SOURCE: Connon, Derek F. “The Servant as Master: Disguise, Role-Reversal, and Social Comment in Three Plays of Marivaux.” In Studies in Commedia dell'Arte, edited by David J. George and Christopher J. Gossip, pp. 121-37. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1993.

In the following essay, Connon contends that Marivaux adapted the commedia dell'arte's use of disguise as a device for social comment in his plays.

As is pointed out by Norbert Jonard in his study of the commedia dell'arte, disguise is one of the principal devices employed in the scenarios of the form.¹ Mel Gordon, in his study of lazzi, draws attention to a more specific use of disguise, one which involves not only pretence about the character's identity, but also about his social class: ‘Often, the humour grows out of a class reversal, the servant acts like a master and the master becomes confused.’² Given the importance of...