Thomas Deloney's Jacke of Newbury: A Horatio Alger Story for the Sixteenth Century
[In the essay below, the critic examines what he sees as Deloney's ironic treatment of Jack of Newbury 's rags-to-riches story. Mustazza argues that Jack's careful attention to his own best interests and his ability to manipulate others are just as significant as his altruism and class consciousness.]
Louis B. Wright begins his book Middle-Class Culture in Elizabethan England with this observation:
In the furtherance of his social ambitions, the Elizabethan business man evolved a philosophy of success which emphasized thrift, honesty, industry, and godliness…. Naive, awkward, and crude as were the Elizabethan citizen's first attempts to take his place among the learned or the gentle, he possessed a strength of mind and character which gave vitality to his thinking and enabled him to propagate his ideas so luxuriantly that they have survived in all their vigor to become the clichés of modern civilization.1
Modern Americans are, of course, quite familiar with these "clichés," usually known to us as the Horatio Alger story or the American dream—the notion that hard work, honesty, and thrift will almost inevitably lead to social and material success. Middle-class Elizabethans were also familiar with this notion, thanks in large measure to the writings of Thomas Deloney (1543?-1600), a silk weaver turned writer of political pamphlets, popular ballads, and prose fictions, sometimes referred to as "novels." These novels—Jacke of Newbury (1596?), Thomas of Reading (1597), The Gentle Craft, Part I (1597), and The Gentle Craft, Part II (1598)—all extol in one way or another the virtues of honest working-class people and suggest that these people deserve much more respect, gratitude, and recompense for their labors than the aristocratic policy-makers have been wont to show them.
That these more or less new ideas were well received by the recently articulate middle-class reader is evidenced by the fact that the earliest editions of Deloney's novels were literally read out of existence. In fact, modern editors of Deloney's works, beginning with F. O. Mann in 1912, have had to work with later editions, in the case of Jacke of Newbury, Deloney's most popular work, an edition printed in 1626, some thirty years after its original appearance and twenty-six years after Deloney's death. To say the least, the great popularity of Jacke of Newbury would suggest that there was obviously something in the work that touched the fancy and perhaps the conscience of the middle-class reader of the late sixteenth century.
Simply described, the highly episodic plot of the novel concerns the life of one John Winchcombe (Jacke), a Newbury broadcloth weaver who proves to be so diligent, industrious, and serious a worker that the mistress of the house in which he works, a widow, makes him foreman of all her workers, who number close to one thousand. As time passes, the widow takes a fancy to him and eventually "tricks" him into marrying her. After awhile, she dies, leaving Jack the master of a large and prosperous household, and he eventually uses his wealth and position in the community to make the acquaintance of the Queen and the King (Henry VIII) and to ingratiate himself to them. Making use of his political connections, Jacke finally acquires prestigious court positions for all the children in his household, helps the weavers to unionize and thereby win economic concessions from the Crown for the oppressed workers, helps a prodigal draper to get back on the right track and eventually become Sheriff of London, and becomes a member of Parliament for his district. It is easy to see from this description why the middle-class reader might be attracted to this piece of popular fiction. It is, after all, a success story, a sentimental and highly contrived piece of wishful thinking: young man behaves well; as a result, young man is rewarded; young man remembers "roots" when he comes into his own and helps his fellows. Robert Ashley and Edwin Moseley assert that what we find here is a "prototype of the Horatio Alger story,"2 and, if that is so, we have only to look at the popular success of Alger's stories in the last century to estimate the appeal of Deloney's novel to his readers, who are comparable to Alger's in many respects, particularly in their desire for rags-to-riches progress.
However, while acknowledging the sentimental attitudes that Jacke's apparently well-deserved progress might evoke, commentators have also noticed that Deloney's own attitude toward that sentiment was somewhat wry, that the protagonist is not nearly so innocent, naive, or passive as a simple description of the plot or a cursory reading would suggest. In his edition of Deloney's novels, Merritt Lawlis likens Jacke in industry and virtue to Ben Franklin but hastens to add that Jacke "is also self-righteous and not nearly so innocent as he pretends."3 Louis Wright calls Jacke "the soul of bourgeois honor and gentility, albeit canny and shrewd."4 Max Dorsinville notes that Jacke's "show of humility and submissiveness may be interpreted as a ruse of the bourgeois who knows that he has to be careful if he wants to replace the power of those of noble birth."5 And, in what is perhaps the most thorough analysis of Jacke's practical shrewdness, Constance Jordan describes Jacke's manipulative role-playing, his "complex self, public and private, ostensibly conformist and secretly subversive."6 All of these critical assessments appropriately acknowledge Jacke's active pursuit of success and dispel the notion that Jacke's social and material progress is due solely to his being a good fellow. Rather, advancement of the kind that Jacke wins is the product of wit, planning, and careful self-promotion—what we would term enlightened self-interest that hides its "light" from those above and beneath, from the powerful few who can confer advancement and the weaker many who are necessary for one's continued success. Until he has acquired considerable political and economic power, Jacke is something of a self-serving deceiver who used his wits and seeming artlessness to his own advantage, and it is only after he has seized that advantage that anything like altruism or class consciousness emerges. Indeed, even during the show of such altruism, Jacke is always careful to work in his own best interests, to preserve his considerable reputation among the powerful and to regulate subtly the ambitions of his fellows. In the following paragraphs, I would like to look closely at what I see as the four phases of Jacke's rise from simple weaver to Member of Parliament, from crafty self-promoter to political spokesman for his class, and what I hope will emerge is a sense of the more subtle aspects of a complex work.
At the beginning of the novel, there is no evidence to suggest that the protagonist has any immoderate ambitions at all. In fact, in the first paragraph, Deloney attributes his popularity not to his industry or thrift but, on the contrary, to his good fellowship, his willingness to spend money freely, his comely appearance, and his good humor. Everyone seems to like this companionable fellow, and his good reputation serves him in good stead after his master's death when his widowed mistress makes him foreman of all her workers. It is only after he has achieved this position that he gets the chance to display his leadership qualities, his diligence, industry, and serious pursuit of his mistress's interests. However, the new position also seems to provoke a change in his character, which change some of the less restrained townspeople first notice. Whereas earlier he made free with his money and fellowship, now "no man could entice him from his businesse all the weeke, by all the intreaty they could vse: Inso-much that in the end some of the wild youths of the town began to deride and scoffe at him."7 (3) These youths derisively accuse Jacke of having a concealed attachment to his mistress, the widow, but, since we are told a few paragraphs later that "Iackes good gouernement and discretion [were] noted of the best and substantiallest men of the Towne," (4) we are led to ignore the wild youths' scoffing accusations and to feel sympathy and admiration for Jacke. Likewise, we admire his prudence in taking to carrying only twelve pence in his purse to the tavern on Sundays and holidays so that his companions cannot, as is their wont, "borrow" from him and never return the money.
Little critical attention has been paid to these opening paragraphs because the brief scenes described here seem to be purely expository, revealing the protagonist's good character, as well as his fine reputation and the reasons for it. However, we must not ignore the fact that a marked change in his behavior seems to have occurred, and this change has a clear effect on his reputation in the town. Once beloved of young and old, rich and poor, Jacke's image is now split along age and income lines. Even if we allow for the fact that his promotion has brought with it added responsibility and that this responsibility must have some effect on his behavior, it remains odd that Jacke should manage to magnify his reputation in the minds of the "substantiallest" townspeople and tarnish or diminish it in the minds of the wild young. Or put another way, the young are seen as perennially rebellious. This work, like all Alger myths, is conservative. As Jacke prospers, he becomes more conservative; conservatism also "pays off." The question is what constitutes conservatism? After all, matters could easily have gone the other way, the young rooting for his elevation, the wealthy seeing him as an upstart. Is it possible, one might ask, that, even apart from his serious application to duty, Jacke is deliberately cultivating a favorable image (not only for good fellowship but also for good government) in the minds of the influential, and that the gibes of the young are the inevitable—and inconsequential—result of their recognizing his manipulation? I think that is quite likely.
Evidence for this view emerges as soon as his enhanced reputation is made known to the widow by the best men of the town, who let her know how fortunate she is to have such a servant. It is only after she hears these good words that she begins to consider herself "not a little blest to haue such a seruant," "to cast a very good countenance to her man Iohn," and "to vse very much talk with him in priuate" about her various suitors. (4) Jacke's own thoughts on this "private" talk are quite telling:
When Iacke found fauour to be his Dames Secretarie, he thought it an extraordinary kindesse: and ghessing by the yarne it would proue a good web, beganne to question with his dame in this sort. Although it becommeth not mee your seruant to pry into your secrets, nor to bee busie about matters of your loue: yet so much as it hath pleased you to vse conference with me in those causes, I pray you let me intreat you to know their names that be your sutors, and of what profession they be (5; emphasis added).
In addition to his professions of modesty here, Jacke uses other gestures such as refusing to sit on a cushion beside her ("but there is no reason I should sit on a cushion till I haue deserued it") to suggest his humility.
Now, we can easily take this scene at face value; we can assume that Jacke is genuinely modest and that the romantic implications of her "private talk" with a servant have escaped his notice. The problem with such a reading, however, is both contextual and specific. To begin with, her show of favor to him follows a bit too quickly on the heels of his enhanced public reputation, which, as we have seen, was the result of his altered public attitude. The widow, after all, is not said to have noticed Jacke's good qualities herself but to realize her good fortune after the best men of the town have commended him. This movement from altered public behavior to recognition by the influential to personal "elevation" by the widow is a little too neat to be coincidental. Secondly, in the above quote, how are we to interpret, lacking authorial explanation, the "yarne [that] would prove a good web" that Jacke guesses at? The "web" here cannot be anything but the widow's words and her interest in Jacke himself. Jack is far from naive; he recognizes her attachment immediately (indeed, how can he ignore it?), and, more important, he recognizes the fact that he cannot tip his hand if her attachment is to be carried to its logical conclusion. Thus, her words and gestures, complemented by his repeated protestations of modesty, are the strong yarn to make the web into which she will fly in good time.
Even if there is any doubt in the reader's mind at this point about the discrepancy between appearances (i.e. Jack's apparent modesty) and reality (i.e. his awareness and manipulation of the widow's amorous interests), Deloney removes that doubt by describing Jack's thoughts when he is alone in his chamber:
… there [he] began to meditate on this matter, bethinking with himself what hee were best to doe: for well hee perceiued that his Dames affection was great towards him: knowing therefore the womans disposition, and withall, that her estate was reasonable good, and considering beside, that he should finde a house ready furnished, seruants ready taught, and all other things for his trade necessary, hee thought it best not to let slip that good occasion, lest it should neuer come to the like. (8)
On the other hand, Jack also considers the disadvantages of the match, namely the fact that she is considerably older than he and that she might, because he was once her servant, disdain to be governed by him as a husband, and so, he decides to keep silent on the matter for the moment.
As is the case throughout these opening scenes, Deloney employs a good deal of ambiguity here. What does Jack's resolution "to be silent, rather than to proceed further" really mean in practical terms? Does it mean that he will think no further about the benefits that such a match would confer, or that he will just "play it by ear," or even that he will use silence and seeming ignorance as a weapon, letting her want to marry him so much that one of the disadvantages he names—the government of his wife—will be eliminated by her own desire?8 In light of Jacke's innocentseeming shrewdness prior to this point and particularly after the marriage. I think the last of these interpretations is the most likely. After all, as she continues her suggestive assaults on him—including an indication that she will sleep with her chamber door unlocked and, later, an invitation to spend the night with her in the same bed on the pretext that it is too cold to sleep alone—he raises not a single protest, does not so much as imply the impropriety of her words and actions. Even the most ignorant of the widow's servants would not be naive enough to overlook her intentions, and Jacke is, to be sure, far from ignorant. Hence, when the narrator comments that "Iohn, being a kind yougue man, would not say her nay, and so they spent the rest of the night together in one bed" (15), we cannot take the comment to be anything but ironic in tone.
Of course, on the morning after this innocent night, the widow "tricks" Jacke into marrying her, thereby concluding the protracted business of wooing the seemingly modest youth. And, since the marriage was the widow's idea, Jacke's good fortune includes his being placed above any possible suspicion of machination or design. And yet, it is interesting to note that Jacke himself considers the possibility that he will be so accused or suspected, thereby tarnishing his images with the household workers, upon whose good services he must depend. Thus, he wastes no time after the marriage to clear his image with his erstwhile peers.
Immediately following the marriage, Jacke enters what I shall call the second phase of his progress. Whereas the first phase entailed the acquisition of power, money, and position by means of Jacke's subtle and careful cultivation of images, the second phase is characterized by the deliberate exercise of small-scale political power. Upon returning home from the wedding, the couple displays open affection before the household servants, who are quite confused by the scene. Having them in this befuddled frame of mind, Jacke does not let pass the opportunity to promote his own interests:
The folkes looked one vpon another, maruelling at this strange newes. Which when Iohn perceiued, he said: my masters, muse not at all: for although by Gods providence, and your Dames fauour, I am preferred from being your fellow to be your master, I am not thereby so much puft vp with pride, that any way I will forget my former estate: Notwithstanding, seeing I am now to hold the place of a master, it shall be wisdome in you to forget what I was, and to take mee as I am, and in doing your diligence, you shall have no cause to repent that God made me your master.
The seruants hearing this, as also knowing his good gouernment before time, past their yeares with him in dutifull manner. (16)
What Jacke says to them is, by and large, true: his dame's favor did lead to his advancement, his position within the household has changed, and he will go on to treat them well, as we shall see. However, even as we acknowledge these truths, we must not ignore the political intent of the speech, the carefully controlled attempts to preserve his reputation and to insure the servants' loyalty to him.
To begin with, Jacke is, as always, very much concerned with the appearances of things. He realizes that the servants will find the news of his marriage strange and marvellous, presumably because it is not every day that a wealthy widow marries one well below her economic and social station. In other words, though exemplary, Jacke's industry and good government are not in themselves marvellous, but what they have led to is. The servants must wonder, then, how Jacke managed this feat, and the protagonist must be aware that they are wondering about it. Jacke addresses this issue by suggesting that he did not "manage" it at all; that is, that he was the passive recipient of this wonderful good fortune from God—the ultimate worker of wonders—and the lady's favor, which must somehow be influenced by providential design. Hence, if anyone even suspects the possibility that Jacke may have been actively pursuing his ambition, he nips that suspicion in the bud and thereby preserves his good reputation. However, for the reader, who has been privy to Jacke's thoughts, there is a good bit of dramatic irony in his words. In fact, we know that he is not so passive or merely fortunate as he would have others believe (and all do believe this, except the wild youths of the town in their scoffs). Thus, although matched with hard work, his subsequent good fortune is really the result of his manipulation of images.
What is more, Jacke is also quick to see the political possibilities of this occasion, and so he presents to the servants' marvelling minds a useful paradox of sorts: As your master, he says, I will not forget who I used to be, but you would do well to forget precisely that. On the surface, the statement is altruistic, centering on what they must do in order to enjoy their good fortune in the elevation of one of their peers. But let us not overlook the political expediency of the speech. It would not serve his purposes and ambitions if these servants were to treat him as they used to. Now he requires more respect of them if he is to prosper in his new position, and he actively, even didactically, seeks that respect.
Something needs to be emphasized at this point. There is, to be sure, nothing morally reprehensible in what Jacke has done or will do hereafter. Hence, when I speak of Jacke's manipulation of images, I do not mean to suggest that he is an Iago-like trickster. For Deloney is, of course, quite concerned with showing forth the essential goodness and utility of working-class values, and Jacke is, in this regard, exemplary enough. However, neither is Deloney suggesting that material success can be the doing of hard work alone. One must also help oneself when opportunity presents itself, and that is precisely what Jacke does, helps himself, not by any serious misrepresentation but by selective, studied emphases upon appearances and certain realities. In this sense, Jacke can be in some ways likened to Aristotle's rhetorician, who uses "the available means of persuasion" (Rhetoric, I, 2) to make his point.
Interestingly, however, Deloney also demonstrates in the first chapter the unpredictability of Jacke's means of "persuasion" and the limits of his power. Unlike the government of his servants, the government of his wife is not so simple a matter, as Jacke discovers when he tries to control her movements. By locking her out of the house one night, he tries to teach her an object lesson of sorts for him. He learns that compromise is necessary if he hopes to live a happy life with this woman, but, ironically, he also learns something about wives. Hence, when he marries again after the widow's death, he chooses not from among "mens daughters of good credit, [or] widowes of great wealth" (19), but a lovely servant who proves to be more appreciative of her good fortune and malleable to his will. Success, Jacke knows, depends sometimes upon accommodation, more often upon control, and he learns to use both in the pursuit of his interests and ambitions.
The third phase of Jacke's progress is perhaps the most crucial, for it is here, as he makes himself a name first with the Queen and later the King, that he acquires power beyond the immediate sphere of house and town. And, to make that name, Jacke resorts to two remarkably successful ploys, both of them requiring an astute understanding of human nature as well as an apprehension (intuitive, one assumes) that England's monarchs will be amused by his jests and receptive to his "arguments."
Required by decree to outfit six men to join the British army in its defense against the invasion by James of Scotland, Jacke decides to equip one hundred and fifty men and to lead them himself. To all appearances, Jacke's motive for this generous action is altruistic. Eugene Wright notes that "as a successful businessman, Jack continues his allegiance to the commonwealth by supporting the monarch when England is threatened."9 However, some of the gentleman who observe this show are of a different opinion concerning Jacke's actions, viewing him as foolish, prodigal, and vainglorious rather than prudent or loyal. When Jacke hears of these "disdainful speeches," he is disturbed, "yet patiently put them vp till time convenient." (23) "Time convenient" arrives soon enough, when the Queen summons the soldiers to present themselves to her at Stonny Stratford. Jacke obeys the summons, but, before doing so, "he caused his face to bee smeared with bloud, and his white coate in like manner." (23–24) The spectacle that Jacke presents to the eye of Her majesty will be indeed impressive, though not in the least ingenuous or naively honest.
The spectacle begins with the Queen's notice of Jacke's troops. Such a large private army, she understandably assumes, must belong to a gentleman, and this assumption, which Jacke must have predicted, plays right into his hands:
Most gracious Queene (quoth hee) Gentleman I am none, nor the sonne of a Gentleman, but a poore Clothier, whose lands are his Loomes, hauing no other Rents but what I get from the backes of little sheepe: nor can I claime any cognisance but a wooden shuttle. Nevertheless, most gratious Queene, these my poore seruants and my selfe with life and goods, are ready at your Maiesties command, not onely to spend our blouds, but also to lose our liues in defence of our King and Country. (24)
And the Queen's response cannot but be satisfying to him: she calls him a gentleman by condition if not by name and invites him to claim her as his friend if ever he should have a suit at court. Moreover, she questions him—also predictably—about the blood on his coat, to which he delivers a rehearsed figurative response: "I vnderstand, his name was Enuie, who assailed me invisibly … not for any hurt I did him, but because I surpast him in hearty affection to my Souereigne Lord …" (24).
It should be clear by now that Jacke does use his wealth and wits for personal gain, however altruistic his purposes may seem. Wright's assessment of Jacke's loyalty to the commonwealth is no doubt correct, and, in large measure, Jacke is right to be disturbed by and to protest in his way the words of his detractors. But I do not think that we can leave matters there. Rather, we must ask—just as we did when we heard the wild youths' scoffing words earlier—is there not a grain of truth in what his detractors are saying? In fact, is Jacke not somewhat vainglorious, not for the empty honor of mere reputation might sometime confer? (Indeed, the Queen's offer of "friendship" should Jacke have a suit at court is in itself a form of such profit.) Jacke is not content to remain a prosperous local businessman, and, in order to move beyond that small sphere of action, he must gain the attention of those in power. Thus, when the opportunity presents itself, he must seize it, must show much more that requisite allegiance to the crown. After all, he could have done that by outfitting the six men as requested, and, even if he wanted to exceed that number to show his concern for the country, ten or twenty men would have demonstrated that. Rather, by splendidly outfitting one hundred and fifty, he assured himself of more than passing royal notice, and, once he has that notice, he again demonstrates his ability to manipulate the image he projects and his rhetorical talent, carefully emphasizing his lowly social position, his "poverty," and his loyalty to the crown—assertions that are strictly true but deceptive in their emphases. And finally, in a brilliant rhetorical touch, Jacke refers near the end of the speech to the "blouds" that he and his men are willing to shed for crown and country, a subtle reminder to the Queen that she should question the blood on Jacke's face and clothing.
The figurative response that Jacke delivers to the Queen concerning his bloody appearance also proves quite useful, not in securing royal favor, for he already has that. Instead, this jest will serve to impress his name indelibly upon her memory, secure her sympathy for the detraction he has unjustly suffered, and effectively disarm any sting his detractors' words might later carry. Indeed, this figurative device works so well that Jacke decides to use something like it when he subsequently goes after the King's attention as well.
Although Jacke uses his meeting with the Queen for the purpose of self-promotion, the meeting itself was essentially fortuitous, the result of the Scottish invasion rather than Jacke's own doing. By contrast, his encounter with the King is the direct result of Jacke's designs, evidence that his bid for power is quite deliberate, that his continued success is due not to his virtue but his active pursuit of self-interest. However, along with this active pursuit comes added risk, as is the case with all worthwhile ventures. Whereas his loyal gesture during the Scottish invasion more or less insured favorable notice by the Queen, the more gratuitous Prince of Ants ploy that Jacke uses to get the King's attention will lead to the King's annoyance or anger and thereby hurt Jacke considerably. By setting himself up as a mock noble and then demanding that the King come to him rather than responding, as expected, to the King's summons, Jacke runs the considerable risk of offending the monarch and his party. Merritt Lawlis is no doubt correct to view Deloney's Henry VIII not as an accurately portrayed historical figure but as a jovial "deus ex machina"10 who readily acknowledges the justice of Jacke's complaints and subsequently redresses them, but there is, nevertheless, a certain amount of dramatic tension generated by Jacke's irreverence and, when the ploy works, a good deal of admiration for his wits.
But apart from the promotional value of Jacke's histrionic jest, tension of another kind surfaces in his exchange with the King, and this tension betokens Jacke's entry into the fourth phase of his progress—the political phase. During the Prince of Ants "play," Jacke launches into a veiled attack upon Cardinal Wolsey, the Lord Chancellor, who has continually burdened the laborers of England with unfair taxes (hence, in the allegory's terms, snatching the ants' nesteggs) and who, by encouraging the King to engage in numerous foreign wars, has caused embargoes on the sale of British cloth abroad to be effected, thereby further damaging the cloth trade. In this case, real tension is created between Jacke and the surly Lord Chancellor, a political duel that Jacke will eventually win.
Unlike the self-seeking Jacke of the earlier chapters, the protagonist here is clearly more altruistic, concerned with the material and social betterment of his people. Significantly, this movement from covert self-interest to overt altruism is accompanied by a gradual alignment of his public and private selves and a diminishing need to play role. But this change in Jacke is far from abrupt, and even when, at first, he seems to be helping others, he is also carefully guarding his own interests. This duality of purpose is evident near the end of the King's visit to Jacke's home. Because the protagonist has demonstrated to the monarch and his aristocratic retinue the native virtue of simple workers, the King is impressed with the values of these people. This good impression leads, interestingly enough, not to the perpetuation of the trades, but to the adoption by aristocrats of all the children of the laborers so "that each of them came to bee men of great account and authority in the Land." (38) In other words, the promotion of these children takes place within the traditional hierarchical framework. By contrast, however, when Jacke's turn for a similar type of preferment comes in the King's offer of a knighthood, he refuses it:
… I beseech you Grace to let mee liue a poore Clothier among my people, in whose maintenance I take more felicity, than in all the vaine titles of Gentility: for these are the labouring Ants whom I seeke to defend, and these the Bees which I keepe: who labour in this life, nor for our selues, but for the glory of GOD, and to do seruice to our dread Souereigne. (38)
After all we have seen Jacke do to secure his fortune and fame, we must recognize here something of his characteristic disingenuousness, particularly in his claim of poverty. The fact is that the honorific title will do nothing to advance Jacke's material and political ambitions or, for that matter, the interests of his people. Rather, by refusing the knighthood, by contravening everyone's expectation (after all, virtually anyone else in his position would have jumped at the chance), Jacke manages to gain, albeit subtly, real power and influence. The King will not forget this unlikely refusal of the title, nor will Jacke's workpeople and neighbors forget his "selfless" profession of loyalty to them, and, when Jacke subsequently sets out to influence governmental policy by unionizing the weavers under his direction and persuading the King to lift the embargoes on foreign trade, the goodwill of all concerned will serve him in good stead. What we are looking at here is a subtle form of a highly revered middle-class virtue—delayed gratification. Like every thoroughgoing materialist, Jacke is concerned with tangible success rather than success of the ceremonial variety, and he holds up these materialistic values as the ones his followers should pursue.
Indeed, Jacke's political activity through the remainder of the novel can well be described as didactic. For instance, he uses some portraits of great men who rose from humble beginnings to instruct his friends and servants in the utility of hard work and ambition. He also lends a hand in resolving, didactically, the domestic squabbles in his household and, finally, helps to restore Randoll Pert's fortune and good reputation. By that point, the movement of the protagonist away from the self is at its furthest degree, and, accordingly, the Jacke of the later chapters is very different from the one we met at the outset of the novel. He no longer needs to present a contrived face to the world, a face that often concealed entirely his true identity and motives. Instead of being an actor now, Jacke's didactic guidance of others shows him to be something like a play's director, as Constance Jordan persuasively argues. "Over the play of his friends and members of his household," she writes, "Jacke exercises an authority that both helps and hinders role-players; he assists them in discriminating their desires from what they need to recognize as objective reality. In this respect, of course, he can be seen as playing a second role: he is first a player and second a producer: he requires a play-space, but he also provides and limits it."11 However, I would add to this that the "play-space" that Jacke provides is both "real" insofar as real people are playing out their lives on it and artistically contrived insofar as it, like all plays in performance, reflects a particular director's moral and aesthetic vision of life. In this regard, it is intriguing to note that Jacke never once mentions to his subordinates the fact that planning and shrewdness are necessary in the pursuit of power and position. Rather, he emphasizes to them the traditional values of industry, thrift and godliness.
What, then, are we to make of this curious duality of vision, this obvious contrast between what we see Jacke do and what we hear him simplistically advise others to do? Is it possible that Jacke is really giving his servants incomplete instructions in order to insure their continued industry and loyalty to him? That may well be; however, I think the real point in all of this lies not in Jacke's intentions, which are all but accomplished by mid-novel, but in Deloney's. Max Dorsinville has argued that Deloney may have addressed this novel to two audiences: the primary one a sophisticated and cultured middle-class audience who would appreciate the many ironies of the work; the other less sophisticated, unable to appreciate his doubleness of vision but finding delight and instruction in the allegorical devices and the ethical-political arguments of the novel.12 I agree with Dorsinville, and I think that one of the ironies the sophisticated reader would recognize was precisely this doubleness. If Deloney's thematic concern were simply to convey the notion that virtue will be rewarded in the end, that success, presumably by providential design, would seek out the passive good man, then Jacke of Newbury could rightfully be considered a naive piece not worth the time of any intelligent reader, including the modern-day reader. But such, except in a cursory reading of the novel, is surely not the case. Instead, Jacke of Newbury is a complex work with a complex "message." Jacke is essentially a good man, but he is also a shrewd man who knows what it takes to get ahead. And if Deloney is saying anything to his readers, it is that such knowledge is necessary for material success.
Notes
1 Louis B. Wright, Middle-Class Culture in Elizabethan England (1935; rpt. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1958), pp. 1–2.
2 Robert Ashley and Edwin M. Moseley, eds. Elizabethan Fiction (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1953), p. xxviii.
3 Merritt E. Lawlis, The Novels of Thomas Deloney (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1961), p. xxvii.
4 L. Wright, p. 414.
5 Max Dorsinville, "Design in Deloney's Jacke of Newbury," PMLA 88 (1973): 236.
6 Constance Jordan, "The 'Art of Clothing': Role-Playing in Deloney's Fiction," English Literary Renaissance 11 (1981): 184.
7 All parenthesized page citations are to F. O. Mann's The Works of Thomas Deloney (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1912).
8 Critical opinion on this head has been somewhat divided. Constance Jordan, for instance, takes Jacke's hesitation at face value: "fearful that she will never regard him as more than a servant, Jacke ignores her hints at marriage, but at last she tricks him into marrying her" (184). On the other hand, Kurt-Michael Patzold ("Thomas Deloney and the English Jest-Book Traditions," English Studies 53 [1972]) argues that "Jack hesitates to make up his mind whether to accept his mistress's rather oblique wooing. Though not averse to the match, he is very careful not to commit himself on this point … When, therefore, his mistress has finally made up her mind to take the initiative and marry John, he has no choice but to consent to her request …" (318–19).
9 Eugene B. Wright, Thomas Deloney (Boston: Twayne, 1981), pp. 65–66.
10 Lawlis, p. xviii.
11 Jordon, pp. 188–89.
12 Dorsinville, p. 238.
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The 'Art of Clothing': Role-Playing in Deloney's Fiction
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