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The Duchess of Malfi

John Webster
Summary

The Duchess of Malfi takes place in Italy, mostly at the Duchess’s palace in Malfi, in the
sixteenth century. The Duchess is a young widow whose two brothers, Ferdinand and the
Cardinal, are visiting her from Rome at the play’s start. Antonio, the manager of her
household, has just returned from France. Before leaving the Duchess, Ferdinand engages
Bosola, previously used by the Cardinal as a hit man, to ostensibly manage the Duchess’s
horses, but in reality to spy on her for the brothers so they can be sure she remains
chaste and does not remarry. Bosola is reluctant, but eventually agrees.

Before they return to Rome, Ferdinand and the Cardinal lecture the Duchess about the
impropriety of remarriage. She insists that she has no plans for remarriage, and shows
some irritation at their attempts to control her. However, as soon as they leave, she sets
in motion a plan to propose to Antonio with the help of her maid, Cariola. Antonio and the
Duchess marry, and the Duchess reassures Antonio that they will find a way to appease
her brothers.

Act Two is set about nine months later. The Duchess is pregnant and Bosola, suspecting
her condition, hatches a plan to prove it to himself by giving her apricots, thought to
induce labor. She accepts them, and immediately becomes ill, rushing off to her bedroom.
Antonio and Delio discuss how to keep her labor secret.

Bosola now assumes his belief is correct, but finds further definitive proof through a
horoscope Antonio wrote for the infant. With the information confirmed, Bosola he writes
a letter to the Duchess’s brothers to tell them the news. The brothers are both incensed,
but the Cardinal maintains a cool calm, whereas Ferdinand grows erratically angry. Neither
of them realizes that she is married, and hence assume the baby is a bastard. Ferdinand
says he won’t take any action until he knows who the baby’s father is.

Act Three begins about two years later, with Delio’s return to the Duchess’s palace.
Antonio and the Duchess have had two more children in the meantime. Ferdinand has
recently arrived, and both Antonio and Delio suspect that he knows about the Duchess’s

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children. Ferdinand surprises the Duchess in her bedroom, and when she tells him that she
is married, he tells her she should never reveal to him the name of her lover lest terrible
violence then be unleashed on all of them. He further banishes her forever from his sight.

The Duchess, who wishes to protect Antonio by removing him from Malfi, falsely claims he
has stolen from her and hence has him banished to Ancona. Once he has left, Bosola
defends his virtue to the Duchess so emphatically that she admits the secret of their
marriage. Bosola pretends to support her, and she sends him after Antonio with money and
news that she will soon follow him. In Ancona a few days later, the Cardinal catches up to
them and banishes the Duchess and her family from there.

On their way out of town, Bosola brings her an ostensibly forgiving but actually
threatening letter from Ferdinand, and so the Duchess, fearing an ambush, tells Antonio to
separate from her with their oldest son. Immediately after they part, Bosola and a group
of soldiers take the Duchess and her two remaining children captive and bring them back
to her palace.

In Act Four, Bosola tells Ferdinand that the Duchess is bearing her imprisonment nobly,
which angers him. In an effort to make her insane with despair, he presents her with wax
corpses of her family to convince her they have died. Though Bosola pleas with Ferdinand
to cease his torture, he won’t listen, and instead sends a group of madmen to torment her.
Bosola returns, disguised as a tomb-maker, and prepares the Duchess for her impending
death. Executioners follow with a cord to strangle her, but the Duchess remains
steadfastly calm and courageous, at peace with the idea of rejoining her family, who she
still believes are dead. They strangle her.

Bosola next orders her children and Cariola killed. Cariola pleads for her life, to no avail.
When Ferdinand confronts the Duchess’s body, he is suddenly overtaken with remorse and
angry at Bosola for following his orders. He not only betrays Bosola by refusing the latter
a promised reward, but also shows signs of insanity before he exits. The Duchess shows a
final sign of life, and before she truly dies, Bosola tells her that Antonio is still alive.
Bosola shows genuine sadness when she dies.

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In Act Five, Antonio, ignorant of his wife and children’s deaths, plans to beg the Cardinal
that night for a reconciliation. Ferdinand has now completely lost his mind and is afflicted
with lycanthropia, or the belief that he is a wolf.

Bosola arrives and the Cardinal pretends that he has no idea about the Duchess's death.
He offers Bosola a great reward for the murder of Antonio, an offer Bosola accepts even
though he is plotting revenge. Julia, the Cardinal’s mistress, approaches Bosola, declaring
her love for him, and Bosola uses her to get the Cardinal to admit his involvement in the
Duchess's murder.

After the Cardinal kills Julia, Bosola reveals he has overheard the secret and demands his
reward killing the Duchess. The Cardinal, once again, promises it will come after he has
killed Antonio and helped him get rid of Julia’s body. Bosola pretends to agree, but tells
the audience that he will find Antonio to either protect him or help him get his vengeance
against the Cardinal and Ferdinand.

The Cardinal tells his courtiers to stay away no matter what they hear from him or
Ferdinand, ostensibly because Ferdinand’s madness gets worse when people are around, but
actually because he wants privacy with which to dispose of Julia’s body. Bosola, waiting
outside the Cardinal’s room, accidentally kills Antonio, who has come to see the Cardinal.
Distraught, he goes into the Cardinal’s room and attacks him.

Because of the Cardinal’s warning, his courtiers at first ignore his cries for help.
Ferdinand joins the fray and stabs both the Cardinal and Bosola. Bosola kills Ferdinand.
The courtiers finally enter in time to see the Cardinal and Bosola die, but not before the
latter has confessed the particulars of the situation. Delio enters with Antonio and the
Duchess’s oldest son, who is the sole survivor of the family. Delio and the courtiers
promise to raise the boy as a legacy to his parents, which gives the play a final glimmer of
hope.

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Character List

Bosola

Bosola is the tool through which the Cardinal and Ferdinand perpetrate most of their evil
in The Duchess of Malfi. He is hired by Ferdinand to spy on the Duchess, for whom he
serves as manager of her horses. He is an enigmatic figure, willing to murder for hire
without hesitation, while initially reluctant to the commit to the seemingly less extreme
vice of spying.

As his deeds lead to worse and worse consequences--the banishment of the Duchess and
her family, the murder of the Duchess and her children, Antonio’s accidental death--he
shows more and more remorse for his actions. It is only when Ferdinand and the Cardinal
refuse to reward him for all he has done, though, that he stops blindly following their
orders, and avenges the Duchess and Antonio by murdering the Cardinal and Ferdinand.

The Duchess

At the opening of the play, the Duchess of Malfi, sister to the Cardinal and twin sister to
Ferdinand, has just been widowed in her youth. Though she promises her domineering
brothers that she won’t remarry, she almost immediately proposes to Antonio, a decision
that ultimately leads to the destruction of her entire family, save their oldest son. The
Duchess is strong-willed, brave, passionate, proud, and a loving wife and mother. In the
opening of the play, Antonio speaks of her incredible virtue, and though she marries him
against custom and her brothers’ wishes, her goodness and vitality stand in stark contrast
to her brothers’ evil.

Ferdinand

The Duke of Calabria and the Duchess’s twin brother, Ferdinand boasts an impressive
collection of vices: he has a terrible temper, is greedy, is lustful, and has an unhealthy
obsession with his sister. He is powerful and corrupt, but as his anger over the Duchess’s
actions grows, he becomes more and more deranged. Once Bosola has, under his orders,
killed the Duchess and two of her children, he immediately feels deep regret and then
loses his mind completely. In the play, Ferdinand is often associated with fire imagery, and
represents violent, choleric evil.

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The Cardinal

The Duchess and Ferdinand’s older brother, the Cardinal of Aragon represents cold and
calculated evil in contrast to his hot-tempered brother. He is a Machiavellian character,
using the power of his position to torture and counter the Duchess. Ultimately, though, he
loses his ability to control events, a situation Bosola exploits to kill him.

Antonio

Antonio Bologna is the steward of the Duchess’s household. She falls in love with him and
they secretly wed, managing to keep this hidden from her brothers and Bosola. Antonio is
an honest man, a good horseman, a good judge of character, and a loving husband and
father, but he is also passive and largely ineffectual in a crisis, ultimately unable to
protect his family from harm. He is also rather unremarkable when compared to the
impressive Duchess.

Delio

Delio is Antonio’s friend and the only one besides Cariola who is initially trusted with the
secret of the Duchess’s marriage to Antonio. He remains a faithful friend to the family
through the end of the play. He also has a history with Julia, which he’d like to continue.

Cariola

Cariola is the Duchess’s maid and confidant. She is the witness to the Duchess’s marriage
to Antonio, and thus the first to know about it. She keeps the secret faithfully, and in the
end is killed by Bosola for doing so.

Julia

Julia is the Cardinal’s mistress and Castruccio’s wife. She is also wooed by Delio and later
falls in love with Bosola. Bosola uses her as an unwitting tool to force a confession for the
Duchess's death from the Cardinal, after which the Cardinal poisons her.

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The Children

The Duchess and Antonio’s three children never speak in the play, but are on stage in
multiple scenes. The two youngest are viciously murdered by Bosola’s men, while the oldest,
in spite of his dire horoscope, is the only member of the family to survive, and symbolizes
a hopeful future at the play's end.

Count Malateste

Malateste is known for presenting himself as a soldier but avoiding any battles, and thus is
scorned as a coward. Ferdinand recommends him to the Duchess as a suitable husband, but
she scorns the idea.

Marquis of Pescara

The Marquis of Pescara is a soldier, and the only courtier save Antonio and Delio who acts
with any real honor. When Bosola attacks the Cardinal, he is the only lord to answer the
cries for help, even at risk of being mocked for it.

Castruccio

Castruccio is a courtier under Ferdinand, and Julia’s older husband. He represents the
cuckolded fool.

Silvio

Silvio is a courtier under Ferdinand.

Roderigo

Roderigo is a courtier under Ferdinand.

Grisolan

Grisolan is a courtier under Ferdinand.

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Old Lady

The Old Lady, a midwife, is ridiculed by Bosola at length for wearing makeup to try to
cover what he perceives as her hideousness.

Doctor

The Doctor diagnoses and tries to treat Ferdinand’s lycanthropia. His primary method of
treatment is to make Ferdinand frightened of him.

Two Pilgrims

As the Cardinal enacts the ceremony that results in the Duchess's exile from Ancona, the
two pilgrims watch the ceremony and provide commentary.

Mad Astrologer

Sent to the Duchess during her imprisonment, the Mad Astrologer lost his mind when they
day he had predicted for the apocalypse came and went without incident.

Mad Doctor

Sent to the Duchess during her imprisonment, the Mad Doctor lost his mind due to
jealousy.

Mad Priest

The Mad Priest is sent to the Duchess during her imprisonment to try to drive her crazy.

Mad Lawyer

The Mad Lawyer is sent to the Duchess during her imprisonment to try to drive her crazy.

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Themes

Hell on Earth

The Duchess of Malfi is a play replete with darkness, both literal and figurative. There are
good figures, and these characters are associated with light. On the other hand, the
brothers, who exhibit unrelenting evil, are associated with motifs of darkness, fire, the
devil, and sin.

The idea that the brothers have unleashed hell on Earth is most apparent in the fourth
act, which includes utter horrors like fake corpses, a severed hand, a plethora of madmen,
and most centrally, the vicious murders of the Duchess and her children. The Duchess, a
symbol of motherhood and light, is unfazed by these horrors because she believes her
family already dead, but she does explain that “the earth” seems made “of flaming sulphur”
(4.2.26). And when Bosola tells her she must keep living, she makes it clear that hell is
truly on Earth—“That’s the greatest torture souls feel in hell,/In hell: that they must live,
and cannot die” (4.1.70-1),

The Cardinal and Ferdinand are particularly responsible for bringing this fire to her world.
Ferdinand is constantly associated with fire, by others and in his own language. He says
only the Duchess’s “whore’s blood” can put out his “wild-fire” (2.5.46-7), he imagines killing
her children by having them “burning in a coal-pit” (2.5.69), lighting “them like a match”
after dipping them in “sulphur” (2.5.71-2). Additionally, he is associated with salamanders—
at the time of the play, thought to live in fire—multiple times.

Both brothers are also even more directly connected to hell through constant associations
with the devil. Antonio says “the devil speaks in” (1.1.177) the Cardinal’s lips, and Bosola
describes Ferdinand's manipulation as: “Thus the devil/Candies all sins o’er” (1.1.266-7).
These are but two of several instances.

This hell on Earth serves to emphasize just how virtuous the Duchess is, and how much
better for the world her kind of domestic love and child-rearing is than the greed and
selfishness of her brothers. The hell that they create in the end destroys them, too—as
Ferdinand says, “Like diamonds, we are cut with our own dust” (5.5.72). Ferdinand goes
mad, the Cardinal loses all hope, and both die, leaving no legacy behind them.

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Disguise

Disguise—masking reality, hiding one’s true intentions, presenting a false front—is a major
theme in The Duchess of Malfi. The most obvious symbol of this is Bosola. The distinction
between what he says and how he acts is so vast that even the audience, who is given
access to his private thoughts through soliloquies and asides, has trouble understanding
his motivations.

He is a spy, and is thus constantly disguising his motives and his true feelings. Further, in
the fourth act, he literally disguises himself as an old man. However, he also repeatedly
shows disgust for the act of disguising. He is reluctant to take on the role of spy, and
notes that “the devil/Candies all sin o’er” (1.1.266-7), thus associating the act of disguising
with evil, and he scorns how men “delight/To hide” (2.1.53-4) their “rotten and dead body”
(2.1.53) “eaten up of lice and worms” (2.1.51) “in rich tissue” (2.1.54). Thus, he is both the
character who most thoroughly employs disguise, and the one most aware of its sinful,
unattractive nature.

Disguise is so prevalent in the play that even the Duchess, the paragon of light, must
employ it. In her first appearance on stage, she tells her brothers, “I’ll never marry”
(1.1.293), and then before the scene is even over, she has proposed to and married
Antonio. Clearly, she had disguised her true intentions from them. She then manages to
have three children with Antonio without ever revealing their marriage, and even when the
discovery of the marriage becomes imminent, she quickly devises an excuse to send
Antonio out of harm’s way.

Yet this dishonesty is not meant to reflect poorly on the Duchess. Instead, it shows just
how profoundly corrupt her brothers have made the world, in that the Duchess must
disguise a good and pure love simply to survive. Her use of disguise reveals her energy and
resourcefulness in her fight for what is good on this Earth.

The Fertile Woman

Evil in The Duchess of Malfi is a powerful and pervasive force that manages to destroy
almost all that is good, but it is not all-powerful. At the end of the play, the Duchess's
oldest son survives to carry on her and Antonio's legacy, which provides a symbol of hope
tied in with the play's greatest force for good: the fertile and reproductive female.

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Ferdinand and the Cardinal both express dark views on female sexuality. When they find
out that the Duchess has a son, they cannot imagine this being the result of love, or of a
legitimate marriage, but they instead imagine the boy as a product of wanton lust.
Ferdinand goes so far as to describe the men he imagines having sex with his sister.

The reality of a woman's fertility, though, is the complete opposite. After Antonio and the
Duchess wed, she says they can remain chaste if he wants, suggesting that their marriage
is not based on an all-consuming lust. They do, clearly, sleep together and produce three
children, but this reflects only the loving creation of family. The scene in which Antonio,
the Duchess, and Cariola tease each other reveals a comfortable domestic bliss, not a
hotbed of fiery passion. And, also in this scene, the goodness of such a love is emphasized
when Antonio berates Cariola for wanting to stay single. He argues that in Ovid’s
Metamorphoses, those women who scorned love and lovers were turned into barren plants
or stone, while those who married became fruitful trees, bestowing gifts to the world.

Though Antonio’s first description of the Duchess is arguably unrealistic, she is revealed
through the play as figure very much of the earth. She is fat with pregnancy in the second
act, “an excellent/Feeder of pedigrees” (3.1.5-6), and manages to birth three children over
two acts. Even when she is about to die, rather than transition into a saintly figure, she
retains her ties to the earth for one last moment, asking Cariola to give her son some cold
medicine, and to let her daughter say her prayers. Her domestic duties remain paramount
to her, even as she prepares to leave the earth forever.

Once all the evil has been done, all that remains of this family that had epitomized
domestic bliss is its eldest son. In the midst of all the destruction, this product of love
and the reproductive woman, will be raised as a testament to the goodness of his mother.
Thus, her power as a good mother, in the end, is greater than her brothers’ evil.

The Perversion of Justice

In The Duchess of Malfi, justice fails completely as a force for good; instead, it is
corrupted into a tool for Ferdinand and the Cardinal. The rules that govern their world are
perverse and immoral, so the justice they seek to enact inherently becomes perverse and

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immoral itself. Delio prepares the audience for this in the first act, when he says of
Ferdinand,

Then the law to him

Is like a foul black cobweb to a spider:

He makes it his dwelling, and a prison

To entangle those shall feed him. (1.1.168-71)

The law, which should uphold peace and fairness, is instead a “foul” trap that Ferdinand
uses to benefit himself.

Once the Duchess is dead and Ferdinand is overcome with regret, he himself points out
how he has misused justice, when he asks, “Did any ceremonial form of law/Doom her to
not-being?” (4.2.292-3). Bosola, to assuage his own guilt, has imagined the Duchess's
murder as an officially sanctioned act. He describes himself as “the common bellman/That
usually is sent to condemned persons” (4.2.164-5), as if she had actually been condemned
by a judge or jury. When Ferdinand disabuses this notion by arguing he (Ferdinand) holds
no authority with which to condemn the Duchess to death, Bosola says, “The office of
justice is perverted quite/When one thief hangs another” (4.2.298-9). Only now, when it
corrupted justice is working directly against him, does he realize how perverted their
system truly is.

Class

The importance of class and rank is questioned throughout The Duchess of Malfi. Those
characters who place the most value on it are those who do the most damage to the world
of the play, while the Duchess fights for the idea that a man’s worth is reflected by his
actions and character, not by his title.

The Duchess’s marriage to Antonio is clearly a happy one, at least until exposed to the
machinations of her brothers. They have three children and a clearly-expressed love for
each other. Ferdinand and the Cardinal’s disgust about her marriage is thus particularly
repulsive, especially since their only specific complaint revolves around his lower class.

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Ironically, Bosola is first to defend the Duchess’s choice to marry Antonio regardless of
his class, although he is arguably lying when he does so. He takes it so far as to praise not
just the Duchess, but their progressive age for allowing such a union, and he says that her
example will spread hope to all those who aspire to rise above their natural station. His
speech is tempered by the dramatic irony, the audience’s knowledge that he is being
disingenuous, and indeed, his success in fooling the Duchess by lavishing such praise on
Antonio is what inspires her to confess her secret to him, a confession that will cost her
her life.

Once the need for deceit is gone, Bosola makes his true feelings known, and he, like the
Cardinal and Ferdinand, thinks Antonio’s class make him an unworthy match for the
Duchess. This gives the Duchess the chance to defend her choice, and in doing so she
shows that not only does Antonio’s worth greatly exceed many men of higher rank—Count
Malateste, for one—but many noble men are the “most wretch’d” (3.5.141), like her
brothers. Nobility is not inherently evil, as the Duchess herself is noble, but it has
“neither heat, nor light” (4.2.137), and thus isn’t inherently good, either.

The Costs of Evil

Evil is incontrovertibly destructive in The Duchess of Malfi, taking a loving family of five
and reducing it to one young survivor. It is also, however, deeply destructive to those who
perpetrate it, and not just their victims. Not only do the three pillars of evil in the play--
the Cardinal, Ferdinand, and Bosola--all die by the end of the fifth act, but they also each
pay a special penance that elucidates just how terrible evil can be to those who employ it.

Ferdinand is the most obvious example. Throughout the play, his anger is so intense that
he seems almost deranged, but he does not truly lose his mind until the murder of his twin
sister. The change comes so suddenly after her death--he leaves the stage to go hunt
badger--that it is clearly a result of the evil he has done. In addition, the form his lunacy
takes--digging up corpses and believing himself to be a wolf--is also intricately connected
to his guilt, as he says that “The wolf shall find her grave, and scrape it up” “to
discover/The horrid murder” (4.2.301-3).

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For the Cardinal, the costs are more subtle. He pays with his life, of course, but he also
gives up what he values most throughout the play--his reputation. Whereas the cause of
Ferdinand’s anger towards his sister is not entirely clear, the Cardinal's resentment is
clearly based around the family’s reputation--“Shall our blood/The royal blood of Aragon
and Castile,/Be thus attainted?” (2.5.21-3). When he dies, the state of their family is in
such shambles that he wants to be blotted out completely--”I pray, let me/Be laid by, and
never thought of” (5.5.88-9), and Delio makes it clear that he will get his wish, since the
evil brothers have left nothing behind to be remembered.

The price Bosola pays is more complicated, in the same way that his participation in the
evil is more complicated. By the end, he wants to redeem himself, at least partially, for all
he has done. Instead, he accidentally kills Antonio, destroying his last chance to
perpetrate good. He does succeed in killing Ferdinand and the Cardinal, but arguably only
because Ferdinand gets involved and wounds the Cardinal himself. Bosola has a small
amount of peace in knowing that he loses his life in ending theirs, but because of the evil
he has perpetrated, he finds no true peace, evidenced by his final speech, in which he
reflects on the darkness he helped create in the world.

Thus, the characters who employ evil in the play ultimately pay for it with more than
simply their lives.

Reputation and Legacy

The characters in The Duchess of Malfi are deeply concerned about reputation and legacy.
Ferdinand and the Cardinal are obsessed with the Duchess’s reputation, and how it affects
their own. When they warn her not to be a “lusty widow” (1.1.331) before leaving her alone
in Malfi, they are driven by a fear that her behavior will “poison” her “fame” (1.1.299).
Later, when they discover that she has had a child, it is partially the tainting of their
“royal blood” (2.5.22) that concerns them. Ferdinand tells the Duchess that, having parted
from her good reputation, he will never see her, his twin sister, again.

Yet because of their obsessive concern with their family’s reputation, the brothers
ironically leave no legacy. The Cardinal’s very last words are a plea to be “never thought of”
(5.5.89), and Delio explains that the brothers’ legacy will last no longer than a print in snow
when the sun comes out. The Duchess, conversely, doesn’t care about her reputation or her

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family’s name, and her goodness creates a lasting and positive legacy that might outlive her
and her brothers, represented in the care Delio and the others will take to raise her
surviving son in her honor. This idea is so central to the play that it gets the closing lines--
”Integrity of life is fame’s best friend/Which nobly, beyond death, shall crown the end”
(5.5.119-20). The Duchess needed no shallow concern with reputation in order to ensure a
noble legacy “beyond death,” but rather simply the “integrity of life” that she reflected.

Symbols

Poison

Antonio introduces the symbol of poison in the play’s opening while making a political
analogy about the ideal government, which, he says, should function like a fountain.
Goodness should flow through the country, but if someone poisons the well then death and
disease will spread. From this point forward, poisons serve as tools of the corrupt
government and become symbols for corruption itself, for hidden threats, and for secrecy.
The Cardinal, for example, tells Julia that his secrets are like lingering poisons that would
slowly spread through her veins and cause her death. Once she gets the secrets out of
him, the Cardinal then kills Julia by making her kiss a literally poisoned book.

Disease

References to disease, both figurative and literal, are made throughout the play. In an
early speech, Bosola seems to indicate that disfigurement and disease signify a perversion
and animalization of humanity. Two clear examples of the way disease is used are the
Duchess’s pregnancy and Ferdinand’s Lycanthopia. When the Duchess is pregnant, it’s her
morning sickness that alerts Bosola to her pregnancy. And when the Duke is driven insane
by his guilt, it manifests in what the Doctor diagnoses as Lycanthropia (werewolf
syndrome). In both cases, disease is an outward manifestation of some inward guilt, sin, or
secret.

Blood

In The Duchess of Malfi, blood works classically as a multifaceted symbol. First and most
simply, blood symbolizes violence. When an act is particularly violent or cruel it is
described as bloody. Blood is also used to refer to both status and family; it represents
rank and lineage. Thus when Ferdinand and the Cardinal kill the Duchess, they are spilling
the noble blood of their own blood (i.e. family member). Finally, blood is used by Ferdinand

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to represent passion when he says, “Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, / Like
diamonds we are cut with our own dust.” In the Renaissance it was common to believe that
people were ruled by the four humors, all of which run through the blood (blood itself was
also a humor). Ferdinand’s dying words contain multiple meanings for the word blood,
including family and violence, but they also seem to evoke notions of passion and the four
humors.

Questions

1.Take a position on where Bosola stands in the fight between good and evil in the
play.

Bosola is a complicated character in a play where most characters are obviously good or
evil. His actions have dire consequences for the Duchess and her family, but unlike the
Cardinal and Ferdinand, he shows reluctance to carry out these actions, and as he is
essentially the only character who addresses the audience directly, we get a great sense
of his internal struggle. This struggle is further represented in his complicated
motivations, which veer from a seeming desire to do right by others to unfiltered self-
interest. He is thus the character who represents the battle ground for the fight between
good and evil, and though evil largely wins, he does manage in the end to eliminate all of the
evil characters and pave the way so that the Duchess’s surviving son can possibly grow up
in a better world.

2.Do a close reading of Delio’s closing speech.

Delio’s closing speech offers a note of hope after all the devastation in the play. He
presents the Duchess and Antonio’s son as a symbol of hope, and as the goodness created
by the reproductive woman is essential to the play, this is deeply significant. In addition,
he stresses how the Cardinal and Ferdinand will leave no legacy, while the Duchess’s
“Integrity of life” (5.5.119) means she will leave behind a good, lasting legacy, which is
another important theme in the play. Structurally, this speech gives the audience a lens
through which to understand the play that has preceded it, to judge the values and realize
Webster's message that we ultimately will reap what we sow, even if not on this Earth.

3.Compare and contrast the Duchess’s death with those of her husband and brothers,
and explain the importance.

The Duchess’s death scene is long, full of rituals and chaos, but she remains completely
calm in the center of it. She faces death fearlessly, with worry only for her children, and
she dies seemingly at peace. To some extent, this clam is explained by her belief that her
family has died, but it also reflects her integrity and inner strength, her lack of self-

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interest. In contrast, Antonio dies by an unfortunate accident, and then Ferdinand, the
Cardinal, and Bosola die in a chaotic scene involving cries for help, insanity, and gloomy
proclamations. The vast distinction serves to emphasize the Duchess’s courageous
goodness, and show how her brothers’ evil could not reduce her to their level, even in
death. On the other hand, the brothers, so defined by perverse self-interest and
corruption, resist death and die in an undignified manner.

Present and defend a position on why Ferdinand reacts so strongly to the Duchess’s
remarriage.

Though Ferdinand tells Bosola he didn’t want the Duchess to remarry because he wanted
to inherit her fortune, the reality is clearly more complicated than that. He is obsessed
with her reputation and her sexuality to the extent that when she remarries and he can no
longer control either, it deranges him, and his propensity towards anger takes him over.
One can also argue a psychological interpretation, which suggests that Ferdinand is driven
by repressed incestuous feelings that, when they lead to the destruction of her body,
drive him insane.

Compare and contrast the Duchess as the audience sees her to the figure described
by her brothers.

Ferdinand calls the Duchess a “lusty widow,” (1.1.331), and imagines her being sweet-talked
by a man into giving up her honor, or sleeping with all sorts of different men. This is
completely different from what the audience sees of her. Yes, she marries hastily, but it
is for a love that she has clearly chosen for herself—Antonio is far too passive to sweet-
talk her into anything—and even after they are wed, she declares that they can stay
chaste if he wishes it. They don’t, of course, as evidenced by their three children, but the
engendering of innocence is a positive virtue, a far cry from the unfettered sexuality
Ferdinand imagines her engaging in.

Explain how the symbols of light and dark are used in the play.

Throughout the play, the Duchess is associated with light, and her brothers are associated
with darkness. This both reflects the battle between good and evil, and reflects the life-

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producing actions of the Duchess in contrast to the life-corrupting and life–destroying

actions of the brothers. When all three characters are dead, Delio’s describes the faded
legacy of the brothers as a snowprint melting in the light of the sun, suggesting that the
Duchess's light was ultimately capable of defeating their darkness.

What is the importance of justice in the play?

Justice in The Duchess of Malfi is ironically perverted by the very characters who claim to
seek and represent it, because of the evil of their desires and actions. The clearest
example are the Duke Ferdinand and Cardinal, both of whom are authority figures whose
self-interest leads to a perversion of their influence and makes the world dark in their
image. However, Bosola's grapple with justice is far more nuanced. Bosola tries to make his
dark deeds acceptable by framing them as part of systematic justice, but once Ferdinand
denies him support for this delusion by denying anyone had the authority to order those
deeds, Bosola reframes his understanding of his actions, and thereby realizes the true
injustice of what he has done. In the end, justice in the play is rarely pursued outside of
self-interest, considering that even once Bosola decides to bring retribution to the evil
brothers, it is a manifestation of having been ignored and denied a reward. All in all, the
world of this play is one without much justice, and even the final glimpse of hope at the
end does not promise that will change.

Who is the most courageous character in the play? Defend your choice.

The Duchess is far more courageous than any other character in the play. The contrast
between her death scene, in which she faces death unflinchingly, and the death scene of
her brothers, in which they rage cowardly against impending death, reveals the extent of
her inner strength. Where they rely on the prestige of their authority to justify their
actions but ultimately are not saved by those, the Duchess has only her inner strength to
lead her, and it ultimately leads her son to be the sole survivor of the major parties. In
fact, her choice to marry Antonio in the face of both her brothers' threats and the class
expectations of her world, shows her strength. Her husband, though a good and virtuous
man, is mostly ineffectual and reactive, reflected in his rather random death scene. By
living as she pleases, and then accepting the cost of that with courageous calm, the
Duchess reveals herself to be uncommonly brave.

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Despite everything that happens, could one say that the Duchess defeats her
brothers in the play? Explain.

Although the Duchess loses her freedom, her family, and her life, in the end she leaves a
profound, positive legacy in the form of her one surviving son, while her brothers wipe
themselves and their own evil out. Ferdinand's attempts to demean her by driving her
insane reveal her strength, whereas his subsequent insanity shows him to be a weaker
person. Further, they both lose more than their lives by the play's tragic end. Ferdinand
loses his sanity, partially when he confronts the way she accepts her death, and the
Cardinal loses his reputation by dying in such an undignified way, marked with such heinous
sins in the presence of his courtiers. In these ways, she defeats them.

10

What is the importance of the motif of hell and the devil in the play?

Hell, fire, and the devil are associated with the Cardinal and Ferdinand throughout the
play, and this frames the evil that they do as unleashing hell on Earth. Though they are in
many ways simply driven by self-interest, the extent of their cruelty marks them as
significantly more demented than as can be explained by simple selfishness. This theme of
hell on Earth explains several elements. First is the theatricality, which grows
progressively more grotesque as the play progresses, and which would not be justified by a
more subtle, psychological construction of their evil. More importantly, the extent of their
evil engenders a world that is larger than them, so much larger that they themselves are
ultimately destroyed by that very evil. Bosola stands as a battleground wherein the
audience witnesses the effect of this hell, and through him do the villains finally face
comeuppance. The legacy of the Duchess’s goodness finally wipes it out, so though she is
dead, she ultimately defeats them. Of course, one could argue that the simple and short
final statement does not negate the worldview that Webster reveals through most of the
play, and so this hell is only temporarily sated for the sake of audience enjoyment.

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The Duchess of Malfi as a Revenge Tragedy

“The Duchess of Malfi” by John Webster is a kind of Revenge Tragedy modeled on Seneca,
the Latin playwright of 1st century A.D. This play is considered as one of the best plays of
Webster and as a Revenge Tragedy, it is considered as the best tragedy after
Shakespeare's containing almost all the characteristics of Revenge Tragedy. This play
contains the depth of extreme violence, plotting and mostly revenge on the best part
which are the chief elements of revenge tragedy. However, The Duchess of Malfi contains
full of such terrifying, hair-raising situations from the beginning to the end. However, if
we want to consider The Duchess of Malfi as a Revenge Tragedy, we need to know what we
mean by revenge tragedy and its major conventions.

Revenge Tragedy: The name Revenge Tragedy arose from the Senecan tradition of making
revenge the motive force for the action that leads to the tragedy. The characteristics of
Revenge Tragedy are:

01. The story should centre on characters of noble birth.

02. The narrative should involve in complex plotting.

03. There should be murders

04. There should obviously be a desire for revenge.

05. The plot should involve physical horrors such as poisoning and torture.

06. Order should be restored at the end of the play.

07. The presence of supernatural elements

08. Brutal human impulses is the essential subject matter and it turns into complex, often
deeply thought provoking aesthetic experiences.

However, the Latin playwright, Seneca, is considered to be one who established the
revenge play tradition. Horrors and violence predominated in the Senecan tragedies.
Thomas Kyd brought in the revenge tradition to English drama with his play The Spanish
Tragedy. Later the tradition was practiced by other playwrights before Webster.

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The Duchess of Malfi as a Revenge Tragedy: If we want to consider The Duchess of Malfi
as a Revenge Tragedy from the light of the characterizations of Revenge Tragedy pointed
out previously, we will find almost all the elements of Revenge Tragedy in The Duchess of
Malfi.

Horrors in The Duchess of Malfi: This drama contains so many elements of horrors or
which it can be classified as a melodrama. From the beginning to the end of this drama,
there are a lot of elements of horrors. The last two acts of the play have an abundance of
them. However melodramatic episodes are seen earlier too. The Duke in order to horrify
the Duchess gives a dead man’s hand to her and she kisses it taking it to be the Duke's
hand. The spectacle of waxen images of the dead bodies of Antonio and children presented
before the Duchess is another horrid scene. The unruly dance of the mad men before the
Duchess, the appearance of Bosola as a tomb makes and a bell man and the appearance of
the executioners with bell and core in procession, too are intended to create horror. The
next horror is mentioned in the series of murders committee by Bosola. The last horror
comes when Julia is poisoned in a most cold-blooded manner. Antonio is killed and
Ferdinand, Cardinal and Bosola all meet their death at the end. So, there are the ten
murders

Revenge and murders: Taking revenge and murdering people are the integral part of
revenge tragedy. In this drama, we find people taking revenge and are murdering others.
But Webster sets his play in a different manner, the revenge and murders are committed
in a different manner from the traditional manner. The revengeful brothers are both
villains .They are the victims of an insensate fury that blinds the eyes, maddens the drain,
and poisons the springs of pity. The piteous sufferings of their victim from the hard heart
of Bosola who says:

You may discern the share of loveliness,

More perfect in her tears than in the smile.

We have seen that there was a love affair between the Duchess and Antonio and at last
they marry and they produce three children. On hearing the news of their secret marriage
and their children, the cardinal and The Duke Fardinand react angrily. And from the
beginning to the end of Act two, scene five, we seed the reaction of the two brothers for

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the action of their sister. They think that the Duchess has destroyed the reputation and
status of their family. The Cardinal says, "Shall our blood,/ The royal blood of Arragon and
Castile, Be thus attained?” So, they don't want to destroy the family reputation and wants
to kill her. Here Ferdinand says, “I’ll find scorpions to string my whips,/And fix her in a
general eclipse" . Hence their deeds of revenge are not a wild kind of justice but
monstrous wrong. Ferdinand gives her the command. He had threatened to use in the
play's first scene:

"Die, then quickly."

The Duchess of Malfi differs in a number of ways from the traditional revenge play. It
doesn't become clear why revenge is taken on the Duchess. Her only fault is that she has
married below her rank and status and thus the two brothers think, she has disgraced the
family. She has certainly not committer any heinous crime for which she is subjected
unjustified. That the weak revenge motives is clearly brought out by the fact that for
more than two years her two brothers do nothing to punish the Duchess.

Supernatural elements: In presenting the supernatural too, Webster deviates from the
tradition or modifies the tradition. He doesn't present and of the conventional hosts and
objectives portents found in typical revenge plays. There is absolutely nothing
unrealistically supernatural in the play . The sorrowful answers which the echo makes to
Antonio's words are the result of a natural phenomenon. Antonio's words: “and on the
sudden a clear light/presented of a face folded in sorrow”(Act V Scene III)come only
from his fancy born out of his affection for the Duchess. No ghost appears on the scene.
In this Webster has shown vital concern for an artistic atmosphere of supernatural.

Madness shown on the stage: It's a tradition of Elizabethan revenge tragedy to show
madness on the stage. In this play we see madness of these mad people. However, hue is
some psychological interest too present in it. The Duke advices the scheme to torture the
Duchess with the intention of turning her mad. But ironically he, not the Duchess, becomes
mad. This madness of the Duke his still greater significance.

In summing up we can say that "The Duchess of Malfi" is a revenge tragedy. Although
Webster wrote this drama following the tradition of revenge tragedy, he has modified

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some of its aspects to make it unique. And he is perfect enough drawing the art in his own
style that makes it more acceptable to the readers to accept it as a true revenge tragedy.
So, in a word we can say that it is a perfect revenge tragedy.

The Duchess is a modern heroine, a rebel against all that her society holds

The tragedy of the Duchess that ironically raises her position as a heroine begins with her
reign over Malfi. Being under the influence of a patriarchal society, men are granted
rulership and women regarded secondary. During the seventeenth century, the norms of
society were built upon religious laws that enforced one’s appearance reflecting their inner
self, behaviour encompassing qualities such as fidelity, courage, integrity, and nobility, and
the acceptance of responsibilities within one’s status.

Though these are Christian values that society holds dear, complying with them is a
different issue, which contributes to the Duchess’ tragedy. It is ironic that though
Duchess does comply with such values, she is condemned for doing so. Perhaps Webster is
indirectly identifying the flaws of society where not only were there stratifications of
classes, but with sexes too. It is understood that the order within society was to emulate
heavenly order. This idea of Order was primarily to avoid chaos, but even more so, to
control man’s appetite and earthly desires.

Such weaknesses in man undeniably lead to corruption, and this is reflected in the court
life of Malfi. Because women came secondary during Webster’s time, the Duchess’ role
becomes complicated. She is neither man’s ‘chattel’ nor a single (and often times called
‘loose’) woman, and because she is neither of the two, her decisions and actions are judged.
Hence, why she could be seen as a heroine or a rebel. This notion is supported by the
Feminist view. Gibson’s assertion: “Women are either innocent victims or sensual and self-
willed; the cause of crimes the men commit”, corroborates this.

Judgments made upon the Duchess may not be fully valid until her real motives are
revealed. Her rebellion is first witnessed in Act One Scene One where she is seen wooing
Antonio despite her brothers’ warnings of forbidding her to remarry. More shocking for
the Jacobeans is that she has chosen a man of a lower hierarchal status than herself. This
scene may portray the Duchess disrupting Order and putting her self-will ahead of her

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God ordained fate. However, this is questionable as she could be marrying Antonio for his
virtuous qualities.

By doing so, restoring the ‘official’ value of having a male figure rule instead of a female
justifies her motives. What enables us to make such assumptions is Antonio’s description
of her being “more in heaven than other ladies’ shrifts”. With such traits, we are able to
trust her motives. Webster particularly enables us to do so by contrasting her traits to
that of her brothers. Subsequent to Ferdinand perceiving the Duchess’ clandestine
marriage to Antonio in Act 2 Scene 5, he undergoes a rage where his anger transforms
into an unhealthy and abnormal obsession over his sister.

Webster uses several images of madness to reveal Ferdinand’s bestial side. The imagery of
the mandrake being dug up symbolizes the superstition of the shriek it emits that induces
madness. Ferdinand’s madness then turns violent when he threatens to literally overturn
and destroy the Duchess’ kingdom, suggesting that he ‘could be one to toss her palace
about her ears’. Continuing with his fit of anger, the audience starts to receive hints of his
dark obsession over the Duchess. Where he says, “purge infected blood”, the imagery of
blood can be doubled as violence as well as passion.

The Jacobeans recognized passion as an appetite, which leans towards corruption. Taking
‘blood’ as an imagery of passion, the added adjective of ‘infected’ corroborates his virtually
incestuous type of love for his sister. This becomes even more apparent when he goes to
the extent of imagining a “strong thighed bargeman carrying coals up to her privy
lodgings”, as a pun for sexual innuendo of his sister having intercourse. Though the
Cardinal’s reaction to their sister’s rebellion was not as outrageous as Ferdinand’s,
Webster makes his character equally vile.

Like Ferdinand, the Cardinal possesses an appetite for women, creating a strong contrast
between his appearance and reality. Given the title as a churchman, the audience would
expect a church figure they are familiar with: merciful and aware of obeying and
demonstrating Christian values. However, the corruption of the Cardinal is seen in his
conversation with Julia, a promiscuous married woman. (The irony in this scene is the
Cardinal’s shocking engagement of such corruption represented by the infidelity of a
woman married to a lord.

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He is amused with Julia committing adultery, calling her a “witty false one” after she
relates her deceitfulness towards her husband. His appetite advances when he becomes
rather seductive, yet sadistic when he begins to tease her in a cruel manner. “Come, I’ll
love you wisely… I am very certain you cannot me make cuckold. ” Then proceeds to
commanding her: “I pray thee kiss me. When thou wast with thy husband thou wast
watched like a tame elephant. ” This comes as a shock to the audience as the Cardinal even
encourages Julie to commit adultery.

As mentioned earlier, the Jacobeans believed that fidelity was one of the moral values
they held dear. Here, a church representative is seen engaging in pleasures of the flesh
and debauchery, instead of judging such sins. This inversion of order contributes to the
corruption of the court that the Duchess is a part of, which is why her actions being
condemned as rebellion appears less sinful than her brothers’. Relating back to the
Duchess’ marriage with Antonio, Webster sets up a parallel of relationships that occur in
the play to show the legitimacy of her marriage.

Of the three siblings, the Duchess seems to have the most lawful and holy of relationships
because of her genuine love, purity, and commitment to Antonio. Though Calderwood may
say that her marriage was an act of rebellion- “For what the Duchess is engaging in here is
not properly ceremony but ceremony in reverse, a form of deceremonialization by which
she divests herself of the responsibilities of her social role” , those in favour of the
Duchess as a heroine can argue that she is willing to risk her appearance and reputation
for the sake of a lasting marriage comprised of Christian values.

Subsequent to the Duchess’ marriage come the consequences of her suffering inevitably
leading to death. Her tragedy begins when she faces separation from her husband and son
in Act 3 Scene 5. Her initial reactions are sorrowful and perhaps hint humility. “Farewell
boy, thou art happy that thou hast not understanding to know thy misery… ” But a little
later, her sorrow turns to anger. “Must I like to a slave-born Russian account it praise to
suffer tyranny? ” Her sudden outburst may appear to be one of her moments of
vengefulness or even a sign or rebellion.

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The Jacobeans may start to recognize the Duchess’ situation where she is starting to face
her fate, which inevitably involves suffering. This could be seen as a ‘Christian rebellion’
where she lacks the faith in God’s plan for her. She hasn’t yet developed the endurance
for the suffering, tyranny in this case. It may even reflect her pride by the way she hasn’t
accepted suffering yet. However, Antonio reminds her, “Man like cassia, is proved best,
being bruised”. The imagery of the cassia spice, which needs to be burnt in order to reveal
its aromatic scent, reminds us of the ‘refiner’s fire’.

This analogy is based on the religious belief that the earthly body is but a cage for the
soul. In order for the soul to be set free or to be ‘purified’ and made whole with God, it
must undergo certain suffering. This is through putting appetite and earthly desires to
death, including bestial traits such as pride, self-will, and ignorance, in order to receive
the reward of salvation. Despite the death images in the scene portraying the coming of
the Duchess’ tragedy, such as “Your kiss is colder than that I have seen an unholy
anchorite give to a dead man’s skull” the audience knows that her suffering is only
temporary.

She slowly accepts her fate of separation with her family by not preventing their
departure when she says, “Let me look upon you once more. ” At this point where the
suffering becomes more intense, Bosola enters the scenes more frequently, undertaking
two contrasting, thus ironic roles. Given the role as the intelligence of Ferdinand and the
Cardinal to spy over the Duchess’ activities, his commitment and faithfulness to his job is
sustained throughout the play. This means that there are occasions where he is forced to
betray her. However, it is ironic that through his job, Bosola becomes her ‘spiritual
advisor’.

Because of the suffering the Duchess endures, her earthly instincts cause her to fall into
despair at times. “Oh misery: like to a rusty o’er charged cannon, shall I never fly in
pieces? ” It is evident here that the Duchess speaks of her own death, a sign of despair.
The Jacobeans recognized despair as a form of pride as it rejects God’s plan, and is
something man had no authority to decide upon. This lack of faith may be seen as yet
another act of rebellion. However, Bosola stops her from doing so. He also recognizes and
values the way the Duchess endures her suffering, and admires her for her composure.

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When Bosola reports the Duchess’ current condition to Ferdinand, he mentions, “… She
seems rather to welcome the end of misery than shun it; a behaviour so noble as gives a
majesty to adversity… ” The fact that she shows her ‘majesty in adversity’ means that she
still maintains her dignity of her earthy position despite her sorrow. This is seen by the
way the Duchess does not plot revenge or show bitterness. By not fighting against her
suffering (which she could easily do because of her ruling power), she shows acceptance of
her fate.

This displaces her image as a rebel, replacing it with that of a tragic heroine. The
Jacobeans recognizing this would therefore appreciate her perseverance. They may also
link her situation as a parallel to the crucifixion of God’s Son. Though he had the power to
end his crucifixion, he didn’t because he accepted his fate. This reinforces the idea of the
Duchess being a tragic heroine. Even Ferdinand realises that the more suffering he inflicts
upon her, the more Christ-like her character becomes when he says, “Her melancholy
seems to be fortified with a strange disdain. Furthermore, the Duchess’ endurance of
suffering also shows her commitment and genuine love for Antonio. This may be what
strengthens her spiritually as well.

Though Bosola aknowledges that “this restraint, like English mastiffs that grow fierce
with tying” in reference to the Duchess’ inner turmoil, he appreciates her dignified
appearance and willingness to accept her punishment. Her strength shown exteriorly and
her internal suffering perhaps reflect her pathway to heaven. As the play progresses,
Ferdinand’s vengeance over his sister becomes increasingly brutal.

Through this, Bosola paradoxically comforts her. “What’s this flesh? A little crudded
milk… a lark in a cage? Such is the soul in the body… gives us a miserable knowledge of the
small compass of out prison. ” This profound notion justifies the Duchess’ emotions and
behaviour. A sense of entrapment seems to prevail. Webster parallels this idea of
entrapment to the individual’s soul set free through salvation. He also acknowledges the
unimportance of the flesh.

The Duchess shows her worthiness of salvation just before she dies when she kneels. “…
heaven gates are not so highly arched… hey that enter there must go upon their knees. ”
Kneeling symbolizes an act of humility and obedience in accepting her fate. Comparing this
with her pride in raising Antonio’s status, the Duchess’ moral intentions are revealed. This

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concludes the Duchess supporting the values of the seventeenth century, alongside
Webster. Feminism has too narrow a view of the play. The Duchess only appears to be
rebelling due to the circumstances she faces. However, such circumstances may be seen as
tests to prove that she embraces moral value. Thus, we are confident that she has
attained salvation.

Social Tragedy in John Webster’s ‘The Duchess of Malfi’

Stephanie Alice Baker in Social Tragedy The Power of Myth, Ritual and Emotion in the New
Media Ecology, defines Social Tragedy as something that “focuses on the power of
meaningful narratives to move audiences to feel and think about suffering as a cause for
moral action”. For instance, the post-modernist reader would consider the tragic end of
the proto-feminist female protagonist of John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi (1623), a
social tragedy. However, the Jacobean reader would consider the same proto-feminism a
social tragedy in that it deviates from the then prevalent social norms.

The Duchess of Malfi opens with Antonio admiring the French court (1.1.4-23), and thus
highlighting the corruption of the Italian court which is defined by what it is not (i.e. the
French court). The corruption of the Italian court is an integrant of Social Tragedy in the
play for both the Jacobean as well as the post-modernist readers. We see the corruption
of the court running through its courtiers and its people in their relationships, power play
and acrimony, best depicted in the character of Ferdinand. He fails to uphold the virtuous
image of a man of high rank. He is introduced by Antonio in a negative light, “He speaks
with others’ tongues, and hears men’s suits / With others’ ears” (1.1.168-69). Ferdinand
proves to be greedy, lustful and irascible when he suspects his sister of having an
unsanctioned sexual relationship. His anger is uncontrollable, “I could kill her now” (2.5.64).
Even the Cardinal finds his outrage inordinate when he further goes on to deliver vulgar,
graphic and violent images in relation to the Duchess of Malfi, “Root up her goodly forest,
blast her meads, / And lay her general territory as waste, / As she hath done her
honour’s.” (2.5.19-21). Objectification, misogyny and a sexual innuendo runs through his
dialogues. He can almost “see her in the shameful act of sin” and uses crude language in
speech, “’Tis not your whore’s milk that shall quench my wild-fire‘’ (2.5.48). Hence,
Ferdinand is compared with the image of fire in his rage and physical and voyeuristic
imagination as opposed to the emergence of the Cardinal as the composed and calculative
Machiavellian villain. Ferdinand’s incestuous desire towards his sister is evident in spite of
the mention of the brothers’ desire for her property because it is left a loose thread. The

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brothers contribute to the play’s Social Tragedy for readers from both ages because of
their negative attributes. The only redeeming prospect for them, in the Jacobean view, is
if in a religious light their actions are justified as done in an attempt to preserve the
Duchess’ chastity and purity, and thus their family’s dignity and purity. After the death of
his sister and her children, Ferdinand is driven mad, perhaps by guilt and regret. This is
ironic because he, in sanity, tried to drive the Duchess mad. In his madness, he is reduced
to an incapacitated character. He thus falls from his stature which is also social tragedy in
the eyes of the Jacobean reader.

Ferdinand’s apathy towards the Duchess is contrasted with Antonio’s admiration for her.
Antonio says, “There speaketh so divine a continence… Let all sweet ladies break their
flatt’ring glasses, / And dress themselves in her” (1.2.121). Anand Prakash in the
Introduction to the play points out that “This is not exactly the language of a lover but an
onlooker who is filled with wonder as he gazes upon an angel”. Antonio is self-aware and
acknowledges the social gap between the Duchess and himself. Perhaps, for this reason he
is unable to internalise his marriage in spite of consummation as even after their marriage
he addresses her, not as a husband but as a conscientious server when he says, “Will your
Grace hear me?” (3.2.183). Antonio becomes the object of gaze for the Duchess since
she’s the one who pursued him and even takes the initiative of proposing when Antonio
said, “O my unworthiness!” (1.2.348). Thus we see an inversion of gender roles in the play.
Antonio seems to be the hero of the play only by the virtue of his gender, not merit.
Meanwhile the Duchess proves to be a bold female character with her own desires and the
will to fulfil them. Jenia Geraghty in her essay The Principal Characters and Their Roles
observes, “The Duchess is seen right from the start as a lusty character who is pursuing
the affection of Antonio. Her dialogue is full of sexual innuendo, and she can be seen as
being in the category of the renaissance stereotype the ‘lusty widow’. She is presented as
a powerful woman with a dominant will and right to the moment of her death is portrayed
as strong and independent. Defying her brother’s warnings not to remarry is further proof
of her strength. The Duchess’s defiant insistence on marrying Antonio, her second
husband, is an action which shows that she has her own desires, and a more dominant will
than anybody around her.” Webster has given her all the qualities that Antonio, her
spouse, lacks, qualities which were not thought to be desirable in a woman of that era; she
plots, schemes and has a bold and impetuous nature. In this she resonates the female
protagonist of Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath. She sends Antonio to Ancona to protect him
which is another example of gender inversion. Subsequently Antonio’s virtuous image is
corrupted when the Duchess accuses him of theft. Ergo, for the Jacobean reader,
Antonio’s character embodies social tragedy, first, in his unequal relationship with the
Duchess and second, in his fall from a virtuous image in the eyes of society. Antonio fails

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to meet the requirement of his environment and remains a lowly scholar, looked after by
his wife. Critics have questioned Antonio’s ambition because of his marriage to an upper
class woman but he is well aware of his class throughout. He says, “Ambition, Madam, is a
great man’s madness” (1.2.337). Even in death he proves to be a meek character as the
scene gives more of an insight into Bosola than Antonio. Conceivably, Webster tries to
show the readers that an honest man like Antonio cannot survive in the evil world that he
created. Also, Webster highlights the social gap that exists in society and in Antonio he
demonstrates how there is a price to pay for overriding the social strata. This highlights
the Social Tragedy for the post-modernist readers.

On the one hand, Antonio, in spite of being a well-educated, honest and kind man, fails to
emerge as a strong character. On the other hand, the Duchess, who is marginalised
because of her gender as well as her class, manages to take control of her own life and live
on her terms. She acknowledges that women of her class don’t have the luxury to love (and
break societal boundaries), yet she refuses to live a lonely life. Jacqueline Pearson in “To
Behold My Tragedy”: Tragedy and Anti-Tragedy notes that the Duchess “is contrasted
with Antonio whose conventional admiration for “fixed order” (1.1.6) is only abandoned as
he dies.” This however, is social tragedy to the Jacobean reader as she defies social norms
and goes against the will of her brothers or patriarchal authority. While Ferdinand and the
Cardinal depict evil, the Duchess is noble. She is clever enough to enter into a legal
matrimony with Antonio with Cariola as witness and quickly devises a plan to protect her
family in scene II of Act III. These are instance of the Duchess’ mental and intellectual
prowess and show her wit and decisiveness. These characteristics were not seen as ones
that women of the era possessed and thus, while such progressivism pleasing for the post-
modernist reader, it is social tragedy for the Jacobean audience. Her hamartia (tragic
flaw) is her optimism and naivety. She easily trusts Bosola who is actually serving her
brothers in hope of promotion and personal gain. Ferdinand tries to drive her insane in Act
IV but this in turn “helps to keep her in her right wits by asserting her essential sanity in
the face of the madness of her opponents, Ferdinand, the Cardinal, and Bosola”, as stated
by Pearson. The final assertion of her individuality are her last words, “I am Duchess of
Malfi still” (4.2.142). She dies in dignity as opposed to Ferdinand. The Duchess’ physical
death parallels with Antonio’s. Like Antonio is too virtuous for a society so evil, the
Duchess is too noble and strong a female character for the society to accept. Due to her
proto-feminist characteristics, her only choice was to cease to exist in the Jacobean
world. The post-modernist reader would deem this Social Tragedy, while for the Jacobean
reader this restores the balance in society. The readers also experience a social death of
the Duchess when she falls from her stature in the eyes of her brothers (thus the
patriarchal society) in scene V of Act II because they find out that she has transcended

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her limitations. Much like The White Devil, The Duchess of Malfi reveals a woman who,
despite her attempts at transcendence, is ultimately encumbered by the female
stereotypes of her time. However, it is possible that the Duchess has made an advance
over Vittoria in her status as a woman. Somer Marie Stahl in Social Commentary and the
Feminine Center in John Webter posits, “No longer is the central female character playing
the part of the adulteress as in The White Devil; instead, in The Duchess of Malfi, the
part of adulteress is reserved for a minor female character. This exchange of roles seems
significant; however, like Vittoria, the Duchess ultimately fails to transcend any true
boundaries created by the patriarchal society in which she lives.”

Webster portrays the various female stereotypes that are sustained by a patriarchal
society in his play through each of his female characters, much as he does in The White
Devil. Anand Prakash is of the view that “Being a victim of husband and lover, Julia wins
our sympathy in her sudden attraction towards Bosola”. Her adultery is social tragedy for
the Jacobean audience but could be seen as empowerment by the post-modernist readers.
Cariola is also an unconventional character in her views on marriage and remains a friend
and confidant of the Duchess. Likewise, Delio continues to be a loyal friend to Antonio and
has been called “a Horatio-like figure (Hamlet)” by Anand Prakash. While these characters
are simpler to assess, Bosola has a complex chameleon like attitude. He has been called the
true “evil hero” of the play by Anand Prakash as he is willing to go to any extent for
personal benefit but towards the end of the play, develops a conscience. This could
however be stemming from a vengeful desire when he was blamed by Ferdinand for
murdering the Duchess. Readers from both eras agree that Bosola’s corrupt nature makes
up for social tragedy.

In Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi, a variety of themes and characters coexist. Social
Tragedy is evident in this Revenge Tragedy. In her essay, The Duchess of Malfi: A Case
Study in Literary Representation of Women, Lisa Jardine finds the play difficult because
the woman hero in Jacobean drama is first shown as violating social norms and then as
suffering in terms set for her by patriarchy. The patriarchal authority collapses with the
insanity and death of Ferdinand and the Cardinal. Antonio, as noble as he is, is unable to
change the fate of his family. Society fails to uphold its values and it fails to allow the
people to create their own value. In the end the Duchess’ son becomes the Duke which is
against Antonio’s wishes. Some critics view this as restoration of balance and order; not to
mention he is the ‘rightful’ heir. However, this could also be viewed as the circular nature
of life in a society, consumed with corruption.

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Critically Discuss the Character of Bosola.

Character of Bosola

Bosola is certainly a complex character painted in The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster.
His full name is Daniel de Bosola. He is essentially a good man but he does not realise his
own goodness. In the play, he acts the role of a villain. He appears to be a villain and
pitiless murderer. He wanted to become a man of rank and power. But circumstances did
not permit him to realize his ambition. He is a profound scholar. He had once burnt the
midnight oil to achieve his aspirations. Instead of a scholar, Bosola feel in love with
cardinal and become his tool.

Bosola plays a triple role in the play ‘The Duchess of Malfi’. He is a malcontent mediator, a
tool villain and an avenger. He is also satirist. There is ample evidence of his intelligent in
the play. He met Cardinal and committed murder at his instance.

Bosola becomes the tool villain of Ferdinand. Now he appears to be a perfect villain. He
works as the spy of Ferdinand. Nothing can be more dishonorable than the work of spy. He
knows it well. He sends secret information to Ferdinand and betrays the secret of
Duchess. He does not hesitate to kill Cairo and the little kids of Duchess. By mistake, he
kills Antonio too. Thus he works as a villain in the play.

But this is not real character of Bosola. Ferdinand offers him gold when he employs him.
Bosola refuses to take it. Because he knows that Ferdinand is bribing him to do something
villainous. So he refuses to take it. Yet he takes bribe. He also takes dishonorable job
offered by Ferdinand. But he is not really bad man. Circumstances compel him to become.
He has suffered much from poverty. So he cannot refuse a tempting offer.

In the Duchess of Malfi, Bosola plays a role of spy and murderer. But at the end of play,
he plays a role of noble and avenger. So his role is significant. He keeps a link between
Ferdinand and Duchess. He sends massage from Malfi to Rome. He arrests duchess and
brings her to Ferdinand. He is tortured duchess disguised as an old tomb-maker and later
makes her killed by strangling. After the death of the Duchess he suffers from hellish
torments and gives her dead body to a woman for proper burial. He also killed Ferdinand
and Cardinal while taking revenge on the two brothers. So he becomes the symbol of the
victory of Duchess.

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From the above discussion, we can say that Bosola is a complex character. He is changed
because he is deprived of a material prosperity. Thus he is a Machiavellian character with
a difference.

The element of Horror in ‘The Duchess Of Malfi’

The Duchess of Malfi (originally published as The Tragedy of the Duchess of Malfi) is a
macabre, tragic play written by the English dramatist John Webster in 1612–13. It is a
work of genius and is one of the greatest tragedies in the English language, outside
Shakespeare. Like most of the other playwrights in the Elizabethan age, Webster, also did
not invent the stories of his plays, but found them in existing plays, in popular tradition or
prose narrative. The Duchess of Malfi, in so far as the main action is concerned is the
recreation of the dramatised events that occurred in Italy about 100 years before.

The Duchess of Malfi is a tragedy in the tradition of the Elizabethan Revenge play. But it
considerably modifies and enriches the tradition. The revenge is the central theme of the
play but it is not taken as a sacred duty but out of selfishness and vindictiveness. The
motif for revenge is horrifying and our sympathies go with the victim of the revenge than
the avenger. In the play the revengers, Duke Ferdinand and Cardinal look obnoxious,
loathsome, sadistic and adorned with bestial natures, while the traditional revenger is an
object of admiration and sympathy. We as audience / readers observe the Duchess’s
beauty, calm, dignity, innocence, and on the other hand we criticise the two brothers who
are the epitome of cruelty. This is something unique and original, and only a writer of
genius could have enriched and modified the revenge tradition.

Melodramatic Element

In the Jacobean age tragedy had degenerated into melodrama. A melodrama is something
which lacks the internalisation or in-depth insight into the characters, and the writer
completely rely on the effects of exploitation of physical horrors as in The Duchess of
Malfi we see sensational, lurid and gruesome acts and imagery. All kinds of fearful things –
waxen-images depicting death, the wild masque of madmen, the tomb-maker, the bell-man,
the strangling of Duchess, of the children and of Cariola – things that give heavy chills and

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make heart beats pause are presented before the audience to make horror look more
intensified and gruesome.

The Element and Scenes of Horror

Webster has portrayed the elements of horror in a superb manner. When the play is
staged, our attention is not only drawn towards the horrors but to the Duchess’s reaction
to them, she gets horrified and we get horrified with her. Our attention is fixed on the
Duchess because she is deeply and pitiably human in her mental and physical agony. The
writer does not intend to get meaning out of the portrayal out of the Duchess he casts on
stage but it is her human expressions that give out the best of what a real human
experience can create. The Duchess is not statuesque or made of steel in her lonely
struggle, but a fragile figure who though in despair wishes for a better tomorrow, a woman
who is proud, strong and shines from within asking only to be left alone in peace. The
strength of her soul leads her to make some true responses at time of her final crisis. The
very death of her shows her in built courage that has been passed from agony of despair
into hope; hope to be in heaven; while she dies with the thoughts of the lives of her
children, forgetting that they are supposed to be dead. “Fairwell, Cariola. In my ast I have
not much to give you, because many greedy people have wasted away all my wealth. You will,
therefore, get very little inheritance from me… I pray you to give some syrup to little boy
for his cold, and se the girl says her prayers before she sleeps”… Webster raise the
melodramatic element in the play by showing its effect on the soul of the Duchess. We get
a peep in her soul; the nobility, dignity, heroism and majesty of her soul are fully revealed.
Despite all the sufferings inflicted upon her by her brother she remains the Duchess still”.
She does not yield or succumb, or prey for mercy to the evil door, but dies heroically with
calm of mind and maintains her integrity against all heavy odds.

In the age of Webster, the Drama in England was decadent and degenerate. One of the
signs of this was the use of crude, physical horrors to evoke terror. The Duchess of Malfi
is full of such terrifying, hair-raising situations, from the beginning to end.

The two brothers persecute the Duchess for marrying against their will and subject her to
nameless unheard of horrors. Duke Ferdinand visits her in the darkness of the night in her
room where she has been imprisoned. He assures her that he has come to make peace, but
instead of offering her his own hand he places a dead man’s hand I her hand. Unknowingly
the Duchess kisses it, but at once realises that there is something wrong in for it is as

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cold as death itself. She remarks: “You are very cold: I fear you are not well after your
travel. Ha ! lights !...O, horrible !” and again: “What witchcraft doth he practises, that he
hath left, a dead man’s hand here.”

Then immediately after this the Duchess is shown the waxen figures of her children as if
they were dead. The Duchess thinks that her husband and children are dead and feels that
life for her is not worth living anymore. After this she remarks”

“There is not between heaven and earth one wish,

I stay for after this……”

The next horror is the letting loose of madmen upon the Duchess so that she may not be
able to sleep and shall suffer from great mental torture and pain. Cariola complains of the
cruelty of her brothers in the following words: “’T is the wild consort of madmen, lady
which your tyrant brother Hath placed about your lodging; this tyranny, I think was never
practised till this hour.” But the Duchess bears it all peacefully and says : “Indeed, I thank
him ! nothing but noise and folly can keep me in my right wits, whereas reason and silence
make me stark mad……”.

The introduction of such horrors also show the picture of the whims and likings of the
people of Webster’s times and in that people were used to such crude horrors. It is to
cater to the need of the audience that Webster uses such horrific elements to its max
use. His greatness as a dramatis is seen in the fact that he has made these horrors the
integral theme of the play.

Gender Roles in “The Duchess of Malfi”

The Duchess of Malfi is particularly interesting in regards to gender, because it both
subverts and reinforces the traditionally assigned roles of 17th Century Italy.

From the very beginning of the play, Webster stipulates the low standards that men held
to women, even those of good social standing like the Duchess. In deprecation before
leaving, her twin brother, Ferdinand, says “What cannot a neat knave with a smooth tale;

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Make a woman believe?” (The Duchess of Malfi, 1.1.130-131). This shows that he believed
all women could be swayed into sleeping with someone by a few sweet words. Ferdinand also
believes that women are the subjects of the men who effectively own them, “thou art but
a bare name, and no essential thing” (The Duchess of Malfi, 3.2.73). In her marriage to
Antonio, the Duchess both acts out Ferdinand’s beliefs and debases them, “by day, the
Duchess is Antonio’s mistress; by night, he is her master” (Balizet, 2012; p20). She is the
one who proposes to the astonished Antonio, perverting the traditional proposal ceremony
(The Duchess of Malfi, 1.1.361-496). To protect herself and her family, the Duchess must
keep her marriage a secret, thus outside of the privacy of their bed chamber, the Duchess
must remain superior to Antonio. Within the bed chamber, Antonio is able to take charge
of their relationship, and the Duchess allows him to do so. However, the Duchess, her rare
position of power notwithstanding, is still at the mercy of her brothers.

Henceforth, Antonio is emasculated by his relationship with the Duchess; he cannot

protect her from her brothers because “in the absence of a public marriage ceremony, he
hardly seems to be her husband at all” (Henderson, 2000; pp-68-69). As Henderson points
out, the characters struggle with their gender roles because they struggle with their
identity. When Ferdinand begins to feel some guilt towards his sister’s death instead of
confronting his emotions, “it is he and not she who becomes mad. When the doctor
suggests a similar cure for him he rebukes him and shows him that strange behaviour in
others will only exacerbate his condition – another sign of his difficulty in distinguishing
himself” (Henderson, 2000; p65).

Some of the men in the play, particularly the brothers, Ferdinand and the Cardinal, take on
the traditional masculine role, they are “men to be despised, their vanity deemed
ludicrous” (White, 1998; p186). Even Antonio holds the thoroughly masculine position of
household steward. The brothers hold positions of power that women could not dream of,
they strive to control their sister and their bloodline to the point where their masochistic
tendencies are undeniable, and in doing so they belittle the women around them. Julia, the
Cardinal’s mistress holds no importance to him as a person. After deciding that she cannot
keep his secret about the Duchess’ murder, he poisons Julia, “I knew thou couldst not keep
my council, I have bound thee to’t by death” (The Duchess of Malfi, 5.2.275-276). Instead
of trusting his mistress he chose to kill her vindictively.

Webster consistently confuses some of the characters with their gender roles. Antonio’s
is neither fully masculine nor effeminate; he is married to the Duchess but cannot act as

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her husband in public. He must publicly follow her every order, an unheard of proposition
to many 17th Century men. The Duchess, as a widow, actually has legal rights and is a public
figure; nevertheless she is almost entirely at the whim of her brothers in regards to
family and power, as well as having to submit to Antonio’s need to be in charge in their
relationship. Ferdinand is entirely masculine, rather than submit to his feminine tendencies
(emotions) he goes insane. The Cardinal is the only one of the four characters I have
discussed who conforms to his assigned role as the masochistic schemer.

John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi: Analysing the Faults of

Duchess
There was a group of dramatists writing plays for the London theater manager Philip
Henslowe. The group included many gifted playwrights, among them Thomas Dekker, John
Marston, and Thomas Heywood, with each of whom Webster collaborated occasionally.
John Webster 's genius as a writer was first fully revealed in his great tragedies The
White Devil, produced in 1612, and The Duchess of Malfi, staged about 1614. Both plays
depict a world of extravagant passions, dark intrigue, and fratricidal violence. Both plays
ensured Webster's long-lasting critical acclaim and both are still produced. Despite their
melodramatic themes, Webster's plays are redeemed by his soaring poetic dialogue and his
grasp of human psychology.

In the world of drama, there are many characters who possess high character traits and
status and ultimately fall from that high position because of committing fault. Considering
each one as a tragic hero, John Webster's The Duchess (The Duchess of Malfi, a macabre
tragic play ) is a definite member of this class who falls from her high position or status
and dies because of committing a fault. She is beautiful, intelligent, courageous and
emotional. And out of her emotion, she gets married with Antonio whose rank and status
were lower from that of her's. This marriage was her wrong action and for this she falls
from her ultimate status and then dies.

Causes of her wrong action: Marrying Antonio was wrong for the Duchess. But the Duchess
did that wrong action/took that wrong decision out of her emotion. Actually it is inherent
in human being to be emotional. And such emotion causes her damnation.

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In fact, The Duchess of Malfi depict a world of extravagant passions, dark intrigue, and
fratricidal violence. the plays ensured Webster's long-lasting critical acclaim and is still
produced. Despite their melodramatic themes, Webster's play is redeemed by his soaring
poetic dialogue and his grasp of human psychology.

Every man of this world suffers from two types of starvation, physical and mental
starvation. The Duchess is not exceptional in this regard. And when people feel / become
desirous, they can't control their emotion any longer. Even in "Man and Superman" by
George Barnard Shaw, we see that the hero confesses that when he feels the urge of
desire of his heart, he can't control himself. This is also for the emotion of his heart that
can't be controlled. Again in "Sons and Lovers" by D.H. Laurence, we see that the mother
falls in love with her sons again and again. She can't control her desire anymore. So did the
Duchess. The Duchess can't control her desire and so she married again. For the emotion
of her heart and for the love for Antonio, she sacrifices all she had, her aristocracy,
status and everything. But people should not do such thing. The evidence of this kind of
work is seen in other play also; there the heroine takes rational decision without
influencing by emotions. For example in “Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte, we see that
the heroine ‘Catherine’ was in love with ‘Heathecliff’ but at last she married ‘Edger’
because of her status. Even in the short story, ‘Eveline’ by James Joyce, we see that
Eveline doesn't go to Buenos Ayres with her lover thinking about her responsibility. But
the Duchess married Antonio without thinking about her status and the command of her
brothers.

The Duchess was threatened by her brothers for not to remarry. Before leaving the
Duchess, the Cardinal says, "We are to part from you; and your own discretion/ Must now
be your director". On hearing the threat and command from her brothers, The Duchess
says, "Will you hear me?/ I will never marry". But when her brothers go out, she asks
Antonio to talk to her and she proposes him and says that she is also a human being having
all the qualities of a human being, she has emotions and love in her heart. Here she says,
"Sir, be confident;/What is 't distracts you? This is flesh and blood, sir" And she then
accepts Antonio as her husband. Here she says, "I do here put off all vain ceremony, /And
only do appear to you a young widow/ That claims you for her husband" Actually, it the
quality of human being to make love. So, as a human being the Duchess has love in her
heart and she is proposing him to marry.

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After that we have seen that there was a love affair between the Duchess and Antonio
and at last they marry and they produce three children. On hearing the news of their
secret marriage and their children, the cardinal and The Duke Fardinand react angrily. And
from the beginning to the end of Act two, scene five, we see the reaction of the two
brothers for the action of their sister. They think that the Duchess has destroyed the
reputation and status of their family. The Cardinal says, "Shall our blood,/ The royal blood
of Arragon and Castile, Be thus attained?” So, they don't want to destroy the family
reputation and want to kill her. Here Ferdinand says, “I’ll find scorpions to string my
whips,/And fix her in a general eclipse".

But the immediate result was that the Duchess was tortured invariably .The Duke in order
to horrify the Duchess gives a dead man’s hand to her and she kisses it taking it to be the
Duke's hand. The spectacle of waxen images of the dead bodies of Antonio and children
presented before the Duchess is another horrid scene that creates horror in the mind of
the audiences and the Duchess. Even The unruly dance of the mad men before the Duchess
to torture her with the intention of turning her mad, the appearance of Bosola as a tomb
maker also causes anxiety in the heart of the Duchess. Her present situation is such that
she compares it to Hell, saying, "That's the greatest torture souls feel in Hell." The
revengeful brothers are both villains .They are the victims of an insensate fury that blinds
the eyes, maddens the drain, and poisons the springs of pity. The piteous sufferings of
their victim from the hard heart of Bosola who says: "You may discern the share of
loveliness, More perfect in her tears than in the smile." At last Bosola was hired to kill the
Duchess and her children. Bosola killed them successfully and through this killing the
revenge was taken. Actually, it doesn't become clear why revenge is taken on the Duchess.
Her only fault is that she has married below her rank and status and thus the two
brothers think, she has disgraced the family. She has certainly not committed any heinous
crime for which she is subjected unjustified. That the weak revenge motives is clearly
brought out by the fact that for more than two years her two brothers do nothing to
punish the Duchess. Read More about Drama

In summing up, we can say the death of the Duchess is a kind of death of a tragic heroine.
And as a tragic heroine she deserves our sympathy because she never violets what might
be generally signified as moral goodness. Certainly her triumph over oppressing and dear is
a tragic victory not because she has maintained her integrity of life, but rather because
her integrity involves courage. Actually she has done what most of the people would do for
emotion.

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