Volpone
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Discussion Questions
Clarify any plot questions, focusing on being able to summarize key aspects, including the role of each character. Review the study guide questions. Open up the discussion to any areas where you had difficulty.
Does Volpone enjoy having or acquiring money? Discuss the difference. What aspects of the comedy support the view that Volpone is a play about greed?
What are Voltore, Corbaccio and Corvno willing to give up for Volpone’s fortune? Discuss the limits you place on sacrifice for wealth.
Discuss Volpone as a comedy about justice and injustice, as well as a play about acting, pretense, and betrayal.
What sorts of punishments and rewards are meted out at the end of the play? What makes each of the appropriate?
Discuss the function in the play of Volpone’s fools: Nano, Adrogyno and Castrone. Why has Jonson included them in his play? What do they tell us about Volpone and his world?
Which characters in Volpone may be considered above reproach? What qualities doe they exhibit? How does the playwright treat them differently than the other characters?
The characters in Volpone often pretend to be what they are not, or say what they do not mean. Identify such instances in the actions of the main characters. Do you find this behavior common in everyday life? Illustrate your answer with examples.
What elements make Volpone a dark comedy? Describe scenes or images which exemplify this.
What sort of judges are the Avocatori? Are they fair? What is their function in the play?
What does it mean that theater is a mirror of society? Compare and contrast the way Volpone mirrors society, past and present.
The importance of the classics consists in the perennial value, in their power to communicate universal themes and ideas that transcend time and space. How would you judge Volpone and Love is the Best Medicine in light of these criteria?
How is the theme of love and its various aspects addressed in Volpone? In Love is the Best Medicine?
posted by erdecker @ 7:43 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
The 4 Avocatori are too easily mislead by Mosca's clever plan. Mosca tricks the judges into thinking Bonario and Celia are the "bad guys." By slightly changing Bonario and Celia's story to fit Mosca's point of view, Mosca's plan worked! For example, saying Celia's statements of rape were only part of the scheme to frame Volpone.
This shows how easily lawyers can cleverly argue either side of a case at a moment's notice. By merely twisting the truth a bit and using cunning tactics, the "bad guys" can often get themselves off the hook. All this satirizes the corruption of the court system, which happened in the book Volpone and is happening nowadayz.
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