John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi is a seventeenth-century revenge tragedy. Pacheco defines revenge tragedy as a play that concerns itself with a character who ‘struggles to find justice in a dramatic world in which the privileged few abuse their power’ (2012, p.5). The Duchess is the play’s protagonist who ‘struggles to find justice’ against her brothers’ desire to seek revenge for her secret marriage to Antonio. This assignment will argue that the extract provided is fundamental in contributing to the wider themes of the Duchess’ virtue, Ferdinand’s corruption and Bosola’s inner battle of morality. In order to reach this conclusion, the distinctive features of the language will be analysed alongside a consideration of the performance possibilities they create.
The extract provided is situated at the beginning of 4.1. The Duchess has been imprisoned by Bosola on the order of her brothers. The characters on stage throughout this extract are the Duchess, Ferdinand, Cariola, Bosola, and servants. This is a fundamental scene as the interplay of light versus dark, and hunter versus prey are prominent; the audience witness the extent of Ferdinand’s cruelty, the Duchess’s suffering, and the beginnings of Bosola’s inner mental battle of virtue versus corruption. The extract anticipates the chaos in 5.1 following the Duchess’s death.
The extract opens with dialogue between Ferdinand and Bosola. Ferdinand asks, ‘How doth our sister Duchess bear herself’ and Bosola completes Ferdinand’s line, ‘Nobly; I’ll describe her’ (4.1.2), suggesting a mutual understanding. Bosola is Webster’s malcontent ‘torn between an acute awareness of the…moral deficiencies of the patronage system and a longing for social advancement that binds him to it’ (Pache...
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...nd compare its issues with their own lives. Thus, the interplay of light versus dark and hunter versus prey within this extract is pivotal to the play as a whole, preparing the audience for the chaos of Act 5. However, as Aughterson observed, the play could be performed to construe the tragedy as either the Duchess’s or Bosola’s. This interpretation is notable in this extract; Bosola occupies a central position between light and dark. Although a shared mutuality has been evident between Bosola and Ferdinand which reinforces Bosola’s role of malcontent, Bosola’s repetition of words when describing the Duchess’s dignity, and the way his rhythm of speech works against Ferdinand’s, portray his battle of morality and his impending anagnorisis. Thus, the play has multiple performance possibilities; it can emphasise the Duchess’s virtuosity or Bosola’s battle of morality.
The band of characters is drawn from every level of the class system. Unique interactions among characters from different social standings are conveyed, from the distressed, kindly gardener, to the impertinent daughter of the village innkeeper, to the prosperous de Luce family, and to the royalty. What appealed to me was that Flavia could trace her family’s history back many generations, and for one to be able to make these personal connections is extremely rare. Of course, this awareness of their past is correlated to the de Luce’s chain of affluence.
In equation with the Elizabethan era, Shakespeare offers us a male dominated society in his renowned tragedy, Othello. Consequently, this definitely persuades a negative attitude and demeanor towards the women of the times. The female characters in the play: Desdemona, Emilia, and Bianca; play relevant roles in contributing to one’s understanding of this exhausted Elizabethan view. In contrast to the larger portion of the play, Emilia, spouse to the scandalous Iago, takes an opinionated stand for Desdemona in relation to her wholesome gone sour relationship with the Moor of Venice, Othello. I recognize Emilia’s “Betrayal lecture” as a justified outlook in accordance with today’s period and events surrounding Desdemona’s and Othello’s fatal misunderstanding.
‘’ Speak not you for him; he’s a traitor. Come;/ I’ll manacle thy neck and feet together: /Sea-water shalt thou drink; thy food shall be /The fresh-brook muscles, wither’d roots, and husks/ Wherein the acorn cradled.’’ (Shakespeare, I, ii, 461-464), is dramatic irony as the audience is aware of the fact that Prospero likes Ferdinand and wants him an Miranda to fall in love, but is still being rude to Ferdinand as a test. This is funny and provided entertainment to the audience, as they are aware of something that the characters aren’t. The archetype of the hero’s journey is used here, as Ferdinand is going through trials to prove his love for Miranda. He is proving his determination, strength, and courage along with his love. The images used in the collage are of Miranda and Ferdinand meeting, to show the humour behind their role in Prospero’s plan to get the throne back. Overall, Shakespeare’s use of symbolism, imagery, allusions, and dramatic irony help the audience to understand the archetypes, which helps in analyzing the meaning behind the words of the
“My Last Duchess” is written in rhymed iambic pentameter lines. It is about the inner thoughts of an individual speaker (Duke) who reveals a portrait of his former wife to the count’s agent and explains what happened as well as what led to her unfortunate fate. There are several hints of symbolism and imagery that play a key role throughout the poem, such as the portrait of the duchess, the smiling, and the stooping. Not much is said about the portrait except that is lifelike and captures the duchess’s emotional state. The Duchess’s smile and joyous state are the biggest signs of imagery in the portrait itself and the poem. According to the Duke, he thinks their worthless because ...
I was gratified to see that this critic agreed with my interpretation of the Duchess’s demise, viz., the Duke had her murdered. The theory advanced by my brilliant and magnificent Professor had been that the Duke gave her so many orders and restrictions that she pined away. I had been looking at his famous line “And I choose/never to stoop.” He married her for her beauty but would never lower himself to tell her when she angered him.
In conclusion, William Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” or “What You Will” is one of Shakespeare’s many comedic plays. The passage in Act 1, Scene 5 focused predominately on a conversation between Feste and Olivia about the mourning of her brother. It was through Feste and Olivia’s word games that contributed to the play as a whole because it added humour to the play. The passage also helped to reveal an underlining theme of the play, which is deception as shown through the character of Malvolio. This essay has attempted to explain the meaning of the passage, attempted to unpack the language utilised by Shakespeare and determine his ideas behind the chosen language. It then tried to justify why and how those ideas in the passage contributed to the play as a whole.
This play portrays the women as fragile and pathetic beings. When Miranda is speaking to Ferdinand she is allowing him to see her as quite vulnerable, which will allow him to view here exactly as that.“At mind unworthiness, that dare not offer/What I desire to give, and much less take”(3.2.77-78). She goes on to say, “If not, I’ll die your maid. To be your fellow/You may deny me, but I’ll be your servant/Whether you will or no”(3.2.83-86). This play is portraying Miranda as a pathetic woman who would rather be a servant to a man that won’t marry her; she would rather be his maid than live without him.
The Duke of Ferrara was made jealous by everything the duchess did, no matter how unimportant it was. He was especially jealous of Fra Pandolf, the man who painted the duchess in the poem. A woman should be pleased only by her husband, as was not the case with the duchess and Fra Pandolf. She was “too easily impressed'; by the painter (line 23). Fra Pandolf was not the only man that made the duke jealous. Everyone who passed the duchess received “much the same smile'; as the duke (line 44). The duke expected to be the only man to receive a smile from his wife.
As a Shakespearean tragedy represents a conflict which terminates in a catastrophe, any such tragedy may roughly be divided into three parts. The first of these sets forth or expounds the situation, or state of affairs, out of which the conflict arises; and it may, therefore, be called the Exposition. The second deals with the definite beginning, the growth and the vicissitudes of the conflict. It forms accordingly the bulk of the play, comprising the Second, Third and Fourth Acts, and usually a part of the First and a part of the Fifth. The final section of the tragedy shows the issue of the conflict in a catastrophe. (52)
Aristotle, as a world famous philosopher, gives a clear definition of tragedy in his influential masterpiece Poetics, a well-known Greek technical handbook of literary criticism. In Aristotle’s words, a tragedy is “an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude, language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play, the form of action, not of narrative, through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions”(Aristotle 12). He believes that a tragedy should be serious and complete in appropriate and pleasurable language; the plot of tragedy should be dramatic, whose incidents will arouse pity and fear, and finally accomplish a catharsis of emotions. His theory of tragedy has been exerting great influence on the tragedy theories in the past two thousand years. Shakespeare, as the greatest dramatist in western literature, also learnt from this theory. Hamlet is one of the most influential tragedies written by Shakespeare. The play vividly focuses on the theme of moral corruption, treachery, revenge, and incest. This essay will first analyze Shakespeare’s Hamlet under Aristotle’s tragedy theory. Then this essay will express personal opinion on Aristotle’s tragedy theory. The purpose of this essay is to help the reader better understand Aristotle’s theory of tragedy and Shakespeare’s masterpiece Hamlet.
I aim to show how the “human” relationships in the play reflect real life relationships within Shakespeare’s own society (as well as his future audience), for which his plays were written and performed. Ferdinand and Miranda’s type of relationship shows Shakespeare’s ideas about true love, recognising not just the emotional side of love, but the physical nature too. Miranda promises Ferdinand “The jewel in my dower” which is her virginity, a prized thing in Jacobean times. This knowledge would have been known by Shakespeare’s audience, and knowing this helps us to understand Prospero’s protection of his daughter from Caliban. Ferdinand is asked not to have lustful thoughts about Miranda as “Sour-eyed disdain and discord shall bestrew the union of your bed with weeds so loathly that you shall hate it both” meaning that sex before marriage will poison the lovers’ marriage bed so that they will both grow to loathe it.
The Speaker in ‘My Last Duchess’ is conversing with the servant of a count whose daughter he is proposing to marry. He treats t...
The epiphany of this however, is realized at the end of the play. Nearly every scene in the play, either intentionally or unintentionally, portrays a struggling relationship between a figure that possesses power and a figure that is suppressed by that power. The play explores the relationship between master and servant very dynamically. In the opening scene, the boatswain (servant) is very oppressive towards the noble men (master) due to their sophomoric attitude in a dangerous situation like that. This is especially visible when Antonio, the usurping Duke of Milan, asks the boatswain where the master is, to this, the boatswain replies, “Do you not hear him?
Bosola's inconsistency makes him different to some of the other characters in the play; the Cardinal is always cold and calculating, Antonio is honorable and benevolent and Ferdinand is fierce and aggressive, even in his mad state. There is no change in their characters, yet Bosola reaches beyond the confinements of the stereotypical role of `black malcontent', as Antonio describes him, altering his opinion of the Duchess as a prostitute, `this precise fellow is the Duchess' bawd', to seeing her as a noble woman and feeling compassion for her in her last moments of life, `Return fair soul from darkness, and lead mine out of this sensible hell!' Bosola's capricious nature makes him more convincing and realistic as a character. At the beginning of the play, the audience will probably dislike Bosola's cruel, pessimistic look on life. His change in opinion t...
Andrews Honors Program. She did her honors thesis on the history of this specific story, and her findings included that “The Duchess of Malfi is arguably one of the more famous and studied of the non-Shakespearean revenge tragedies” (5). Webster’s play would not have been so well-known today if he chose to make this a typical love story. He took elements of all sorts of horrors such as plotting against family, friends deceiving one another, the vengeance of corruption, the madness of murder, and he even was sure to include a variety of different forms of sexual inappropriateness. None of these things were extra effects; each played an important part to his theme of destruction, not only of the court, but of the individuals who lived