Marriage A-La-Mode Literary Elements

Comedy

English

Sicily

One plotline is satirical and comic, and the other is more dramatic and earnest.

The main heroic protagonist is Leonidas. The antagonists are the usurper Polydamas and his favorite courtier Argaleon.

There are two key conflicts in the piece, one related to the mismatched pairs of comic lovers and one related to the heroic characters. The comic lovers consist of two men, Rhodophil and Palamede, who are good friends but who are pursuing each other's women. Palamede is chasing Doralice, the wife of Rhodophil. Rhodophil is chasing Melantha, who is betrothed to Palamede. This constitutes a rather silly primary conflict. Then, the heroic characters Palmyra and Leonidas are faced with a radically different conflict: one of them is the offspring of the usurper king, and will be forced to marry whomever Polydamas dictates. The problem lies in the fact that they're in love with one another.

The climax occurs when Leonidas is sentenced to death, and he reveals his true identity. Rhodophil and Palamede must decide where they stand. This is the moment when the separate subplots come together.

When Melantha begs Philotis for new, fresh French phrases to use, she foreshadows the way by which Palamede will eventually win her heart.

Artemis, a female courtier, describes Melantha as "an impertinent lady."

Palamede misquotes the last lines spoken by Macbeth in Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name, when sending Rhodophil off with Doralice.

There's sword imagery throughout the play. The comic characters get ready to fight twice: first the disguised women, and later the men who realize that they care enough about their own romantic partners to dispute the other man's right to pursue them romantically.

If Leonidas is the son of Polydamas he cannot marry Palmyra, but if he is not the son of Polydamas and Palmyra is the king's daughter, she cannot marry Leonidas.

Rhodophil's pursuit of Melantha parallels the even-more bumbling and inept pursuit of Doralice by Palamede.

Palamede's "steel" supposedly points to the true north; by that he means a certain part of his body draws him invariably in the direction of his mistress. He's wrong, ironically: Doralice is standing right in front of him disguised as a boy, and he cannot recognize her.

There is no lengthy dramatic monologue in this piece, and the stage directions are sparse. But the comic relief is uniquely concentrated into separate designated characters, particularly Palamede and Melantha, both of whom make themselves ridiculous.