Ben Jonson’s Volpone: Use of Animal Imagery in the Characterization of Volpone

By presenting his characters as beasts disguised as humans, Jonson exposes the predatory nature of human greed. The animal imagery is not decorative; it is the foundation of the play’s moral and satirical structure. Through it, Jonson develops Volpone’s character — his cunning, sensuality, self-deception, and ultimate downfall — while at the same time critiquing the entire society that shares his vices.

This essay explores how Ben Jonson uses animal imagery to shape and develop Volpone’s character, how it reflects his moral corruption, and how it serves as a powerful satirical device to depict the inhumanity of greed in Renaissance society.

1. Animal Imagery and the Allegorical Tradition

To understand Jonson’s technique, it is necessary to recall that animal allegory was a well-established literary device in Europe. Works like Aesop’s Fables, Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, and La Fontaine’s Fables used animals to represent human vices and virtues — the fox for cunning, the wolf for greed, the crow for flattery, and so on.

In medieval morality plays and beast epics such as Reynard the Fox, the animal world symbolized the moral universe of mankind. Jonson, a classical scholar deeply influenced by Horace, Juvenal, and Aesop, adapted this technique for his Jacobean satire.

Thus, Volpone becomes not just a comedy of human folly but a modern beast fable, where every character behaves according to his animal nature. Venice, the setting, symbolizes a moral jungle, where each character preys upon another for wealth and pleasure.

2. Volpone: The Fox as Central Image

The name Volpone literally means “the fox,” and the characterization fully embodies this image. From the opening scene, Jonson constructs Volpone as a predatory, cunning, and sensual animal, living by deceit and trickery.

Volpone is a rich Venetian nobleman who derives pleasure not from using his wealth, but from deceiving others who worship his gold. Pretending to be dying, he invites greedy legacy hunters — Voltore (the vulture), Corbaccio (the raven), and Corvino (the crow) — to bring him gifts in hopes of being named his heir. Assisted by his servant Mosca (the fly), Volpone enjoys the game of deception, feeding on the greed of others.

Like a fox, Volpone is:

• Cunning and sly — he manipulates situations to his advantage.
• Predatory — he feeds on the folly of others.
• Sensual and crafty — he uses disguise and flattery as his tools.

The opening speech, where Volpone greets his gold as a deity (“Good morning to the day; and next, my gold!”), immediately sets his animalistic nature. He worships gold as his god, revealing his idolatry of material pleasure — a form of moral bestiality. The fox, a symbol of cunning in European fable, perfectly represents Volpone’s intellect without morality.

3. The Fox and His Lair: Volpone’s World as a Den of Deceit

The imagery of Volpone’s house reflects the lair of a cunning beast. His chamber is filled with disguises, potions, and treasures — tools for trapping his victims. It is not a noble home but a den of deceit.

Mosca, his parasite, acts as his assistant in cunning, like a smaller creature feeding off a predator’s leftovers. Together, they form a symbiotic animal relationship — the fox and the fly, each using the other to survive.

This imagery shows Volpone’s moral world as instinctive and amoral, not guided by conscience but by appetite and pleasure. His cunning, though brilliant, is animal-like — driven by instinctual greed rather than rational ethics.

4. Volpone’s Transformation Through Animal Imagery

Jonson develops Volpone’s character through several stages of animal behavior:

(a) The Fox as a Trickster

In the early acts, Volpone resembles the clever fox of fables. His schemes are playful, his deceit is almost artistic. He deceives the legacy hunters with wit and humor. His enjoyment comes not from money itself but from the thrill of manipulation.

For instance, when Voltore, Corbaccio, and Corvino visit him with gifts, Volpone feigns illness and death, watching their greed with amusement. This game shows his superior intellect — the fox outsmarting the birds of prey.

(b) The Fox as a Predator

As the plot progresses, Volpone’s cunning turns darker. His lust for Celia, Corvino’s wife, exposes his animal sensuality. When he disguises himself as a mountebank to seduce her, he crosses the line from trickster to predator. The fox’s cunning becomes lustful aggression.

This transformation reveals that Volpone’s intelligence is inseparable from bestial appetite. He preys upon innocence — first on the greed of men, then on the purity of a woman.

(c) The Fox as a Victim of His Own Instinct

By the end of the play, the hunter becomes the hunted. Volpone’s overconfidence and greed lead to his downfall. When he fakes his own death to test Mosca’s loyalty, he falls into his own trap — a fox caught in his own snare.

This reversal completes his animal characterization. Jonson uses the traditional moral of beast fables: the trickster is eventually tricked. Volpone’s cunning, which once gave him superiority, becomes the cause of his ruin.

5. Animal Imagery in Supporting Characters: A Mirror to Volpone

Jonson’s use of animal imagery extends beyond Volpone to the other characters, forming a complete moral ecosystem that reflects and amplifies Volpone’s nature.

(a) Mosca – The Fly

“Mosca” means “fly” in Italian. Like a fly, he thrives on corruption, feeding on the waste of others. He flits from one benefactor to another, whispering, deceiving, and feeding on their folly. His parasitic nature complements Volpone’s — one lives off deceit, the other off flattery.

In many scenes, Mosca acts as Volpone’s alter ego — the animal cunning of the fox expressed through the agility of the fly. When Mosca finally betrays Volpone, the relationship turns parasitic in the literal sense: the parasite devours its host.

(b) Voltore – The Vulture

Voltore, the lawyer, embodies the vulture — a bird of prey that feeds on the dead. He preys on Volpone’s “dying” body, hoping for an inheritance. His profession (lawyer) and his name both suggest carrion feeding on moral decay.

(c) Corbaccio – The Raven

Corbaccio represents the raven — old, greedy, and blind. He is willing to disinherit his own son to gain Volpone’s fortune. His blindness symbolizes moral and spiritual blindness, echoing the dark imagery of the raven.

(d) Corvino – The Crow

Corvino, the merchant, is the crow — loud, jealous, and dishonest. His name implies corruption and noise. His willingness to prostitute his wife Celia to Volpone for profit makes him morally black like the crow’s feathers.

Together, these “birds of prey” surround Volpone, the fox, creating a predatory world where every creature feeds on another. This bestiary structure reinforces Jonson’s view of human society as a jungle of greed and deceit.

6. The Humanization and Dehumanization of Volpone

The animal imagery serves a double function: it humanizes Volpone by giving him lively, recognizable traits, and simultaneously dehumanizes him by exposing the beast beneath his polished exterior.

Volpone is not a mindless animal; his intellect is sharp, his speech eloquent, and his wit charming. Yet, his morality is that of a beast. His worship of gold, his deceit, and his lust make him less than human in moral terms.

Jonson thus uses the fox image as both metaphor and moral commentary. The animal imagery strips away social pretensions and shows that greed reduces humans to beasts. In this way, Jonson follows the classical satirical tradition of Horace and Juvenal, using animal allegory to expose vice through humor.

7. Symbolism of the Fox: Beyond Greed

The fox in European folklore is not merely greedy; it is also clever, seductive, and self-destructive. Volpone’s character embodies these three dimensions.

(a) Cleverness

Volpone’s clever tricks reveal Jonson’s admiration for wit and intelligence. His theatricality — disguises, impersonations, and manipulation — make him almost a playwright within the play.

(b) Seduction

Volpone’s lust for Celia shows that his cunning extends to sensuality. His animal nature is not only intellectual but also erotic. When he sings to Celia, he sounds poetic, yet his motive is lust — an animal instinct disguised in art.

(c) Self-Destruction

In the end, Volpone’s cunning overreaches itself. Like many tricksters of folklore, he becomes victim of his own game. His punishment — being imprisoned and stripped of wealth — restores moral balance, reminding the audience that the animal within must be tamed by justice.

8. Satirical Purpose of Animal Imagery

Jonson’s use of animal imagery is not merely character-based but satirical and moralistic.

By reducing human characters to beasts, Jonson holds a mirror to Jacobean society’s moral decay. In an age of growing materialism, corruption, and hypocrisy, his animal imagery exposes the loss of reason and virtue.

Volpone and his associates represent the animal instincts of greed, lust, and envy that dominate human behavior when moral restraint is lost. Jonson’s satire warns that when reason serves appetite, man descends to the level of animals.

The Venetian setting — symbolic of European commerce and corruption — allows Jonson to criticize English society indirectly. Venice becomes an allegory for a morally diseased civilization, and Volpone, its most cunning beast, symbolizes the dehumanizing power of wealth.

9. Language and Imagery: The Poetic Dimension

Jonson’s language reinforces the animal imagery through:

• Names (Volpone, Mosca, Voltore, etc.)
• Metaphors and similes comparing characters to animals.
• Bestial imagery in dialogues (“prey,” “feed,” “devour,” “nest,” etc.)
• Stage actions, such as Volpone’s disguise as a mountebank — a trickster animal performing before a crowd.

Through vivid imagery, Jonson makes the animal world an integral part of the play’s poetic texture. The audience constantly feels the tension between civilized appearance and animal reality, which gives the play its comic and moral force.

10. The Moral Vision: From Cunning to Conscience

The fox image, in the end, serves as a moral emblem. Volpone’s punishment — imprisonment and loss of wealth — restores the moral order. The fox’s cunning fails before the law and conscience.

In the closing scene, Volpone confesses:

“This is punishment due to my sin:
My gold, my wit, my pleasure are all gone.”

Here, Jonson’s moral vision becomes clear: intelligence without morality leads to ruin. The animal imagery that once made Volpone powerful now marks his fall. He is no longer a triumphant fox but a trapped beast.

11. Comparison to the Classical Tradition

Jonson’s technique has roots in classical comedy and satire — particularly Aristophanes, Plautus, and Juvenal. But his innovation lies in integrating animal allegory into human realism.

While the characters bear animal traits, they remain psychologically believable. Volpone is not literally a fox, but a man behaving like one. This subtle realism makes the play a satirical mirror of society, not a mere fable.

Thus, Volpone bridges classical moral allegory and Renaissance humanism, showing how reason and wit, when corrupted by desire, turn man into beast.

12. Conclusion

In Volpone, Ben Jonson transforms the ancient art of animal allegory into a profound social and psychological satire. Through the image of the fox, he creates one of literature’s most complex portraits of greed and deception.

The animal imagery gives Volpone’s character life, depth, and moral symbolism. It allows Jonson to explore the dual nature of man — rational yet instinctive, civilized yet savage. The fox’s cunning becomes both his genius and his doom.

By surrounding Volpone with a circle of other predatory creatures — the vulture, the raven, the crow, and the fly — Jonson paints a world where all are driven by appetite. In doing so, he delivers a timeless message: when man worships gold and pleasure, he ceases to be human and becomes a beast of greed.

Thus, Volpone’s name is not merely a label; it is his moral identity. His story is the fable of a fox in human form — brilliant, charming, and utterly corrupt — whose downfall restores the moral order that greed and cunning sought to destroy.