Page 208 - DENG403_BRITISH_DRAMA

British Drama

Notes Analysis to Scene I-Scene III

The intention of Jonson throughout the play has been to satirize greed in all its forms. At first,
Volpone was the instrument of Jonson’s satire; he turned the greed of the legacy hunters against
itself, creating a situation where greed resulted in not only a complete loss of dignity on the part of
the legacy hunters but also, ironically, the loss of the very thing they were seeking to gain: money.
But now, Volpone has succumbed to his own form of greed; greed driven by his private desires and
appetites for Celia. Because of this, he has defamed two innocent characters, Celia and Bonario. In
the moral universe of Jonson’s comedy, this transgression cannot go unpunished or uncommented
upon; Celia and Bonario were guilty of nothing except dullness; their imprisonment is, to put it
simply, “not funny”. So Volpone is no longer the instrument of Jonson’s satire. In fact, he is now
made the target of it, and the attack proceeds, again, through irony.
A central motif in the final act is that of the disguise-made-reality; Volpone has convinced so many
people of his lies that his falsehoods now come to stand in the public sphere as truth, with terrible
consequences for Volpone. Volpone wishes to be done with his con-game clearly indicates his wish to
be done with his con-game, but we receive indications that it will not be so simple, that the lies Volpone
has told are too powerful and too widely accepted to simply disappear. He returns from the senate
complaining of cramps and aches that roughly coincide with those he has been imitating; the “cramp”
and the “palsy,” which he had mocked Corbaccio for succumbing to in Act I. These may be indications
of a guilty conscience; but they also stand as a metaphor for the way in which Volpone has successfully
blurred the line between lies and reality. Again, we can use the metaphor of stagecraft here: in Act IV,
Volpone crosses boundary between the “stage” and “reality,” by carrying his “play” into the world
and appearing sick in public. Ironically, it is at this moment that Volpone impulsively decides to kill
himself off, and he does it using the medium of the playwright, the written word.
So when Volpone thinks he is writing himself out of his deceitful game, his “play,” he is actually
writing himself out of reality altogether. The “exit from reality” occurs when Volpone goes behind
the arras, he for a moment becomes a member of the audience of Volpone, the drama written by Ben
Jonson; in other words, he is a spectator, not a participant, in his own life. Mosca, at this stage,
assumes Volpone’s role both as the center of the play’s action and as its moral voice; it is he who
scolds each legacy hunter in turn for their hypocrisy. Volpone delights—almost sadistically in the
vindictiveness with which Mosca reminds each character of the callous and immoral acts they
committed in the pursuit of Volpone’s treasure. But the irony of the situation is encapsulated by
Volpone’s statement “Rare, Mosca! How his villainy becomes him!” which foreshadows the events
later in the act.

16.6.4 Scene IV
Peregrine enters, in disguise as a merchant. He is accompanied by three other merchants. They
rehearse a scheme in which Peregrine has hatched to get his revenge on Sir Politic; Peregrine reminds
everyone that his only aim is to frighten Sir Pol, not to injure him. The merchants hide, and Peregrine
puts his plot into motion. Peregrine asks Sir Pol’s serving-woman to tell the knight that “a merchant,
upon urgent business.” When Sir Pol comes out of his study, where he has been working on a letter
of apology to his wife, Peregrine’s disguise is successful; Sir Pol does not know he is talking to
Peregrine. So Peregrine/the Merchant tells Sir Politic that the young man Sir Pol was speaking to
earlier that day has told the State of Venice that Sir Pol wishes to sell Venice to the Turks. Sir Pol
believes Peregrine immediately, and becomes terrified. After all, he did tell Peregrine he could sell
Venice to the Turks; of course, he had been joking, but now it seems that Peregrine has understood
things in a very wrong, and dangerous, way. Of course, Peregrine has told no such thing to anyone;
but when the merchants knock on the door, Peregrine/the merchant tells Sir Pol it is the officers of
the state come to arrest him.
Sir Pol decides, at Peregrine’s suggestion that he will hide in a wine cask made of tortoise-shell; he
quickly does so and asks Peregrine to tell his servant that his papers should be burnt. When the

202 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY