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VOL. 11, ISSUE 4 (2025)
Greed in sixteenth-century British society: a critical reading of Ben Jonson’s Volpone
Authors
Punarnava Malhotra
Abstract
Ben Jonson is renowned for his parody of the social vices that
characterised the Elizabethan and early Jacobean period. This article examines
the vice of avarice, a coforce that had come to dominate the consciousness of
the emerging wealthy class. Volpone, or The Fox offers a sharp critique of a
society increasingly governed by deception, material excess, and moral
bankruptcy. Greed functions as a unifying and pervasive trait across the play,
motivating both the deceiver and the deceived, and collapsing conventional
distinctions between virtues and vice. Religious discourse of the period
consistently condemned greed as one of the deadly sins; however, lived social
practices reveal a striking disjunction between moral doctrine and everyday
conduct. Jonson exposes this hypocrisy by presenting a world in which ethical
values are subordinated to the pursuit of wealth. Through satire, exaggeration,
and animal imagery, the play reveals how avarice distorts human relationships,
corrodes legal and social institutions, and ultimately renders moral reform
impossible within a corrupt social order.
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Pages:89-91
How to cite this article:
Punarnava Malhotra "Greed in sixteenth-century British society: a critical reading of Ben Jonson’s Volpone". International Journal of English Research, Vol 11, Issue 4, 2025, Pages 89-91
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