Malfi quotes Flashcards
duchess herself
Pull,
and pull strongly- the Duchess
This is flesh and blood sir
;Tis not the figure cut in alabaster kneeling at my husbands tomb- Duchess
The common rabble do directly say
she is a strumpet
For know whether I am doomed to live or die,
I can do both like a prince- Duchess
you have shook hands with reputation
and made him invisible- Ferdinand
The birds that live in the field on the wild benefit of nature
live happier than we; for they may choose their mates- Duchess
What’s this flesh?
A little/ crude milk fantastical puff paste- Bosola showing how little the Duchess’s life is worth
Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle
she died young- Ferdinand
‘Why should I be cased up like a holy relic’
Stresses the difference between nature and artifice. The Duchess’s natural body and sexual, flesh, blood and the way patriarchal society seeks to transform women into decorative, precious objects that can be locked away and safely controlled.This contrast between nature and representation suggests that the Duchess is neither lascivious, as her brothers would have it, nor the inhuman paragon of loyalty and chastity – the alabaster figure, the holy relic – that men would like her, and women generally, to be.She expresses her own sexuality in a manner that makes it sound healthy and natural, in opposition to a patriarchal mindset predisposed to see women in terms of the binary oppositions of angel and whore.- ao3- madonna whore complex
‘Go, go brag. You have left me heartless for mine is in your bosom’, ‘sacred guardian knot’, they both kneel, music of spheres, ‘loving palms’
her love is rooted in Antonios virtues. Marriage represented as based on harmony and mutuality. Performed as a duet, showing they complete each others images
ao3- James I sought ‘to clarify the definition of marriage by taking it out of private hands and requiring it to be validated by ecclesiastical ceremony’ a move opposed by large segments of English society who saw this as an encroachment by church and state on a time-honoured tradition. She would’ve evoked sympathy from the largely protestant audience.
The kinesics in the marriage scene- She places the ring on his finger, he kneels in response, she raises him ‘raise yourself’
Visually this underscores her powerful position. Websters use of dramatic irony strengths this, we know more than Antonio until she slips the ring on his finger. Increases his inferior position,.
‘the marriage night is an entrance into prison’- cardinal ‘saucy and ambitious devil’- Antonio ‘Such weddings may more properly be said / To be executed than celebrated’ ‘This dangerous venture’
These statements serve as prolepses gesturing towards the violent treatment awaiting the Duchess and setting up strong verbal links between marriage for love on the one hand and suffering and death on the other.
