A New Way to Pay Old Debts
Endymion
Historical Background Links
-
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
- PBerggren on Comparison of Prodigal Sons
- PBerggren on A Very Modern Character
- PBerggren on Madness – the sign of villainy without the cover of rationality/humanity
- PBerggren on Judgement of Females in Literature
- peter d'antonio on Madness – the sign of villainy without the cover of rationality/humanity
Archives
Categories
Meta
Tags
- betrayal
- bosola
- Coercion
- conflicted
- cynthia
- damned but with a bit of saving grace
- dedication
- De Flores
- desire
- Doctor Faustus
- Dr faustas
- endymion
- eumenides
- Evil
- female characters
- gender differences
- good and evil
- Greed
- Helen
- human condition
- humanity
- judgement
- lawyers
- Lorenzo
- loyalty
- madness
- Madoff
- master/servant
- mephistopheles
- mirror characters
- Mosca
- Pedringano
- Power and Fear
- pragmatism
- queen elizabeth
- satire
- scene study
- survival
- symbolism
- the lesser bad
- The Spanish Tragedy
- too late for salvation
- video
- villains
- Volpone
Tag Archives: Greed
Dangerous Desire
Desire plays a major role in Volpone by Ben Jonson. The most dominant theme in this play is by far greed, but desire and lust also play significant roles as well. Volpone and Mosca develop a scheme to manipulate Voltore, Corbaccio, and Corvino into giving Volpone gifts because of their desire to be named his heir, Volpone and Mosca desire not only to accumulate wealth from their scheme but also to outsmart everyone, and Volpone desires Celia despite her disgust towards him.
At the beginning of the play Volpone says to Mosca, “Yet I glory more in the cunning purchase of my wealth than in the glad possession, since I gain no common way.” (1.1 30-33). This statement shows that Volpone’s desire to be the best con artist outweighs the importance he places on the wealth that he accumulates. His desire to fool everyone is fueled by the desire to ascertain Volpone’s wealth of Voltore, Corbaccio, and Corvino. Once Volpone sees Celia, his desire quickly changes from gaining wealth through his scheme to claiming the love of Celia, although it seems that he has more lust for her than love and will do anything to have sex with her. Celia is one of the few symbols of good in this play and she is saved by Bonario when Volpone tries to rape her.
Desire can be strong motivation for the actions of individuals. In many cases, people desire to reach a goal that represents success to them. However, in Volpone, Ben Jonson manipulates human nature to twist his characters’ desires to yearn for unethical things, causing them to act in a grotesque manner at times. Corvino prostitutes his wife, Volpone attempts to commit rape and adultery, and Mosca manipulates Voltore into lying and nearly has two innocent individuals punished for crimes that they did not commit. Nearly every character in this play, with the exception of two, has a rotten core and some even acknowledge their wrongdoing and yet they still do not care. Desire is a powerful emotion and when the goal is bad, the means to reach that goal may be worse than the goal itself.
Doctor Faustus and the best of both worlds
Faustus’s famous bargain with Lucifer was not “worth” it. Trading his soul for a little more than twenty years was not worth forfeiting his previous success and climb up the social ladder. The bargain is simplified for the audience in 1.4 when Wagner attempts to persuade Robin the clown for a similar deal. Robin frames the argument in terms of food. Clearly a nice roasted piece of season meat is better tasting than a bloody raw piece of meat. Why would an educated Faustus not see the flaw in the bargain like Robin simply points out? Well, Faustus believes he can have the best of both worlds.
Faustus asks Mephistopheles to bring him Helen of Troy. When he kisses her he says that her lips are his heaven. As his deal creeps toward its end Faustus believes he can have the best of both worlds. Helen is his heaven and his necromancy is his hell. Faustus cannot have both heaven and hell in his life. Both the good and bad angels have warned him that it is one way or the other. But Faustus, humanly, want everything. When it is time to pay his soul to Lucifer he will only have hell in his life. Hell is described as the absence of god. Faustus will lose the privilege to kiss Helen or even enjoy his power.
Faustus’s dilemma is not unheard of or unrealistic like Emdymion’s. Faustus’s flaw is very real and happens every day. It is the greatest flaw of man to want everything and anything. A modern day Faustus could be Bernie Madoff. He was a very successful hedge fund manager who was already living in extreme luxury and privilege. Madoff simply wanted more. Illegally he pulled a ponzi scheme which ultimately ended his life early. He’ll spend the rest of his days in jail. You can draw connections to Faustus. The ponzi scheme is similar to Faustus’s bargain with Lucifer. Madoff’s jail sentence is comparable to Faustus being dragged into hell to pay.
