Abstract
This dissertation explores master-servant relationships in three Early Modern plays: JohnWebster’s The Duchess of Malfi, Ben Jonson’s Volpone, and William Shakespeare’s The
Tempest. I argue that these playwrights engage with the representation of social mobility
by staging negotiations between masters and their subordinates that hinge on the abilities of
servants for roleplaying. I consider theatricality to be a crucial part of this relationship, since
masters profit from servants’ acting skills as they employ them as actors, while servants also
rely on roleplaying to gain agency, and ultimately to strive for independence. By examining
the role of theatricality in these plays, I demonstrate that playwrights use the language of
theater to explore the success or failure of servants to secure advancement and recognition
under the terms dictated by the social and economic transformations of the early seventeenth
century. Furthermore, my dissertation contributes to conversations on the subjectivity of
the lower classes and the agency they gained from positions of precarious employment in the
context of nascent capitalism and European colonialism.