The Duchess Of Malfi

Lloyd 1 John Webster’s Duchess of Malfi: Noble in Birth and Life In John Webster’s play The Duchess of Malfi, the Duchess shows an uncommon strength of character and self-reliance, beginning with her decision to defy her brothers and marry again, and culminating with her death. The Duchess displays a powerful personal strength and a dominating will until the moment of her death at Bosola’s hands. She displays her strength throughout her prolonged ordeal in a myriad of ways, beginning by defying her brothers’ wishes for her not to remarry in the first place, and continuing after her capture by Ferdinand, with her dignity throughout her torture and her death. The Duchess demonstrates her unique determination by going against the command of her brothers, the Cardinal and Ferdinand, that she never marry again. She makes an immediate decision, knowing what she wants and what is right for her, and ignoring what may be right for her brothers. This is the first indication of the powerful will the Duchess displays throughout the play. Despite the intensity of the emotional and political pressure her brothers subject her to, she is determined to achieve what she desires most, marriage to Antonio: “If all my royal kindred/ Lay in my way unto this marriage,/ I’d make them my low footsteps” (Webster 1441). She is determined to do what she wants and face the consequences, whether it subverts the established order or not —“So I through fights and threatenings will assay/ This dangerous venture (Webster 1441).” Her defiant insistence on following her own desires allows her to achieve what she wants, Antonio. She shows a strength of will and character with her actions, because to the reader, it seems that Ferdinand and the Cardinal have no real motive for their request for the duchess not to marry. The Duchess insists on being acknowledged as the

Lloyd 2 person and duchess she is, able to make decisions for herself and in her own best interest. Her actions contrast with the prevailing ideas of how women should act in such a way that Mary Beth Rose contends, “Her assertiveness in wooing Antonio has been characterized as androgynous, an attempt to conjoin male and female modes (Rose 164).” The Duchess’s actions as the play continues demonstrate the “radical potential of female heroism in the process of cultural change (Rose 165).” Despite being looked down upon as a lesser person as a woman and a widow, the Duchess purports herself with a dignity that Ferdinand and the Cardinal, with their tyranny, can never accomplish. She refuses to admit that her life is over due to her premature widowhood, and accept their idea that she is supposed to remain alone for the rest of her life. She defies them, hoping they will change, and hoping that things at her court will change for the better because of it. No matter what happens to her, the Duchess believes in herself and the strength she possesses—“I am armed ‘gainst misery” (Webster 1477). She knows the duties she has as duchess, but even more importantly, she knows what she wants to accomplish in her personal life, and she intends to let no one stand in her way. She proclaims to Antonio, “This is flesh and blood, sir,;/'Tis ot the figure cut in alabaster/ Kneels at my husband's tomb” (Webster 1444). As Ferdinand tortures her, the Duchess again shows her uncommon inner strength. Bosola presses her to admit she erred in disobeying her brothers, but she refuses to succumb to this pressure. He tells Ferdinand that she displays “a behavior so noble/ As gives a majesty to adversity” (Webster 1477). Lee Bliss writes of the Duchess, “she refuses Bosola’s or her brothers’ right to judge or punish her. The Duchess does not

Lloyd 3 simply defy Bosola. She challenges the assumptions on which he bases his taunts, forces on him the dilemma of knowledge confounding knowledge” (Bliss 152). She explains to him, “Man is most happy when one’s own actions/ Be arguments and examples of his virtue” (Webster 1476), and she follows this creed in the play. It is this ability to fight for what she believes in that helps Bosola, after her death, to realize that he has erred in following her brothers’ orders, going against what is right or good in the process. She asks him, “I prithee, who is greatest? Can you tell?” (Webster 1476), and he eventually realizes that the person who allows their actions to carry out their beliefs is the “greatest.” He realizes that her values were important enough to her to not only believe in but to follow through and stand up for, and he admires this quality in her and realizes how wrong he was to believe in the false pretenses under which he was following Ferdinand’s orders. According to Travis Bogard, “Webster... surrounds her last moments with all the horrors of hell. The purpose is to see if a force of pure, motiveless evil can shake her fundamental integrity” (Bogard 67). Gunnar Boklund agrees that by “depriving the Duchess first of her elevated social position, then of her liberty and the amenities of life and now finally of her hope, Webster has methodically taken away all the exterior supports on which she may conceivably have relied to fortify her endurance. From now on she is all alone in a closed room, with nothing outside herself to aid her” (Boklund 113). The Duchess of Malfi proclaims, “Necessity makes me suffer constantly” (Webster 1482), but despite this, she does not give in to baser desires, such as hate or revenge, at least outwardly. As they are being bombarded by a cacophony of noises, she goes so far as to tell Cariola, “Nothing but noise and folly/ Can keep me in my right wits, whereas

Lloyd 4 reason/ And silence make me stark mad” (Webster 1481). Even after she believes Ferdinand has destroyed everything she loves, her husband and her children, she retains her dignity, knowing her actions were right. Finally, the Duchess accepts death with serenity and bears her unfortunate fate with an inherent nobility. She proclaims, “I am Duchess of Malfi still” (Webster 1484), and this reaffirmation of her position, even when faced with death, is the culmination of the strength and resolve the Duchess has developed over time. Rather than choosing to suffer and accept death, she reasserts her title as rightful ruler of Amalfi, demonstrating how Ferdinand can kill her, but he can never change who she is, or what she has done. She accepts herself and is unrepentant of her actions. Rather than accepting defeat, she turns her death into a victory of her will over her tormentors. She is serene in the face of death, not calmly accepting her fate but defiantly protesting, telling Bosola she is not afraid of death. According to Lee Bliss, “In her final composure she transforms former curses into forgiveness of her executioners, her wish for general chaos into concern for Cariola and for her children. In the face of death she transcends self-absorption and despair” (Bliss 155). The Duchess, instead of pleading for her life, tells Cariola to take care of her children—“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” (Webster 1485). Indeed, the Duchess’ unselfish pleas for her children contrast with the desperate pleas of Cariola, who, when faced with death, begs for mercy, reducing herself to a level below that of her captors. Faced with death, the Duchess retains her innate integrity. In stark contrast, the Duchess defies her

Lloyd 5 tormentors to try to kill her—“Pull, and pull strongly, for your able strength/ Must pull down heaven upon me” (Webster 1486). Earlier, the Duchess had told Ferdinand, “know, whether I am doomed to live or die,/ I can do both like a prince” (Webster 1464), and when faced with her actual death, she shows that she can keep her sense of dignity even under the most difficult of circumstances. Indeed, killed for a cause she believes in, with her death the Duchess almost ascends to the level of a martyr, continuing to identify herself and her family openly, with no shame or guilt. She clarifies why she defied her brothers and married Antonio in the first place—if she is willing to die for her actions, she certainly must believe that she did the right thing. She still identifies herself, at her death, with the values she ascribed to in life. With the proclamation “I am Duchess of Malfi still,” the Duchess of Malfi reclaims her identity, the identity she still holds even after all her secrets have been revealed. With the suffering she has now endured as the Duchess of Malfi, she has been able to achieve the peak of her strength, and she can stand with dignity and a truly heroic stature, knowing that she never gave in to her brothers with the weakness that was expected of her. In this moment, “she assumes… a posture of true humility that denies the arrogance of ‘princes’ palaces’” (Bliss 155). She is never called by name, but the Duchess of Webster’s Duchess of Malfi nevertheless shows a resilience and strength of character unmatched by anyone else in the play. Her courage, even when faced with death, is remarkable, and sets her apart from her brothers, who have no values or reasons for what they do to her. The Duchess held fast to her beliefs, and acted on them, and in the end she stood by them even under great pressure. Her beliefs are reinforced with the integrity of her actions, and when she

Lloyd 6 proclaims, “I am Duchess of Malfi still” (Webster 1484), she proves that she is not only noble in birth, but noble in character—and that is a true accomplishment.