Tricky slave
Encyclopedia
Stock character
A Stock character is a fictional character based on a common literary or social stereotype. Stock characters rely heavily on cultural types or names for their personality, manner of speech, and other characteristics. In their most general form, stock characters are related to literary archetypes,...
. He is a clever, lower-class person who brings about the happy ending of a comedy for the lovers
Lovers (character)
Lovers are stock characters whose efforts to get together, despite the blocking effect of other characters, constitute the plot of the story.The lovers are eiron figures, and it has been noted that they often are coloress creatures, sometimes even ingenues next to the blocking figures, the alazons...
. He is more clever than the upper-class people about him, both the lovers and the characters who block their love, and typically also looking out for his own interests; in the New Comedy, the tricky slave or dolosus servus aimed to get his freedom by assisting his young master in love.
Besides the actual slaves of classical theater, he also appears as the scheming valet in Renaissance comedy, called the gracioso
Gracioso
Gracioso is a clown or jester in Spanish comedy of the 16th century.Northrop Frye identified him as a type of tricky slave.-References:* * in the Dictionnaire International des Termes Littéraires.* on Maurice Ravel's Alborada Del Gracioso....
in Spanish. The zanni
Zanni
Zanni or Zani is a character type of Commedia dell'arte best known as an astute servant and trickster. The Zanni comes from the countryside. The Zanni is known to be a “dispossessed immigrant worker”. "Immigrant" in Italy at the time of the city-states, did not necessarily mean someone from...
of Commedia dell'arte
Commedia dell'arte
Commedia dell'arte is a form of theatre characterized by masked "types" which began in Italy in the 16th century, and was responsible for the advent of the actress and improvised performances based on sketches or scenarios. The closest translation of the name is "comedy of craft"; it is shortened...
are often tricky slaves, as are Puss-in-Boots in Perrault's
Charles Perrault
Charles Perrault was a French author who laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from pre-existing folk tales. The best known include Le Petit Chaperon rouge , Cendrillon , Le Chat Botté and La Barbe bleue...
fairy tale, Jeeves
Jeeves
Reginald Jeeves is a fictional character in the short stories and novels of P. G. Wodehouse, being the valet of Bertie Wooster . Created in 1915, Jeeves would continue to appear in Wodehouse's works until his final, completed, novel Aunts Aren't Gentlemen in 1974, making him Wodehouse's most famous...
in P. G. Wodehouse
P. G. Wodehouse
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE was an English humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career that lasted more than seventy years and his many writings continue to be...
's work and Figaro.
In fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
s, the same function is often fulfilled by fairy godmother
Fairy godmother
In fairy tales, a fairy godmother is a fairy with magical powers who acts as a mentor or parent to someone, in the role that an actual godparent was expected to play in many societies...
s, talking animals, and like creatures
Donor (fairy tale)
In fairy tales, a donor is a character that tests the hero and provides magical assistances to the hero when he succeeds.The fairy godmother is a well-known form of this character...
.
Northrop Frye
Northrop Frye
Herman Northrop Frye, was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century....
identified him as a central portion of the Myth of Spring comedy and a type of eiron
Eiron
In the theatre of ancient Greece, the eirôn was one of three stock characters in comedy. The eirôn usually succeeds in bringing his braggart opponent down by making himself seem like less than he actually was.-History:...
character.
A female version of the tricky slave would be Morgiana, a clever slave girl from "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
Ali Baba
Ali Baba is a fictional character from medieval Arabic literature. He is described in the adventure tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves...
" in the One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights). She is initially in Cassim's household but on his death she joins his brother Ali Baba and through her quick wittedness she saves Ali's life many times and eventually kills his worst enemy, the leader of the Forty Thieves. As reward, Ali frees her and Morgiana marries Cassim's son.
In contrast to these positive depictions, the tricky slave is portrayed as the antagonist
Antagonist
An antagonist is a character, group of characters, or institution, that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend...
in another Arabian Nights tale, "The Three Apples", an early example of a murder mystery
Crime fiction
Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalizes crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as science fiction or historical fiction, but boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred...
. After the murderer reveals himself near the middle of a story, he narrates the events leading up to the murder in a flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
. Within this flashback, a slave convinces him of his wife's infidelity
Infidelity
In many intimate relationships in many cultures there is usually an express or implied expectation of exclusivity, especially in sexual matters. Infidelity most commonly refers to a breach of the expectation of sexual exclusivity.Infidelity can occur in relation to physical intimacy and/or...
, thus leading to her murder.