in being the cunning and rougish maid,Lucy is the female
counterpart of Fag. she is thye maid servant in mrs. malaprop's household whereshe
serves both her and lydia. she is a confidante of her mistress' secrets like fag, but
unlike him she cannot be trusted with them nor does she care wether they flourish or are
thwarted. she beleives in exploiting her employers, and others too,her motive being the
extraction of as much money from them as possible, even if it requires the use of
ubnfair means.
Lucy plays false to those who rely upon her,
and laughs heartily at the fact that the so-called superiors beleive her to be a
simpleton. mrs. malaprop lives under an illusion and even says in the play, "sure, lucy
cant have betrayed me!- no the girl is such a simpleton. had she been one of your
artificial over, i should never have trusted her."
she
receives money from lydia and captain absolute to keep silent over their secret romance
and from mrs malaprop to the same and also to know tyhe secrets of others. even from the
cunning old old lucius she manages to squeeze money by duping him into the beleif that
the 'delia' who has been writing letters to him, is not mrs malaprop but her neice,
lydia. from mr. acre she gets money and gifts for carrying some letters which have to be
deliverd to lydia but she never deliverd them to her.
as
far as lucy's services ae concerned, she gets books from the circulating luibraries
without the knowledge of her aunt, who would never approve of the novels that she was
fond of reading. and lucy's services to mrs. malaprop include carrying l9ove lettee from
her to Sir lucius o'trigger, the irish baronet. she draws money from lydia promising to
assist her in her elopement with beverly, and at the same time, exctracts money from the
aunt by betraying the plan to her.
to sum up, lucy, is one
of those timeless, immortal characters that have been created by sheridan that is the
most perfect example of the caricatured double, even triple
agent.
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