malfi a05

Question 1

‘the death of sanity operates outside the framework of normality’

Answer 1

Jacqueline Pearson

Question 2

‘Control is lost as he signals his transgression through the gratuitous violence of his language’

Answer 2

Steven Simms

Question 3

‘Ferdinand’s hallucinations in his madness are not more weird than the dark web of lust which he weaves round his sister, seeing in her the epitome of medieval frailty, where the Duchess feels only her own bewildered chastity’

Answer 3

Juliet Dusinberre

Question 4

The play is ‘between the emblematic tradition of the medieval stage and the increasing commitment to realism of the post-Restoration theatre.’

Answer 4

Besley

Question 5

‘recognizably Freudian Ferdinand’

Answer 5

Rylands

Question 6

‘The anonymity of the cardinal confers a shadowy remoteness on him…emerging as the most powerful but least knowable of the major figures.’

Answer 6

Forker

Question 7

The Cardinal’s cool, unemotional detachment is more terrifying than Ferdinand’s impassioned raving.

Answer 7

Bliss

Question 8

The Cardinal knows already that he is in Hell.

Answer 8

Bradbrook

Question 9

‘The malcontent is a man divided within himself.’

Answer 9

David Gunby

Question 10

‘The play is full of the feverish and ghastly turmoil of a nest of maggots…Human beings are writhing grubs in an immense night.’

Answer 10

Rupert Brooke

Question 11

‘the dead duchess is “recast” into the body of Bosola.’

Answer 11

Luckyj

Question 12

Why indeed is the play not called Bosola? He is so obviously the most pungently-complex and darkly-intelligent character in the play.

Answer 12

Solderhom

Question 13

‘he is in fact going to his own idea of an afterlife to experience a worth that his life on Earth never gave him…. psychology of the class structure restricted his ambition to be a noble human being and it is the Duchess who has finally freed him.’

Answer 13

Petengell

Question 14

The play is a study of moral and political decorum…about the dangers of women’s sexuality if allowed free-reign.

Answer 14

Alyal

Question 15

‘The Duchess accepts the gift of death.’

Answer 15

David Carnegie

Question 16

‘the duchesses ‘procreative body webster allies with England’s ravaged woodlands offers a parable of the ecological concerns.’

Answer 16

Dubow

Question 17

This widow attempts to secure herself politically by divorcing her natural body from her political one.

Answer 17

Jankowski

Question 18

the death of the Duchess is played against brilliant allusions to the bible and ars moriendi.

Answer 18

Dobler

Question 19

Antonio represents the Christian stoic, the philosophical centre of the play.

Answer 19

Belton

Question 20

Antonio is “better suited to onlooker than active participant.”

Answer 20

Brodwin

Question 21

Through Julia and the Duchess, Webster shows ‘that “w***e,” a word applied by social convention to someone unchaste, does not fully exhaust the psychological reality of the woman.’

Answer 21

Luckyj

Question 22

‘bodies that flay themselves in anatomical illusions, they prove to be more animal than man.’

Answer 22

Usher

Question 23

‘replete with unsettling, slippery images of the interstitial, the inbetween.’

Answer 23

Zinnerman

Question 24

‘what happened after death or what death means is the play’s ultimate secret.’

Answer 24

Dolan