Madness textual quotes Flashcards
The Duchess: wanting to break free of convention and become a real, flawed woman
‘This is flesh and blood, sir. / ‘Tis not the figure cut in alabaster / Kneels at my husband’s tomb’
The Duchess defying gender norms of proposals
‘Being now my steward – here upon your lips / I sign your Quietus est.’
‘Quietus est’ could refer to being released from debt, or could allude to Hamlet and mean being released from life into death
Cariola defining the Duchess’s unconventionality as mad
‘Whether the spirit of greatness or of woman / Reign most in her, I do not know. But it shows / A fearful madness.’
Blanche’s appearance setting her apart/being unconventional
‘[Blanche] is daintily dressed in a white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklace and ear-rings of peal, white gloves and hat, looking as if she were arriving at a summer tea or cocktail party’
Blanche’s monologue - sympathetic reading of her ‘madness’ or lack of conformity
‘Have got to be seductive – put on soft colours, the colours of butterfly wings, and glow – make a little – temporary magic just in order to pay for – one night’s shelter!’
Blanche explaining her ‘madness’ to Mitch - resorts to the truth to try and save her
Blanche calls her Southern Belle performance ‘magic’ and tells Mitch ‘I don’t tell the truth. I tell what ought to be the truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it! – Don’t turn the light on!’
Even in her attempt to come clean about the past, she will not be seen in the light. For Blanche, truth is just illusion. Her identity is fundamentally based on delusion so in a way she is ‘mad’, or is more easily framed as mad by those around her.
Description of Ferdinand’s madness
‘A very pestilent disease, my lord, / They call it lycanthropia.’
The doctor’s method for getting rid of Ferdinand’s madness
‘I’ll buffet his madness out of him’
The Matron’s violence towards Blanche (comparable to treatment of Ferdinand)
‘The heavy woman pinions her arms. Blanche cries out hoarsely and slips to her knees.’
The Duchess maintaining her sanity and dignity in the face of death
‘I am Duchess of Malfi still’
‘Pull and pull strongly’ and ‘[kneels] Come, violent death’
Blanche losing her sanity and dignity during her demise
When Stanley destroys the paper lantern Blanche ‘cries out as if the lantern was herself’
‘Blanche turns wildly and scratches at the Matron’
‘She allows [the doctor] to lead her as if she were blind’
Ferdinand’s description of his own madness
‘Said he was a wolf, only the difference
Was a wolf’s skin was hairy on the outside,
His on the inside’
the Doctor’s description of Ferdinand’s cannibalism
Ferdinand was caught ‘with a leg of a man / Upon his shoulder, and he howled fearfully’
‘Fearfully’ links to Cariola’s description of the Duchess as showing a ‘fearful madness’. They act as foil to each other.
Ferdinand’s awareness of the corruption of her society in all his madness
‘You are all like beasts for sacrifice.
There’s nothing left in you but tongue and belly, flattery and lechery’
Ironic because he is the one who has become a literal beast, yet he’s the one calling society a beast. Ferdinand acknowledges the corruption of the court that he was so desperate to maintain. Links to Blanche’s attempt to embody the ‘Southern Belle’ archetype whilst simultaneously acknowledging how unrealistic and harmful this stereotype is to women (monologue about soft people having to ‘put on colours - the colours of butterfly wings’). This conflict is a source of madness in both characters.
The Duchess arguably remains sane because she doesn’t attempt to conform to any corrupt society, and instead ground her actions in her own ideology based on freedom, truth and meritocracy. Blanche doesn’t have the power in order to do this, but Ferdinand does and this is arguably what makes the degradation of Ferdinand’s sanity seem more like a just punishment than a tragic fall.
Blanche’s awareness of the corruption of her society in all her madness
‘El pan de mais, el pan de mais
El pan de mais sin sal . . . ‘
Translates to ‘the maze bread without salt’.
Simultaneously points to Blanche’s degrading sanity (she should be singing happy birthday but she’s singing in French about bread - random and odd) and the impossibility of the role of women in society (bread without salt doesn’t rise and is tasteless; women without beauty cannot thrive in the Old South, or even in New Orleans)
Brutal physical treatment of the Duchess for being mad
enter executioners with ‘a coffin, cords, and a bell’
Brutal physical treatment of Blanche for being mad (2)
‘The heavy woman pinions her arms. Blanche cries out hoarsely and slips to her knees’
‘these fingernails need to be trimmed’ (treating her as a beast who needs to be tamed - karma for calling Stanley ‘subhuman?)
Brutal physical treatment of Ferdinand’s madness
‘I’ll buffet his madness out of him’
Blanche showing signs of sanity/stoicism in her demise (showing that she is not really mad, but merely abused by a corrupt society)
‘Ask her to let go of me’ to the Doctor (imperatives - stoic or desperate or resigned?)
Blanche calms down and possibly parallels the Duchess’s Christian heroism in showing forgiveness: ‘Whoever you are - I have always depended on the kindness of strangers’ - BUT merely a misreading of the Doctor’s real intentions - she is deluded into thinking this is an example of chivalric behaviour
What undermines Blanche’s possible return to sanity in the final scene?
Her stoicism/calmess derives from delusion rather than an acceptence of her actual fate (going to an asylum, the most extreme version of isolation and being an outcast)
She misinterprets the Doctor’s behaviour as chivalric: his ‘inhuman quality goes’ and he speaks with a ‘gentle and reassuring voice’
Bosola seeing the Duchess’s transgressive behaviour as a symptom of madness
the Duchess asks ‘Dost thou perceive me as sick?’
Bosola replies ‘Yes, and the more dangerously since thy sickness is insensible’ - ‘insensible’ is interesting because it means undetectable - raises questions regarding how justified his accusation is
Expressions of female sexuality in Italian 16th Century society are not only deemed a ‘sickness’, but something even deadlier than physical sickness
Blanche’s lack of conformity: seduction of the young postman
‘Young man! Young, young, young, young - man!’
‘I want to kiss you - just once - softly and sweetly on your mouth’ - her transgressive behaviour is only a product of trying to conform to another, outdated society (the Old South and its southern belle stereotype)
The ‘blue piano’ is heard during this scene - tragic past and delusion
