When a “Volpone” emerges on Long Island

I mentioned this article in class:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/10/brittany-ozarowski-cancer-heroin-lie-hoax-long-island-new-york_n_3054786.html, and felt I should provide the reference. There is a striking overlap between the actions taken by Brittany Ozarowski, a young heroin addict that gulled her family and her community into giving her money for cancer treatments, and those of Volpone who gulled his acquaintances intro giving him gifts. I assume that such guile is standard human practice. It seems like a brilliant plan at first; to look sick and fool others into pitying you. But what then, does the charade go on indefinitely? Volpone figured that it must end eventually. Indeed his sham was exposed through the court and his coconspirator Mosca. In Brittany’s case, it was revealed when donors decided to pay her doctors directly and offered to take her to her visits. In some sense Volpone, while morally ambiguous, only targeted other despicable men, who were blinded by greed and self interest. Brittany’s donors were kind hearted people that legitimately felt bad for her and had nothing to gain from helping her. In this sense Long Island’s Volpone is a different breed than Venice’s Volpone.