Marriage A-La-Mode Essay Questions

Compare and contrast Doralice and Melantha.

Melantha is enganged, while Doralice is married, but they both share a desire to dabble romantically outside their respective commitments. Melantha wants to have an affair with Rhodophil, and Doralice is pursuing an affair with Palamede.

In terms of demeanor and personality, the two women are very different from one another. While Doralice is presented as a more sensible, witty, and autonomous subject, Melantha is almost a comic device. Where Doralice is clever and self-determined, Melantha is constantly misusing French phrases, and pretentiously vying for power in court. In these ways, the two women could not be more different.

What is the significance of the character Amalthea? How does she advance the plot? What happens to her and why?

When Leonidas is (wrongly) identified as Polydamas's son, Princess Amalthea falls in love with him, and even after it becomes known that he is not the rightful king, she feels personally loyal to him even though her feelings are not reciprocated. By falling in love with Leonidas, she develops a motive to act against the interests of her father. It is she who brings Rhodophil and Palamede to Leonidas's aid during the climax of the play. Her story is somewhat tragic: after helping Leonidas to the throne, and after helping him gain his beloved Palmyra as a wife, she is unable to move on emotionally. Leonidas asks her to name her reward, but she chooses instead to carry a torch for him, dwelling in her "unworthiness." In contrast to most of the other characters, who find love with one another, Amalthea is a character who comes from immense privilege, but can still not get what she wants in love.

What are the two contrasting ways that the play addresses the theme of love and marriage?

The play has two rather contrasting plot lines. One concerns the two couples: Rhodophil and Doralice and Palamede and Melantha. This plotline is rather cynical, in that it satirically and lightheartedly looks at the tendency for married couples to grow tired of one another and look outside the relationship for some extramarital stimulation. The humor of this plotline is based on its fizzy and light characterization of romance. In contrast to this, Leonidas and Palmyra's love is serious, deep, and immovable. Their narrative is far more dramatic, and even when they are cleaved apart by Polydamas and the state, they remain true to one another. Thus, the play presents two very different depictions of love and marriage: one shows it to be a sacred communion, and another shows it to be a silly game of deceit.

Two different styles of writing are used, one in the Leonidas/Palmyra scenes, and one in the comic scenes. What are they, why are two such radically different metric structures used, and how do they alter the tempo and mood of the play?

Iambic pentameter, chiefly in rhyming couplets, characterizes the "high" comedy of Leonidas and Palmyra. Their story is only comedy because it has a happy ending. It has very little wit or wordplay, it contains a great deal of sincere emotion, and it does not have the buffoonery shown by characters such as Melantha. Most of the characters that appear in these sections are royalty, people who have been raised as royalty, and people close to them, such as courtiers. When Rhodophil and Palamede appear in a Court scene before Leonidas is dragged away to his execution, they speak in heroic pentameter.

The comic scenes involving Melantha and Doralice are in prose. This provides far more freedom for expression, characterization, idiom, and dialogue. Speeches are longer but easier to understand. The shift into prose breaks up the stately, almost stilted conventions of the court and feels less formal. The mood relaxes.

What do Rhodophil, Doralice, and Palamede realize at the end of the play?

By the end of the play, Rhodophil, Doralice, and Palamede come to a realization about the foolishness of their affairs, while Melantha seems blithely unaware of what has actually gone on. As Rhodophil and Palamede fight over their respective beloveds, they come to realize that their jealousy is a currency of their love. The fact that they are jealous and protective of their lovers speaks to the fact that they love them in some special way. This realization causes them to decide to return to their rightful partners and ditch the affairs. Doralice, in seeing her husband want to fight for her, receives the attention she has so desired throughout the play. Even so, Doralice and Palamede harbor affection for one another, and even make a pact that they will find one another should they outlive their respective spouses.