegory of greed and also emphasizes that social and religious principles yield to greed and avarice; human beings are reduced to the level of beasts and lose their elevated status.
Therefore, Volpone is a magnifico, a noble man of the Venetian Republic, clever but totally selfish and lustful whose only purpose in life is to accumulate gold. He is so materialistic that not only has he replaced God with gold, but he also worships his gold as his God. He always tries to deceive and take advantage of other people, usually naive characters. His servant Mosca (which is an Italian word used to describe a kind of fly that is fed on dead meat) is a parasite. A parasite does not hunt, does not work in order to survive. Similarly, Mosca is a human being who is lazy, who does not struggle in order to acquire a livelihood. Mosca is also very clever and canny. He is absolutely necessary for Volpone, because he is the one who can put his master’s

Get Access