The Fourth Act of The Duchess
"The first necessity of baroque is that the audience should be
gripped, excited, moved" [1] - so says Ralph Berry. The fourth act of
The Duchess of Malfi certainly succeeds under all these criteria,
being the dramatic crux of the play. The events that occur in the
first scene are undoubtedly crucial, but it is the characters' vastly
varied reactions to them that are vitally important. Rich imagery is
deeply interwoven with the fabric of play - indeed, it is an essential
part of its function - and the scene's proceedings are completely
overshadowed by the telling relationship between Ferdinand, Bosola and
the Duchess that is explored throughout act IV, scene i.
Often, it is in the most trying times that the true nature of people
is allowed to shine through their veiled everyday existence. In this
scene, the Duchess is subjected to imprisonment and cruel tortures by
her malevolent twin brother who is still unable to come to terms with
his sister's independence and intimate relationship with Antonio.
Bosola is beginning to experience emotions he had previously repressed
or never had the capacity to experience in court life. He is forced to
astatically struggle with inner turmoil and design for himself a new
system of morality. Because of these simultaneous occurrences, the
three major characters' rôles are brought out to the front of the
stage for punctilious analysis. "The whole of Act IV is a protracted
dying as, step by step, 'by degrees', the Duchess is made to face the
utmost pain, misery and evil" [2]. As this happens, the very best and
most deplorable characteristics are teased out and, as their
relationship develops, the tensions between these three persons cause
the...
... middle of paper ...
...voked combines with horrors typical of the
period and the complex relationship between the Duchess, Ferdinand and
Bosola elicits responses that have a far greater effect on the outcome
of the play than any other aspect of the drama or events that have
occurred.
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[1] Ralph Berry, The Art of John Webster (Clarendon Press, 1972)
[2] Jan Kott, A personal essay (1986)
[3] Professor John Jump, "The White Devil" and "The Duchess of Malfi"
[4] John Webster, The White Devil, (Mermaid, 1996)
[5] Peter Murray, A Study of John Webster (Mouton, 1969)
[6] Professor John Jump, "The White Devil" and "The Duchess of Malfi"
[7] Irving Ribner, Jacobean Tragedy: The Quest For Moral Order
(Methuen, 1962)
[8] U. M. Ellis Fermor, The Jacobean Drama: An Interpretation
(Methuen, 1936)
Act 3 Scene 4, so called the closet scene, is the first time we see Hamlet and Gertrude together alone. In this scene Hamlet releases his anger and frustration at his mother for the sinful deed she has committed i.e. her marriage to her brother-in-law and the murderer. We can see that Gertrude is unaware of her husband's murder when she says `As kill a King?' and it is the first time she confronts her own behavior. There is a conflict between the two; Hamlet gives powerful replies
It shouldn't be forgotten that in the body of the play those who are masters of a language of extraordinary wit and polish - language that seems to guarantee rationality and good judgement - get things almost completely wrong. The resolution of the play comes via the agency of the people whose discourse is an assault on language, who are dismissed - by Leonato - as 'tedious' when they should be patiently listened to. But, as Borachio says 'what your wisdoms could not discover, these shallow fools have brought to light' (V.1.221-222). And even more disturbing, that resolution comes by mere accident: by the chance overhearing of a conversation.
plot of the play. After all, in Act Four we not only have the lovers
In the tale that Geoffrey Chaucer had wrote, The Wife of Bath’s Tale, a man was described as a Knight. This Knight wasn’t like any normal Knight, he messed up and raped a girl. This is a big mistake, giving a lot of Knights a bad name, and having those that look up to them start to be disappointed in them. Usually the punishment that is given to those that rape, or in general any other crime, is death or time in the slammer, however, the Queen says no because he is a good looking guy. Instead of death, he had find out what women most desire from men. He is given a year and a day to find out, and on the last day, when he nearly had given up all hope, he sees an old woman in a field who makes a deal with him. The old lady gives the Knight a choice: to have an old, but faithful, wife, or to have a drop-dead gorgeous woman, but to have her never to be faithful, before she tells him what the Queen wants to know. The old lady and Knight get married and she wants him to sleep with her, like husbands are supposed to do with their wives. They argue and she gives him the two choices again; to have an ugly wife, but she is faithful. The other choice is to have a drop-dead gorgeous wife, but is never faithful. With this, he learns a lesson, and sufficient punishment.
“Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise” (Carroll 105). This and advice of this kind are often dispensed by the Duchess in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to Alice, and like the transition from child to adult, the advice is generally rarely fully understood if not confusingly difficult to wrap logic around. Many illustrators have undertaken the task of conveying a clear picture of the struggle that Alice goes through in order to triumph over childhood and nonsense into the realm of adults and logic. Angel Dominguez shows Alice’s struggle to grow up and out of childhood, a major theme of the text, in such a way that the audience can almost feel her anxiety. The use of the body language of Alice, the Duchess and the supporting animals, in addition to compositional elements such as proximity and framing, is a principal mechanism of Dominguez in evoking Alice’s anxiety and emphasizing the uncomfortable passage into maturity on one’s own while dealing with the pressures and advances of an adult world.
about act 1 scene 5. I am going to consider the dramatic events of the
Act II brings much of the same ambiance. Lady Macbeth has drugged the guards so that Macbeth cannot get caught murdering Duncan and tried to convince Macbeth that all is fine. The Second Scene in this act also shows a speck of her humanity for she couldn’t kill the king, “if Duncan hadn’t reminded me of my father when I saw him sleeping, I would have killed him myself.” (Shakespeare 79). We are exposed to her affection in that moment. When Macbeth has explained his unsettling thoughts to Lady Macbeth, she calls him weak then marches into Duncan’s chamber to plant the daggers on the guards. She has seen what her husband is capable of and it has damaged her mind and worsened her deterioration. Lady Macbeth believes that she can get rid of the
Never to go unnoticed, the name William Shakespeare describes an experienced actor, an exceptional playwright, and a notable philosopher. As one of the most influential men of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, Shakespeare impacted many artists with his riveting masterpieces. Shakespeare captured the attention of the people through his exquisite work in blank verse, and he inspired them with universal truths of the human condition. His sonnet sequence, consisting of 154 poems, is arguably the finest collection of love poems in the English language. Shakespeare continuously impressed his audience with his explorations of life’s complexities. Such an intricate man; however, he never wrote about himself. He would not discuss his composition methods and only through careful analysis could one understand the underlying truths to his work. Shakespeare was often known to use plots from other sources and enrich them to masterpieces with his genuine knowledge of literature. Although he completed many poems in his lifetime, each one of them was rich in quality and very complex in structure. The play, Macbeth, reveals the uniform structure of a typical Elizabethan tragedy with five acts that carefully reflect the pyramid organization of an exposition, a rising action, a climax, a falling action, and a denouement.
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)
'Romeo and Juliet' is a play written by William Shakespeare. The play is about Romeo, a member of the Montague household, falls in love with Juliet, a member of the Capulet household. As the two houses are involved in a feud, they were not allowed to be together, but their deaths finally bring their family’s quarrel to an end. The personal weaknesses of the central characters are somewhat responsible for the tragic outcome of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. These are weaknesses shown by the main characters of Romeo and Juliet, mainly their emotions and love towards each other, which contributes to the tragic outcome. However, the personal weaknesses of Capulet and Montague are more responsible for the tragic outcome, because they have hated each other deeply for centuries, and would never have allowed Romeo and Juliet to marry no matter what. In this essay, the personal weaknesses of the central characters who are somewhat responsible for the tragic outcome: Romeo, Juliet, and Mercutio, will be explored.
...goal of the Antitheatrical movement in the Renaissance, was both supported and denounced by Jonson in various ways. However, the general perception is that Jonson (unlike Shakespeare) fueled the fires of degradation- implicating women with the weakness, lack of intelligence, and reason they were believed to exude. In the annals of theatrical history, Jonson's metadrama could be said to perpetuate this social stereotype. Nevertheless, Jonson's crossing of the gender line and sexual scenes like Volpone's "flashing" of Celia were enough to have religious, moral, and social commentators screaming blood murder. Two issues demand prominence in the play. While outwardly a play driven by blatant genderless controversy, the inward thematic, character-driven nature of Volpone suggests a conformity and adherence to the intellectual and theological moralism of the time.
A study of Porphyria's Lover and My Last Duchess by Robert Browning. The first poem “Porphyria’s lover” is about class and control. A woman shows her control over her lover by seducing him to get attention, moving him to a position she likes and treating him like she is the boss of him and his possessions. The man eventually goes to extremes to get control and kills her. The second poem “My last Duchess” is also about control.
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
The elements of pastoral comedy in The Tempest are also linked to those of the masque. A natural man, Caliban, exists. So do a pair of noble young lovers, Ferdinand and Miranda, who are brought together in the pastoral setting of an island, unaffected by the corruptive influenc...