Analyse the character and roles of three characters in Ben Jonson’s Volpone.
...ttle more than lie around moaning and groaning, whereas Mosca uses his quick wits and guile to turn the situations to their advantage. We see Volpone’s arrogance come out with the departure of Corbaccio; he starts to heap praise upon Mosca even demanding, “Let me kiss thee”#. Mosca however tries to humble this praise and turns it back on to Volpone by claiming its all down to him really: “Alas sir I but do, as I am taught;”# Volpone does not need any more than that comment than to accept the full credit himself by declaring very ungraciously “ ‘Tis true, ‘tis true.”# Jonson makes Volpone have these elements that the audience dislikes so that when Mosca eventually deceives him, we the audience to not let it interfere with feelings for Mosca who has become our real hero of the play. In act 1 Scene 5 Volpone starts to show how important overcoming the challenge and obtaining the unobtainable is to him. At the mention Of Signor Corvino’s wife being the “blazing star of Italy”# he starts to show an interest in something other than gold and starts to question Mosca about her. However, it is when he is told by Mosca that it would be impossible for him to see her that Volpone decrees, “I must see her”#. As Mosca goes on to tell him just how impossible it is, what with her being surrounded by “a guard, of ten spies thick”# Volpone gets more interested and starts to plan how he can see her. Volpone’s role here has been to move the plot along by stating his intentions of having the beautiful Celia. The audience now knows what the next events in the play are going to be. Volpone comes across throughout the play as something of a hedonist indulging himself in whatever he wants and continually looking for new ways to challenge and please himself. We see this firstly with the bizarre entourage he has for his entertainment: a dwarf, a eunuch and a hermaphrodite. Then secondly when he decides Celia will be his new indulgence. It is here we see that Volpone is not used to not getting his own way and that he has a much darker side, a side that comes to light with the attempted rape of Celia. It is this that makes us lose any sympathy for Volpone and what is about to happen to him because he is now morally wrong in our eyes, as it is an innocent he has harmed and not somebody who deserved it. With these aspects of Volpone’s character Jonson is poking fun at foreigners for the audience by saying this is how rich Italians get their enjoyment, from dwarf’s and hermaphrodites or by forcing themselves upon innocent young women. Mosca At the start of the play we meet Mosca the servant, a character who initially seems to be nothing but obsequious and sycophantic in nature. He is constantly agreeing with everything Volpone says or speaking of him in a way that can only flatter him: “ You loathe, the widow’s, or the orphans tears”# and “You know the use of riches,”# . To begin with it appears that this is not even due to a sense of loyalty but more to the fact that Volpone is giving him these constant hand outs from his “bright heap”#. From this opening scene it appears that Mosca is nothing more than the parasite (a mosquito / fly) that his name labels him to be. In this opening scene Mosca’s main role is to be someone for Volpone to talk to about his scam so that the audience knows exactly what is going on. Mosca furthers the impression of the ever-pleasing servant in scene two when Volpone asks him if the play that his entertainers put on was of his own invention. Mosca goes on instead of answering to ask if it pleased Volpone and only when he says that it did does he take the responsibility for it. Mosca now continues in his quest to please his master by having created this song about the jesters to be performed for him. Jonson has made Mosca sing here in order to bring some variety and comedy to the play. Up to this point we have solely seen Mosca's exaggerated flattery - only when the three 'potential heirs' arrive do we see that Mosca has much more to him and has cunning of his own to match Volpone. From the arrival of Voltore we see an immediate change in Mosca, he takes charge and starts to control the situation. The audience starts to identify with him too as he starts to share jokes with them through asides. We see him wrap Voltore around his little finger by making him feel he is truly on his side, and that he relies on Voltore for future employment as he asks “I do beseech you, sir, you will vouchsafe To write me, i’ your family.”# Mosca goes on to show us his quick wits and resourcefulness with the arrival of Corbaccio. On Corbaccio’s suggestion that Volpone has some of the “opiate”# that he as brought with him, Mosca luckily is able to come up with an excuse on the spot, that “he will not hear of drugs”#. Throughout these scenes we start to see that Mosca is not the fawning, servile parasite of earlier in the play as we see him taking advantage of Corbaccio’s bad hearing to make fun of him. He also seems to over step the mark with Volpone on several occasions knowing that Volpone can do nothing as it would betray his act, when Corvino is visiting he shouts in Volpone’s face about his “filthy eyes of yours that fill with slime”#. Here Mosca was not only having a dig at his master but also getting Corvino on side with him, showing us the clever way that Mosca turns each situation to his advantage. In Act Three, we have the beginning of what seems an assertion of self-identity by Mosca, when he begins to grow confident in his abilities and proceeds in telling us about them: “success hath made me wanton… I am so limber…fine, elegant rascal…this is the creature, had the art born with him.”# It is here we realise that Mosca is not that different to Volpone in the way that he loves to openly revel in his own greatness. Mosca here is setting himself up for his own downfall later in the play because as we know pride always comes before a fall. Following this Mosca seems to go back to being Volpone's faithful servant, helping him get out of the troublesome situation with Bonario and Celia. But it turns out that Mosca's aid in this situation may have been motivated as much by personal interest as it was by a desire to aid Volpone, for when he is presented with an opportunity to seize Volpone's wealth, he takes it. Mosca’s greed is the reason he gets his comeuppance as with Volpone it echoes the message of the play that “a rare punishment is avarice to itself”. Mosca’s greed manifests itself firstly when he takes all his master’s wealth, and then secondly when he decides that he will no longer share it equally with Volpone but says “I cannot now afford it you so cheap.”# This line forces Mosca’s downfall as Volpone’s own greed (not being happy with a half share) means he would rather face the punishment than lose his wealth. Mosca...