Duchess

I have studied few sites dealing with The Duchess of Malfi. One of them is allrfree.blogspot.com where there is an essay with title: “The Duchess of Malfi as a Revenge Tragedy”. The author summarizes that this drama shows the technique of revenge tragedy. However, Webster has modified some of the tradition characteristics of revenge tragedy to make it unique. Overall, one can find almost all elements of the revenge tragedy in this drama.

One of the elements of revenge and tragedy is revenge and murders. One can find people taking revenge and are murdering others. Duchess and Antonio are both the revengeful people and at the same time, they are both villains too. "They are the victims of an insensate fury that blinds the eyes, maddens the drain, and poisons the springs of pity." For example, the brothers became angry once they found out that their sister betrays them for not following their order. They think that The Duchess has destroyed the good reputation and status of their family. So, they decided to kill the Duchess, even she is her sister, to protect their family reputation. However, according to the author, "their deeds of revenge are not a wild kind of justice but monstrous wrong."

Besides, horrors can be found throughout this drama, from the beginning to the end. The spectacle of waxen of images of the dead bodies of Antonio and children presented before the Duchess is a horrid scene. The scene The Duke gives a dead man's hand to Duchess in order to horrify her can be considered as a horrid scene too. On the other hand, for this horror element, Professor Larry Avis Brown in his website suggests that the "Webster uses these horror devices for more than shock effect or sensationalism." According to Professor Larry, "F...

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...between evil and good. The author even praises Webster's talent "that can make us feel disgusted as well as pitiful towards Bosola at the same time." Then, in the final act, Antonio meets with Cardinal to beg peace. The author argues that Antonio's "ultimate ineptness as a husband, father and protector of his family is made harshly clear" and it shows that "he has never really been more than a frame to the liveliness, power, and courage of the Duchess." Anyway, like most of the websites I searched, Julia is not mentioned in the summary as it's criticized as "extraneous to the plot." However, according to the Professor Larry Avis Brown, "Julia provides an important comparison to the Duchess, both willful, independent women who initiate relationships with men and conduct secret affairs." Julia's death is another important point leading to the conversion of Bosola.