The Game of Love and Chance Literary Elements

Comedic play

The play was originally written French but then was translated into English.

The action of the play takes place in the present as well as in the past, more precisely in the 1930s. In both cases, the action takes place in a room of a grand house.

Because this is a play, there is no narrator and point of view.

The tone and mood in the play is a light one, suitable for a comedic play.

The protagonists in the play are Dorante and Silvia while the antagonist is Silvia’s father, the man who arranged the marriage between the young couple.

The major conflict in this play is between the aristocratic class and the servants.

The play reaches its conflict when the true identity of the characters is revealed and every character marries the one they love.

Silvia’s refusal to marry the man chosen for her by her father before she makes her own mind about him is foreshadowed in the beginning of the play where Silvia refuses to accept that a woman’s purpose in life is to get married to the person chosen for them by their fathers.

In Act I, Scene I, Silvia portrays her father as a cruel man who would want her to get married, no matter what. This is however an understatement as later Silvia’s father assures her he will not try to force her into marrying someone she does not like and does not agree with.

One of the allusions made in the play is the idea that servants were sometimes treated harshly by their masters. This is alluded when Lisette and Silvia change places and Lisette starts treating Silvia like a servant, most likely copying the way Silvia treated her in the past.

Because Dorant took over the role of the servant, his servant became the noble man which was supposed to marry Silvia. The way Arlecchino is portrayed is less than flattering, the man being presented as being rude, unpolished and rushed. All this characteristics paint a picture of a less than agreeable man, especially when compared with Dorant.

A paradoxical element is the way in which both Silvia and Dorant planned to find more about the person they were supposed to marry by using the same means of deception. This adds a comical touch to the play, the reader being let in on the plan and fully aware of how both characters try to fool one another.

One of the parallels drawn in the play is between Silvia and Henry’s wife, which remains unnamed. Silvia is the one who draws the parallel and the reason behind this is that she wants to prove how her arranged marriage could end up badly for her and how she could end up suffering for the rest of her life.

No personification can be found.

There are little to no dramatic devices used in the play. The only time when the author uses dramatic devices is to mark the appearance of a new character and to give a few information about the place where the action takes place.