A Fool of a Lad

Out of all the characters in Ben Jonson’s “Bartholomew Fair,” Bartholomew Cokes presents himself in a very unfortunate light as he sails about the fair, spending money, having his purse stolen from him while singing about cutpurses, and having even his servant have more wit, cunning, and control than he does. The scene that I find most intriguing about how he presents himself occurs in Act 3, Scene 5 when he withdraws his purse and dangles it in front of the fair folk (including the man who will eventually steal from him) only to have everyone around him assume him to be a fool. He taunts the cutpurses to do what they will when he joins in the song being sung by Nightingale and when he states, “A good jest, I’ faith; I would fain see that demon, your cutpurse you talk of, that delicate-handed devil. They say he walks hereabout; I would see him walk, now” (lines 36-38). These lines seem to indicate that Jonson was critiquing the upper class in their idiocy of not only squandering their money but being careless with their estates. This becomes even more apparent as Cokes buys good that he has no use of, loses not one but two purses, and still borrows money from Littlewit in Act 4.
By Cokes himself speaking about how he would like to see the “delicate-handed devil” walk among them and try and steal his purse, he demonstrates his complete lack of understanding of the world. He seems completely naïve and unable to comprehend the world around him. Quite frankly, he’s an idiot to throw/demonstrate his money around and still lose it more than once. By his speech about cutpurses simply being a jest, we can see that his upper class upbringing has made him careless. I think Jonson presented Cokes’ personality with his actions and his speech in this way in order to critique the upper class’ inability to comprehend the lifestyle of the lower classes (of the fair). Indeed, Cokes’ speech presents a social commentary at the expense of himself being the butt of the joke. He is the fool who only sees life through the lens of his upper class privilege; he cannot survive in the “fair world” nor can he survive in the lower class realm. From this, I am to understand that Jonson is mocking all of the upper class members of society who flounder their fortunes on meaningless “fairlings.”