Themes: The Unfortunate Travellers

Violence and Death

The theme of violence and death is vividly presented in the novel. As the novel begins, Jack is traveling to Germany, and he arrives in Munster, Germany, just in time to witness the murder and execution and massacre of John Leyden’s Anabaptist faction in the hands of the Emperor and the Duke of Saxony. In this way, the novel-write Thomas Nashe is able to explore the theme of religious hypocrisy that presents itself prevalently in the novel. As Jack and his beloved Diamante travel to Rome, Jack admires the classical ruins that take him by surprise rather than the religious relics. The couple then encounters the character Esdras of Granado and his servant Bartol. The two lodge in the same hotel as our adventurous couple, and Esdras rapes Heraclide, a thing that Jack witnesses. Distraught, Heraclide commits suicide. Then at Bologna, Jack and Diamante witness the execution and death of Cutwolf, the brother to Bartol. Also, Cutwolf publicly admits to having forced Esdras, forced him to blaspheme God and shot him, in this way, dooming his soul for eternity.

Love

The theme of love is also quite prevalent in Nashe’s The Unfortunate Traveller. From the main character Jack Wilton to the Earl of Surrey, Nashe’s characters epitomize the theme. Despite being married, the Earl of Surrey, Henry Howard, is presented as being in love with another woman—Geraldine. The exact nature of his love is presented when the character and his page Jack travel to Italy, where Henry is to fulfill his pledge of defending the honor of his love, Geraldine, in a tournament. Nashe presents Geraldine as a cherished entity of the Earl’s affections. When a magician by the name Cornelius Agrippa reveals the face of Surrey’s beloved crying on the bed, the Earl of Surrey bursts into a fit of poetry that surges him on his way. Jack also meets his beloved while imprisoned for fraud. He then takes his love, Diamante, with him on his journey. Later, when he is banished, Jack remains in Italy seeking his beloved until he finds her. Religious hypocrisy

Religious Hypocrisy

The novel writer Thomas Nashe also explores the theme of religious hypocrisy in his literary work, The Unfortunate Traveler. As the novel begins, the emperor and the Duke of Saxony is in the process of executing John Leyden’s Anabaptist faction. Surprisingly, the height of religious hypocrisy is brought out when Jack Wilton is saved from the hands of the Jewish Zadok and the pope's physician Zachary. They were planning to use Jack for laboratory experiments. The narrator reveals that he was saved by Juliana, the pope’s mistress.