Themes
Women
- General Misogyny
o Jacobean society remained firmly patriarchal and misogynistic, as can be seen in Joseph Swetnam’s
popular 1615 pamphlet proclaiming women were “necessary evils”
o Bosola’s comments to the Old Lady about makeup
- Widows
o The legal concept of coverture meant that, upon marriage, a woman’s legal rights were subsumed by
her husband. A widow was freed from the disempowering concept of coverture and so became
responsible for herself and her own property.
o Sir Thomas Overbury (a friend of Webster’s) wrote 2 character sketches – “A Virtuous Widow” and
“An Ordinary Widow” suggesting that a moral widow should not remarry.
o Expectations of Widows
Ferdinand: “You are a widow: you know already what man is”
“By making the mad Ferdinand the primary mouthpiece for stereotypes of widows, the
Duchess is distanced from such notions” – Callaghan.
Cardinal: “commonly that motion lasts no longer than the turning of an hourglass”
Ferdinand: “such weddings may more properly be said to be executed than celebrated.”
Cardinal: “The marriage night is the entrance into some prison.”
o The Duchess’ subversion of expectations
Duchess: “Diamonds are of most value they say, that have passed through most jewellers’
hands.”
Duchess: I’m “not the figure cut in alabaster kneels at my husband’s tomb.”
Duchess when proposing “like a widow I use but half a blush in’t.”
o The Duchess as unusual as a woman with power.
Duchess: “whether I am doomed to live, or die, I can do both like a prince.”
o Wadsworth, Mikesell, and Forker argue there was a pluralistic contemporary attitude towards widows.
But Ferdinand seems to class only the ‘true’ widow and the ‘lusty’ one and operates as if the
Duchess can only solely be one or the other.
o But the Duchess is not a typical widow and so likely would not receive the same condemnation.
The Duchess’ youth is emphasised, such as through her foil in the Old Lady, and this makes her
remarriage less radical.
1600-1659, half the widows in their twenties and thirties returned to the altar.
Ferdinand: “she’s a young widow – I would not have her marry again.”
o “[Ferdinand], not her society, is condemning her to a life of solitude.” – Elizabeth
Oakes
In literature on widows, “even the most vitriolic misogynist exempts the young woman” –
Elizabeth Oakes
There was also a significant wait between her first and second marriage.
Also she was not marrying someone related to her or in any way involved in the death of her first
husband.
She is “within the bounds of decorum, custom, and law in remarrying.” – Elizabeth Oakes
o But: The Duchess is not a typical widow and so likely would not receive the same condemnation.
The Duchess’ youth is emphasised, such as through her foil in the Old Lady, and this makes her
remarriage less radical.
1600-1659, half the widows in their twenties and thirties returned to the altar.
Ferdinand: “she’s a young widow – I would not have her marry again.”
o “[Ferdinand], not her society, is condemning her to a life of solitude.” – Elizabeth
Oakes
In literature on widows, “even the most vitriolic misogynist exempts the young woman” –
Elizabeth Oakes
There was also a significant wait between her first and second marriage.
Also she was not marrying someone related to her or in any way involved in the death of her first
husband.
She is “within the bounds of decorum, custom, and law in remarrying.” – Elizabeth Oakes
- The Duchess being compared to a man.
o Webster was alive during Elizabeth I’s rule and was not unfamiliar with women in positions of power,
however there were still fears about powerful women. John Knox wrote The First Blast of the
, Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, 1558 which stated that female rule went against
the rules of nature as laid out by God.
o Equal to a man
Duchess: “men in some great battles, by apprehending danger have achieved almost impossible
actions […] so I, through frights and threat’nings will assay this dangerous venture.” – compares
herself to a soldier.
In her proposal, the Duchess has power over her husband.
Antonio: “These words should be mine” – gender reversal – he should be the one
comforting her.
Julia also pursues the Cardinal: “I woo you.”
o Less than/unable to do the same roles.
Ferdinand: “What cannot a neat knave with a smooth tale make a woman believe?” (As if they
are gullible and naïve).
Cariola: “Whether the spirit of greatness or of woman reign most in her, I know not”
Duchess: “Were I a man I’d beat that counterfeit face into thy other.”
- The Duchess’ presentation as unusual for a Jacobean female character
o Normally women weren’t developed in great detail on stage but in The Duchess of Malfi, the Duchess
is the eponymous figure, and she is shown both ageing and pregnant.
Act 2 Scene 1: Bosola: “she pukes, her stomach seethes, the fins of her eyelids look most
teeming blue”.
Act 3 Scene 2: Duchess: “Doth not the colour of my hair ‘gin to change?”
Act 4 Scene 2: Bosola: “riot begins to sit on thy forehead, clad in grey hairs, twenty years sooner
than on a merry milkmaid’s.”
- The Duchess' maternal role
o Women were only expected to marry for children, hence why widows should not remarry after they
had them. The Duchess is clearly shown to marry for love alone, something unacceptable in the eyes
of people like Overbury.
o “The Duchess, not her brothers, stands for ordinary humanity, love and the continuity of life through
children.” – Irving Ribner
o The Duchess as the typical mother.
In her last few moments, facing down the executioners, the Duchess thinks of her kids: “I pray
thee look thou giv’st my little boy some syrup for his cold, and let the girl say her prayers ere
she sleep.”
o The Duchess as atypical.
The children are not mentioned except when relevant to the plot.
o The Duchess is often viewed as a vehicle of childbirth and it governs how others think of her.
Ferdinand: “Read there: a sister damned”
Antonio: “She’s an excellent feeder of pedigrees”
- Female Greed
o Women were not expected/allowed to be greedy/have earthly desires – female bodies were meant for
reproduction only. Eve’s greed for the apple was the Original Sin – the Duchess has also fallen
through her desire and is revealed by it too.
o The Duchess’ story is very similar to that of Arbella Stuart who defied both Elizabeth and James to get
married and was punished by being locked up. James didn’t want Arbella to have children because
they could be heirs to the throne.
“Arbella’s tragic outcome certainly exemplifies the precarious position that even high-born
women occupied in Jacobean society” – Peter Morrison
Bosola: “How greedily she eats them!”
Julia’s downfall is her curiosity – also something women weren’t meant to exhibit - Cardinal:
“Thy curiosity hath undone thee.”
- Treatment of women
o Women were played by men on stage and despite some powerful women, women were treated as
inferior to men.
The play begins with all men in a conventional court setting before Duchess, Julia, and Cariola
arrive at once.
Bosola: “You come from painting now?” – mocking the Old Lady for her make-up (something
considered unholy at the time so this would have been a moment of humour.)
Bosola: “some of you give entertainment for pure love: but more, for more precious reward.”
, The Cardinal says women are as constant as glass is bendy and that: “we had need go borrow that
fantastic glass […] to view […] th’moon, and look to find a constant woman there.”
Women treated differently to men.
Bosola asks Julia how the Cardinal would react if they were found having an affair –
“Would he not count me a villain?” and Julia replies: “No, he might count me a wanton, not
lay a scruple of offence on you”.
Julia: “For if I see and steal a diamond, the fault is not i’th’stone but in me the thief”
- Women as deceitful
o DoM hides a secret marriage:
About the Duchess’ marriage: “perpetually clandestine” – Dympna Callaghan
“When the Duchess chooses to defy her brothers’ world her choice inescapably involves an
element of deceit or at best evasion” – J. R. Mulryne
About DoM: “Webster’s character places her private desire to marry Antonio above her public
responsibility as a ruler, an action that identifies her with her corrupt brothers” – Theodora A.
Jankowski
Duchess to Ferdinand: “When I choose a husband, I will marry for your honour.” – she then gets
engaged and married in this scene.
“as a tyrant doubles his words, and fearfully equivocates, so we [...] leave the path of simple
virtue.”
Secret marriage/pregnancy parallel – Lady Arbella Stuart defied both Queen Elizabeth and King
James to get married and was punished by being locked up. James didn’t want Arbella to have
children who could be heirs to the throne.
Webster himself married his wife Sara Peniall in 1606 when she was 7 months pregnant.
o Duchess other lies
Duchess: “I must now accuse you of such a feigned crime as Tasso calls Magnamina mensogna,
a noble lie.” – allusion to Gerusalemme Liberata. (She pretends to “fire” Antonio publicly and is
able to convince everyone).
Bosola: “I would wish your grace to feign a pilgrimage to our Lady of Loreto […] so may you
depart your country with more honour”. (Abuse of religion) DoM agrees.
- Female sexual desire as dangerous
o Both pursue secret relationships – one is legitimate -> but both die (revenge tragedy)
Orazio Busino reported seeing a performance where the Cardinal was shown “with a harlot on
his knee”.
“Julia is a foil to the Duchess who takes a man as she feels the impulse” – Bradbrook
Duchess of Suffolk – famous widow who married one of her servants.
o The risk to a bloodline posed by female desire:
Ferdinand imagines the Duchess with “some strong-thighed bargeman” – lower class.
The brothers fear their bloodline being “attainted”.
Renaissance belief that blood was exchanged during sexual intercourse.
“Palace of Pleasure” 1566 – William Painter’s book where the blame is again placed on DoM
and Antonio – The Duchess is the stereotype of the “lusty widow” who is culpable of excessive
sexual desire. The story is a moral one in which female sexual desire is punished.
“Female desire in the play is shown to have the capacity to undermine, and ultimately transform,
the fabric of the state.” – Dympna Callaghan
“Webster develops the Duchess’ character while simultaneously utilising and resisting the
polarised discourses around women at the time, which presented women as wither chaste
paragons or lascivious whores” – Dympna Callaghan
o The Duchess’ greed is used to reveal her pregnancy (and therefore her ‘greed’/desire) – Bosola: “How
greedily she eats them!”
Greed – Women shouldn’t be greedy – female bodies are for reproduction only. Eve’s greed for
the apple was the first sin.
“repeating the historic transgression of Eve” – Dympna Callaghan
- Women who defy expectations/systems of control
o Women were “essential but threatening to social power” – Barbara Correll
o "In the context of a culture that understood power and virtuous femininity to be mutually exclusive,
the Duchess' character questions what it means to be 'great' in tragedy" – Dympna Callaghan.
o John Knox – wrote The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, 1558 –
states that female rule went against the rules of nature as laid out by God.
But audience familiar with female rule under Queen Elizabeth I.
