In John Webster's tragic play, The Duchess of Malfi, the titular character is undoubtedly subjected to great suffering, both physical and mental . However, it is less clear whether or not she can be considered simply an innocent victim. While it can indeed be argued that the Duchess provides an example of good people suffering from the evil of an imperfect world, she can also be seen conversely as unwittingly contributing to her own downfall, in line with Aristotelian ideas of tragedy . Viewing the Duchess as a character who destroys herself may be viewing her as a generally moral person who falls prey to her own hamartia, whether it be an error of judgment or recklessness. Alternatively, it may be to view her as a character who causes her downfall due to moral discrepancies such as lust, selfishness, or hubris or excessive pride. The latter portrait is of a character who deserves his fate, as his suffering is seen as punishment rather than an example of unjust persecution. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get the original essay It is tempting to argue that the Duchess herself is the culprit of her own downfall, due to her poor choices and of his bad deeds. David Mann clearly places the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Duchess since he suggests that "unlike other heroines who are passive victims of men's cruelty or misunderstandings, the Duchess creates her own tragedy through her actions, completely knowledge of the cause, preferring to live his sexual life to the fullest and, knowing what they are, risking the consequences”[1]. In this sense, it can be inferred that lust is the Duchess's tragic flaw or hamartia, and that her inability to resist its temptation paves the way for her ultimate destruction. Indeed, it is her secret affair and her marriage to Antonio that lead directly to her death and her decidedly tragic suffering because they serve to provoke the anger of Ferdinand and the cardinal. She disobeys her brothers' wish to remain a chaste widow, for which they inflict torture and murder on her in return. Of course, with the idea that the Duchess causes her own suffering, can also come the idea that she deserves it because she is, in Ferdinand's words, a "whore"[2] who embodies corruption and indecency. Indeed, her language to Antonio is often sexually suggestive, for example when she tells him that she "is flesh and blood... not the silhouette carved in alabaster... She kneels before [her] grave." husband” (14). Here, the imagery of her flesh demarcates her seductive nature as she offers her body to a second husband in direct defiance of her brothers. Philip Stevick supports this view by stating that "here we have a protagonist whose character is essentially unsympathetic, in the sense that [his] aims and objectives are repugnant."[3] This statement highlights the questionable obscenity of the Duchess's desires and how her suffering could be made well deserved. It can also be seen that in addition to her sinful acts of lust, the Duchess also suffers from a certain degree of hubris in the form of hubris. Indeed, she is convinced that she must be able to choose her own partner and refuses to comply with the wishes of her brothers. She defies social norms by proposing to Antonio, suggesting that her pride makes her unwilling to exist as her brothers' claim to a royal lineage, and she considers herself worthy and capable of assuming the male role in her courtship with Antonio . It can be said that the power of the Duchess leads her todeveloping inflated self-esteem, believing herself to be exempt from the expectations placed on her both as a woman and as a leader. This assumption can be seen as his error of judgment and his excessive pride as his fatal flaw. It can be argued that the Duchess is also guilty of abandoning her public duties in favor of a marriage of a sexual nature with the social inferiority into which she fell. love with. She makes her priorities clear just before she proposes to Antonio, as she tells him that she is "making [her] will as becomes princes" (12). This statement can be interpreted as the Duchess suggesting that the personal effort of courting and marrying Antonio is her true duty rather than her political duties and public obligations. From this perspective, the Duchess is also guilty of weakness of character, as she appears to lack the will necessary to put the importance of leadership ahead of her own personal desires. The Duchess, as the leader of a nation, can be seen as having two distinct sides. There is his physical body and his personal life, and then there is his political side or his body politic. By focusing her primary goals and attentions on Antonio, the Duchess shows herself to be far more concerned with the needs of her private physical body than with the duties of her body politic. It is notable that the complete loss of control and power at the hands of his brothers can be seen as a fitting punishment for his abuse and neglect of political power. She does not respect her position of power and so it is taken away from her, along with the power to protect those she loves. The loss of her husband and children can be seen as a consequence of her selfishness and disregard for her duties. She seduces Antonio and makes him live a provocative secret life with her, which ends up getting him murdered. Meanwhile, her children are actually the physical product of sexual acts that arguably make the Duchess guilty of irresponsibility and selfishness. The Duchess's children can be considered to have been born at the expense of her nation, as she is more concerned with her maternal responsibility to her children than her public responsibility to her people. The nature of the Duchess's relationship with Antonio has two contradictory aspects, as do the Duchess and her priorities. Antonio is not only the object of her lust and later her husband, he also holds a political position in her court as a steward. Politically and socially, he considers himself her inferior, but the Duchess knowingly breaks customs and public expectations by elevating him to the rank of her marital equal. On that note, marrying herself can also be seen as the main driver of her brothers' anger, and therefore the root cause of the Duchess's tragic fate. This idea is supported by the conversation between the Duchess, Ferdinand and the Cardinal during which the Cardinal warns her that remarriage to someone who is not a noble like her first husband would "influence [her] high blood" (9). From this comment it is clear that both brothers were personally concerned to protect their sister's royal blood by ensuring that it was not tainted by remarriage to a suitor of a lower social class. Theodora A. Jankowski supports this view, stating that "the very nature of her marriage is so revolutionary and challenges social customs to such a degree that the Duchess must be punished for her audacity in creating it."[4] Indeed, the Duchess not only breaks with customs by marrying under her, especially since she is a figure of political power, but also by assuming what would have been perceived asthe “masculine” role in the relationship in a Jacobean context. , the Duchess is still responsible for her own downfall, not only because of her lustful nature or lack of loyalty to her duties, but also because of her decision to juggle both situations at once. From this point of view, her real mistake is rashness, since she carries out a secret marriage, becomes a mother of children and tries to maintain her position as duchess without thinking about the possible consequences of this conflict of priorities. Contrary to the idea that she chooses lust over duty, it seems that she actually chooses both lust and leadership. We see that it is this impossible attempt to maintain two courses on opposite paths that causes his life to turn into what Stevick calls “well-deserved misfortune”[5]. From this point of view, the path of duty is only feasible in a situation where the duchess either remains a widow or remarries a person corresponding to her own social status. Rather, the Duchess marries Antonio out of love and attraction, as opposed to social responsibility and duty. Alongside this misguided attempt at a double life, the Duchess can also be seen as guilty of a serious error of judgment regarding her brothers' evil capabilities. As Marliss C. Desens argues, “she initially underestimates how far her male relatives will go when they perceive that she is beyond their control”[6]. Indeed, while aware that her brothers will disapprove, she tells Antonio that if they find out, “time will easily disperse the storm” (14). She recognizes that marrying her may anger her brothers, but doesn't realize that their need to control her goes much deeper than just choosing her husband for her. The very fact that the Duchess possesses the power to rule can be seen as enough in itself to taint her moral image and present her as the cause of her own well-deserved downfall in the context of a Jacobean society. Therefore, although choosing love over duty is sometimes considered his fatal mistake, his dedication to the throne may have been just as catastrophic. Lisa Hopkins supports this reasoning by stating that, in Renaissance England, "female government is, by nature, seen as inherently monstrous, as Knox suggests when he compares female government to a monstrous body politic." without a real leader”[7]. . Indeed, Knox's rejection of female domination predates Webster's The Duchess of Malfi by about three decades, and it embodies the aversion to the placement of women in positions of authority that has persisted to some extent throughout the modern period. The reference to the metaphor of the body politic which compares a nation and its people to a living body, as well as the assertion that a government or "body" led by a woman is inherently distorted and monstrous, certainly suggests that the leadership of the Duchess is a destructive and corrupting power. a scourge to herself, her country and her people. The portrait painted by Knox has further implications for the character of the Duchess, as it depicts the main female body politic as headless. This suggests that, like all female leaders, the Duchess is intellectually and inherently incapable of success, making her failure not only self-imposed, but ultimately inevitable, purely due to her gender. Hopkins describes this view of women as incapable of achieving anything substantial, as she notes that “what the Duchess is doing would not be wrong if she were a private person; this therefore implies that if a woman is placed in aposition of public responsibility, it must either violate its own nature or transgress its duties”[8]. Indeed, the romance between the Duchess and Antonio is arguably immoral, in large part because of the Duchess's responsibility to protect the royal lineage with which she rules the nation. Her marriage and sexual relations with Antonio not only violate this lineage, but also distract her from her obligation to devote herself to her country and her people. Additionally, Knox summarized his reasoning behind his denunciation of women leaders using biblical references to God's creation of Adam and Eve. For example, in his 16th-century book, The History of the Reformation of Scotland, Knox wrote: "First, I say, woman in her greatest perfection was made to serve and obey man, and not to govern and command him”[9]. The religious connotations that women are "made" to be subservient have implications for the Duchess's morality, the implication being that by renouncing her God-given position in favor of power, she deserves her suffering as a form of divine punishment or justice. Therefore, from a purely Christian perspective, the Duchess certainly brings unhappiness upon herself through her actions and their respective consequences, but these consequences come as a punishment from God himself, instead of simply being the result logic of cause and effect. The impression that the Duchess is responsible for her own downfall is probably more a product of the play and the playwright's original period, rather than being due to any real fault on the part of the character. The portrait of a powerful woman who makes her own choices and resists the constraints of Jacobean patriarchy would have been considered controversial and provocative in its original 17th-century context. Mann underlines this point by stating: "This is a unique portrait, well ahead of its time, and one which, arguably, transcends the restrictive polarization of women to which even Shakespeare largely subscribed."[10] It can be argued that it is this deviation from gender role norms that once made the Duchess seem like an abomination of sorts, destroying herself by rejecting her expected submissive nature. In other words, the Duchess's suffering appears to be self-inflicted or well-deserved only when placed in the context of a Jacobean society and its oppressive and rigid expectations of real and fictional women. It is not only the public perception of the Duchess that is said to have been influenced by this society, but also Webster's portrayal and treatment of the character and her actions. This treatment, contrary to outdated public perception, persists even in contemporary society as it is reflected in language and tone. As Emma Smith argues, the play "certainly does not perpetuate the moralization [of the Duchess being a whore who deserved her suffering], but neither does it completely transform the play's central couple into heroics".[11] However, although the character of the Duchess is, to some extent, negatively colored by the fact that she is an empowered and powerful female character who is the product of a male-oriented period, there is also a contrasting sense of her as being a sympathetic character. . Leah S. Marcus challenges the notion that 17th-century audiences would view the Duchess as an immoral and self-destructive figure, as she asserts that "Despite – or because of – her clandestine marriage and its aftermath, the Duchess of Malfi sparked a sympathetic response among many people. Londoners even decades after the work in which it appears was written and created”[12].Smith gives an example of a scene that describes the play's more positive impressions of the Duchess and her morality by stating that "Carola's death, begging for mercy, seems designed to emphasize the Duchess's self-control and grace" [ 13]. Indeed, juxtaposed with the pitiful entreaties of her servant who declares that she is "not prepared for this" and that she "shall not die... must not" (66), the Duchess's dignified acceptance of her own death reinforces her as both a sympathetic and admirable character. Smith recognizes the Duchess's dual impression in terms of morality and her choices and actions, as she states that "the play's inconsistent attitudes toward the Duchess may suggest her own struggle with what she represents, and the impossibility of reconcile his aspiration for autonomy. governance with the patriarchal world in which she and her Jacobean audience largely live”[14]. Certainly, even if the integrity of her actions is often questionable, we must take into consideration that these moral apprehensions may well be necessary for her to free herself from the oppression of the men in her life. Despite arguments portraying the Duchess as a character who falls prey to her own hubris, the most compelling view regarding the cause of her suffering is that it is not her fault. Overall, she appears simply as an innocent victim of external evils. Most poignant among these evils is the human cruelty of his brothers, who directly destroy almost everything he holds dear, before finally ending his life. In Ferdinand's case, the "punishment" he inflicts on his sister has little to do with what she did or did not do, and has everything to do with the imperfect nature and deeply perverted by Ferdinand. Martin White argues that "Ferdinand's desire for his sister borders on the incestuous, although his feelings are in no way returned by the Duchess".[15] Indeed, many critics interpret Ferdinand's obsession with his sister's destruction as being motivated not by class concerns or anger at his sister's disloyalty, but rather by an unrequited sexual attraction towards She. Indeed, on several occasions, he uses his dagger as a tool of intimidation against his sister. This dagger can be seen as a phallic symbol and the way he uses it to threaten her has sexual connotations. The threat of penetrating her flesh with a phallic object is most likely a metaphor for his actual threat of rape motivated by his need to possess her sexually. From this perspective, the Duchess is completely blameless in her downfall, as her only contributing traits or actions are those she cannot help, namely being a woman and being attractive. She is ultimately forced to endure unspeakable suffering simply because of Ferdinand's bitterness and jealousy over her marriage to another man, as well as his hope that destroying her will destroy the perverse feelings of lust and prohibitions of which he may or may not be fully aware. The emergence of Ferdinand's delusion of lycanthropy supports this notion of incestuous undertones in his character, as his "transformation" occurs shortly after the murder of his sister. Having dominated his physical body by ending his life, the "beast" that emerges can be seen as a symbol of a forbidden sexual desire towards his sister that is ultimately released by his death. Even if this incestuous view of Ferdinand's intentions must be rejected, and he and the Cardinal are indeed concerned about their sister's social class and the purity of their lineage, it remains unfair that the Duchess is forced to suffer because of their fixings. , the innocent duchess is a victim not only of her brothers, butof patriarchy in general. She now occupies a unique position for a 17th-century woman, in that she is both largely autonomous as a widow and in control of her deceased husband's court. It is this autonomy and power that ultimately makes her a target in a largely patriarchal society. Those of her brother symbolize the overwhelming oppression of patriarchy on women and their desire for freedom, as argued by Dr Sarah E Johnson who argues that Webster's play "shows men obsessively trying to control a woman's body." woman, and a woman trying to recover the body, at least.” to a certain extent, the damage caused by this control”[16]. The brothers seek to control his physical body, first by denying him bodily pleasures by ordering him to remain chaste, and later by denying him physical life by literally strangling him. Indeed, as the duchess's title gives her a certain political authority over her brothers, Ferdinand and the cardinal use violence as a means of rebalancing their family dynamic to adapt again to the model of patriarchy, the sister being crushed by the dominating weight of power. male siblings. The aforementioned phallic symbol of Ferdinand's dagger contains not only shades of incestuous desire, but also mechanisms of patriarchy. This is evident when Ferdinand tells the Duchess that it was "[their] father's dagger" (10), and is therefore a symbol of patriarchy passed down from father to son. This can be seen as demonstrating, through this use of symbolism, the way in which control of women in the 17th century was passed from their fathers to their husbands or brothers. Despite her tendency to reject tradition, the Duchess does not completely break away from these patriarchal restrictions, as she strives to keep her marriage a secret from her brothers. In this way, she becomes aware of her restrictions as a woman and tries to get around them without submitting to them. This is an important point in light of the view that the Duchess may have been wrong to keep her marriage a secret, as she would not have been forced to do so without the oppression of the patriarchy. patriarchy and the anger of her brothers can be seen as the main causes of the Duchess's suffering, there is also the idea that human cruelty and societal oppression are just two harsh aspects of a deeply flawed world and imperfect. The character of Bosola, although himself evil, subscribes to the belief that living in the world and, more specifically, in human society is an unpleasant experience. He describes life itself as a "general fog of error" (65), suggesting that humanity is the result of a random accident and therefore rejecting the Christian idea of ​​divine creation. He goes on to imply that we are born for no other reason than to suffer and die, which is evident when he juxtaposes the image of death as "a hideous storm of terror" (65) with the calm but depressing of the insignificant. mist of life. This is indeed largely reminiscent of the Duchess's life experience during the novel. Having presumably found freedom from her husband with his death, she still lives under the oppressive "fog" of the evils of a society obsessed with social status and self-interest. These distorted values ​​can still be considered relevant even in contemporary society. In this view, the Duchess does not impose suffering on herself, but rather is inevitably doomed to suffer along with the rest of humanity. Alternatively, it can be argued that his suffering is not inevitable in general, but inevitable due to his innocence and kindness. Rather than being rewarded for this,., 1991), 182.