Is the love of Protheus for Silvia a reflex influence from Valentine’s extreme enthusiasm?

Why does Lucetta distrust Protheus?

ACT III

THE FALSE FRIEND

What effect has the arrival of Protheus at the Milanese Court?  How does the new-comer manage to dominate this Act?  Point out the skill of Protheus in making his disclosure to the Duke seem to be reluctantly wrung from him against the friendship he feels for Valentine and only because of a sense of duty toward the Duke.

What does this delicacy accomplish toward his own courtship of Silvia?  If he had seemed eager to tell his friend’s secrets would not the Duke distrust him and suspect some self-interest on his part?  What did his mention of Thurio’s suit do for himself?

Compare the nature of the two friends’ talk; how that of Protheus gives a better impression of himself than is true, that of Valentine, a worse.  Show the consistency in wile of Protheus in his conduct toward the Duke, Thurio, Silvia, and Julia.  Why does it succeed?  Wherein is it likely to fail?

QUERIES FOR DISCUSSION

Is Protheus impossibly false as a character?  Or is his duplicity an exemplification of the facility toward evil of this kind that is natural to an extremely impressionable nature which lacks stability?

In what does Valentine’s superiority consist?  Are the maxims for the treatment of women which he gives the Duke due to artificial system learned from others or a part of his own experience?

ACT IV

SILVIA AND JULIA

Tell the story of the Act.  All the main characters and one new one have their parts in the next steps in the plot?  What are those parts?

Valentine’s fate and its result.

Silvia’s determination and its effect.  Notice how her call upon Eglamoure for knightly service brings the action into the province of Chivalry again.

Julia’s office in the schemes of Protheus.

Is this Act dominated in its drift by the two women?  How do they put their impress upon events?

Show how the villain Protheus is instrumental in bringing these two women together, and how this is equivalent to uniting against his evil policy, the good forces of the Play.  The loyalty of Silvia to Julia considered as offsetting the falsity of Protheus to Valentine.

QUERIES FOR DISCUSSION

Is the most actively beneficial episode in this Act also the most charming.

ACT V

VALENTINE, SILVIA AND JULIA VERSUS PROTHEUS

What are the results of Silvia’s flight?

Why does outlawry bring out the superiority of Valentine?

Does it serve also to bring out the inferiority of Protheus?