Literary Analysis Paper

Proto-feminism and the Duchess of Malfi

Whether the spirit of greatness or of woman

Reign most in her, I know not; but it shows

A fearful madness: I owe her much of pity

            This line, from The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster, is spoken by Cariola, the Duchess’s handmaiden. Cariola has just witnessed the Duchess promise to her brother, Ferdinand, to never wed again. As soon as Ferdinand exits, the Duchess beguiles Antonio, a lowly steward, into marrying her. Cariola is impressed by the Duchess’s bold deceit and seemingly unclouded conscience. Although she is impressed, she also knows that the Duchess is acting far outside the cultural norms for women in early modern England. Therefore, Cariola has difficulty in understanding and categorizing the Duchess. Does her boldness make her great? Perhaps, but greatness is not a state traditionally available to women. It is not a state that even comes near to being chaste, silent, shamefast, and obedient – the idyllic qualities of womanhood in England up until this point in history (Bartels 1). The other option is that it is her woman-ness – her inherently flawed and deceptive and “sexually insatiable (Henderson 30)” nature - that is responsible for her boldness.

But we know that this is not a simple morality play. The Duchess is a character far too complicated and humanized and attractive to be boxed into just one of these categories. Cariola can see the Duchess’s greatness in her refusal to give up her desires, but can also see the great trespass the Duchess is committing in her decisions. Unable to understand the Duchess, Cariola can only conclude that “it shows a fearful madness.”

“A fearful madness” is exactly what was going on in Renaissance England. Given that the role of women was shifting and being questioned, and that the “fact of female gender cuts across all other social, economic, or class distinctions (Henderson 24),” one can assume that almost every realm within human culture was in flux during this period. Fearful madness indeed. For the first time in history, women were publishing in defense of themselves (Henderson). And just as the fictional Cariola has difficulty in understanding a woman who is pushing the boundaries of acceptable behavior, the real women of the period who were pushing the boundaries often seemed to have trouble understanding themselves. Jane Anger (a pseudonym for an English gentlewoman (Bartels 1) wrote a passionate defense of women in her proto-feminist pamphlet “Protection for Women” (1589) which she opened with a letter to the Gentlewomen of England in which “for [her] presumption [she] crave[s] pardon.” Instead of fully committing to her defense, Anger undermines some of her authority within the first few lines.

Were the shackles of oppression too ingrained in women to be able to fully “inhabit their own subjectivity? (Bartels 1)” Closer examination of primary texts from the period suggest that it perhaps has less to do with women being unable or unwilling to fully commit to their agency and individual identity, and more to do with a “tradition of representation in which rebellious, outspoken, or desiring women habitually end up married, muted, or dead (Bartels 1).” Therefore, perhaps women of the period, when placing their radical and dangerous ideas into the eye of the public and of the crown, softened their heretical words with feminine modesty and apology. We see this strategy work for the Duchess as well. Throughout most of the play, the Duchess manages to dance around her brother, denying that she is married, appearing to agree with his orders. Years pass and the Duchess bears three children before she admits to Ferdinand that she is married. The Duchess’s “visible compliance (Bartels 4)” allows her, at least for a few years, to live the life that she wants. In the same way that Anger softened her radicalism to remain somewhat tolerable to those in power, the Duchess is able to “speak out through, rather than against, established postures and make room for self-expression within self-suppressing roles (Bartels 3).”

Why might not I marry?

I have not gone about in this to create

Any new world or custom

The Duchess speaks these lines to Ferdinand, once she can no longer hide the fact that she is married. At times throughout the play, the Duchess appears to be a feminist hero. At other times, she seems to be only interested in satisfying her personal desires and needs, not particularly interested in whose political agenda her actions support or do not support. However, Webster, by making the character of the Duchess rich, complex, possessing of a full emotional spectrum, intelligent, and therefore as human as any man, is giving huge power to women because the audience is intimate with her character. In discussing the pamphlet attacks upon women in early modern England, Henderson says, “all the pamphlets assume such a grouping; the frequent use of argument by example testifies to the habit of moving immediately from the specific to the general, from the individual to the sex as a whole (Henderson 26).” Robbing women of individuality, it becomes easy to rob them of humanity as well. The character of Bosola does this often. Upon coming across a random old woman wearing makeup, Bosola says, “I would sooner eat a dead pigeon taken from the soles of the feet of one sick of the plague than kiss one of you fasting. . . I do wonder you do not loathe yourselves. To which the old woman replies, You are still abusing women! And Bosola says, No; only by the way now and then mention your frailties . . . the devil takes delight to hang at a woman’s girdle. . .

Webster reverses the process of going from the specific to the general with his portrayal of the Duchess. We see the Duchess searching for not only the fulfillment of her sexual desires but life-long companionship as well. We see her fight to assert the vision she has for her life, which does not cause harm to anybody, beneath an oppressive, vindictive, and outrageously violent patriarch. By writing a play in which the audience becomes intimate with the specifics and particularities of the Duchess, and not the generalities of women, Webster gives agency and humanity to all women.

In Mary Tattlewell’s The Women’s Sharp Revenge, she states that women should be judged by those around them, her “ Sovereigns and Subjects, Court, City, Camp, and Country, . . . the Virgins, the Vestals, the Wives, the Widows, the Country wench, the Countess, the Laundress, the Lady, the Maid-Marion, the Matron, ,even from the Shepherdess to the Scepter.” Henderson states that all pamphlets, both attacks and defenses, categorize the sex as a whole and resist invoking the individual woman (Henderson 26). And, ultimately, the Duchess is subject to those around her, and dies for her refusal to adhere to the rigid, misogynistic demands of Ferdinand.

What is remarkable about the Duchess’s death is that it is not a defeat. When she knows that she can no longer fool the men into her life into allowing her to live the subversive life that she desires, she does not acquiesce, she does not attempt to save her life. She says,

I account this world a tedious theater,

For I do play a part in’t ‘gainst my will

While the Duchess is imprisoned, Bosola says that

            Her melancholy seems to be fortified

            With a strange disdain.

            The Duchess does not stop asserting herself. Although she loses her “visible compliance,”

and therefore her license to lead the life that she wishes, she is Duchess of Malfi still. She is fortified by the strength of her refusal to compromise.  The audience is left questioning the rigid gender roles in their own society and those oppressed by these roles. The Duchess of Malfi is a text that is indicative of the turbulent period of Renaissance England. It is a text that belongs alongside the women who were writing in defense of themselves, and beckons in a new era of gender equality.

Works Cited

Anger, Jane. “Jane Anger, her Protection for Women.” c. 1589 in Half Humankind: Contexts and Texts of the Controversy about Women in England, 1540-1640. Urbana: U of Illinois, 1985. 171-88. Print.

Bartels, Emily C. "Strategies Of Submission: Desdemona, The Duchess, And The Assertion Of Desire." Studies In English Literature (Rice) 36.2 (1996): 417. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.

Henderson, Katherine U., and Barbara F. McManus. Half Humankind: Contexts and Texts of the   Controversy about Women in England, 1540-1640. Urbana: U of Illinois, 1985. Print.

Tattlewell, Mary. “The women’s sharp revenge.” c. 1640 in Half Humankind: Contexts and Tets of the Controversy about Women in England, 1540-1640. Urbana: U of Illinois, 1985. 305-27. Print.