This is for a friend, but if someone could provide a synopsis, it would be greatly appreciated.
Anyways, thanks for your time.
What kind of grade do you want on it?
This actually is for a friend.
She is not computer-literate, and she’s writing an essay on it. She’s read the book, but she would like a plot synopsis to clarify some points in the play.
If it would help, here is her essay question: “In their search for security, human beings are especially prone to behave inhumane ways.” Discuss, with reference to Bussy d’Ambois and The Jew of Malta.
Well, I ought to know better, but damned if I can resist a Jacobean drama question. This is strictly from memory, so caveat lector:
Bussy is a poor, courageous, and plain-spoken guy who catches the eye of the king’s brother, Monsieur. Monsieur dresses Bussy up and brings him to court; the ladies go wild, but their husbands are considerably less taken with him. Three courtiers pick a fight with Bussy and two of his friends. There’s a big ol’ six-way duel, and Bussy is the only man left standing.
The king decides that Bussy kicks some serious ass and makes him one of his favorites. Monsieur, who really wants to be king, isn’t happy about this. Meanwhile, Bussy has an affair with Tamyra, the wife of a nobleman named Montsurrey. They have a go-between, a friar who also practices black magic. In a very weird scene, the friar conjures up some demons who show them that Montsurrey and Monsieur are conspiring to destroy Bussy.
Montsurrey tortures Tamyra and forces her to write to Bussy, using her own blood as ink. The demons have warned Bussy that Tamyra’s summons is a trick, but he doesn’t heed them. He comes to Tamyra’s bedchamber, only to be murdered by Montsurrey. End of play.
(There’s also a sequel, The Revenge of Bussy D’Ambois, in which Bussy’s brother and sister avenge him, but I doubt that your friend will need to know this.)
Can’t help you with the “search for security” bit; it seems to me that most of the characters in the play are really after advancement, or vengeance, or sex. But YMMV.
Here’s one for the The Jew of Malta.
Charles V grants the island of malta to a group of Crusaders known as the Knights of the Golden Templar. As tribute, Charles asks that each year one Jew be sent to him to be inquisitioned.
For the first year’s tribute, the Templars decide to send not a real Jew but a jewel-encrusted gold statuette of a rabbi. A treasure of incalculable value, it disappears and reappears throughout history, eventually being covered in black enamel to conceal its true worth.
It eventually resurfaces in San Francisco, where a hard-nosed detective named Chester Himes tracks it down ahead of a motley crew of treasure-hunters. Through a series of murderous crosses and double-crosses, the Jew is eventually delivered to all of the parties at a hotel room, where the statuette is revealed to be a fake. Himes is forced to implicate his love interest, a young boy named Kiki, in the murder of his detective partner.
Hope this helps.
Thank you!!!