The Duchess of Malfi: Themes (OCR A Level English Literature)

The Duchess of Malfi: Themes

Exam responses that are led by ideas are more likely to reach the highest levels of the mark scheme. Exploring the ideas of the text, specifically in relation to the question being asked, will help to increase your fluency and assurance in writing about the play.

Below are some of the key themes that could be explored in The Duchess of Malfi. This list is not exhaustive and you are encouraged to explore any other ideas or themes you identify within the play:

• Morality and sin

• Power and class

• Gender and identity

• Fate 

Morality and sin

Morality and sin is a significant theme in The Duchess of Malfi as Webster explores individuals’ motives for sinful behaviour. Webster’s powerful male figures portray ideas about pure evil in the absence of compassion or mercy, whereas the virtuous, naive nature of the play’s protagonist and her husband, Antonio, acts as an antithesis. The play’s final lines suggest the ultimate punishment is that villainy will be forgotten, whereas honesty and virtue will not.   

Knowledge and evidence:

• Webster challenges cruelty committed under the guise of religious values:

  • The Cardinal’s blasphemous misuse of the Bible to betray Julia, his mistress, presents hypocrisies within religious institutions

  • Audiences are also told the Cardinal used bribery to achieve his position

  • That he has poisoned the Bible in order to murder her by stealth confirms the Cardinal’s unwavering lack of conscience

• The Duchess of Malfi depicts the way cruel and vengeful punishments are enforced by corrupted powerful figures

• Purely evil characters, such as Ferdinand and the Cardinal, are denied a sympathetic reading as they ignore all opportunities to change their behaviour throughout the play

• Webster employs religious language throughout the play to signify the theme of sin and virtue:

  • Ferdinand “damns” the Duchess to hell for what he believes are her sins against God

  • Ferdinand is associated with fire, by others and in his own language

  • He says only the Duchess's “whore’s blood” can put out his “wild-fire”

  • He imagines killing her children by dipping them in “sulphur”, lighting “them like a match” and “burning [them] in a coal-pit” 

• Through the character of Bosola, Webster presents bitterness as a vehicle for immorality

• Bosola turns to sin despite his better judgement as a result of cynical nihilism:

  • His own mistreatment does not lead Bosola to act mercifully

  • In fact, he believes virtue is meaningless, presenting him as a malcontent

  • Bosola chooses to follow the “devil”, who “makes sins look good and calls gracious whatever heaven calls vile” 

  • His complicity with evil men is presented as the ultimate betrayal towards the Duchess and Antonio 

• The Duchess is presented as virtuous despite her disobedience to her brothers and the church, challenging religious values:

  • She states that hell is on Earth: “That’s the greatest torture souls feel in hell,/In hell: that they must live, and cannot die”

• She faces her death stoically as she believes this will be punishment enough for her brothers:

  • Thus, she conveys Webster’s ideas that punishment comes in the form of guilt

  • Certainly, Ferdinand’s guilt leads to his madness and violent death

What is Webster’s intention?

• The play explores the juxtaposition of individuals’ ability to discern what is moral and the way in which virtuous behaviour is rewarded on Earth

• Webster questions whether sacrifice and mercy is more virtuous than conforming to religious ideals

• Webster challenges established norms related to religious authority

• The play exposes hypocrisies and weaknesses among those who purport to be morally superior 

Power and class

The theme of power in The Duchess of Malfi is depicted through Webster’s criticism of a hypocritical and flawed class-based society that ranks individuals according to social status and high-ranking titles. Webster examines characters who act with impunity, presenting ideas about the misuse of power. The Duchess's decision to marry below her class is presented as a defiant act. However, audiences are asked to consider how her ignorance to those more powerful leads to tragedy. 

Knowledge and evidence:

• The Duchess is miserable in her high-ranking position:

  • She laments the misery of her title, which forces her to woo because no one dares woo her

  • She pleads with Antonio to see her as the same as him

  • However, she shows naive ignorance of the power of class

• Webster introduces the theme of power and class in the exposition through the character of Antonio:

  • He criticises those who attempt to ingratiate themselves with corrupted figures of authority:

    • He calls such people “sycophants”

• Antonio’s virtue is shown through his lack of interest in the social power his relationship with the Duchess brings: 

  • He is aware his imbalanced relationship with the Duchess is dangerous

  • He is consistently more interested in family than class or social standing

• The Cardinal’s powerful position and high status hides a cruel and deceitful nature:

  • He has little regard for those in weaker positions

  • He dismisses anyone who does not serve him

• Bosola, a less socially powerful character in the play, is a victim of abusive and treacherous powerful figures:

  • He represents how oppression can lead to villainy

  • He is inspired by the Duchess's acknowledgement of Antonio’s merit

  • However, his desire to increase his own social standing overwhelms him 

• Webster’s resolution punishes all higher-ranking characters and rewards the lower-class Delio:

  • The Duchess and her brothers are killed, leaving Delio in charge

  • Delio delivers the final lines of the play and is left with the Duchess’s heir,  implying, perhaps, his increased social standing in the city

What is Webster’s intention?

• The Duchess of Malfi challenges power imbalances in society, particularly between man and wife

• Webster highlights the potentially damaging consequences of, and hypocrisies within, hierarchical, class-based social systems 

• Webster illustrates how the misuse of power can lead to a destruction of social order

Gender and Identity

The Duchess of Malfi depicts the doomed attempts of a young widow to maintain control over her identity as a woman and mother in a strict patriarchal society. The Duchess represents an individual who is restricted by her sexuality while her brothers carry out their sexual desires as they see fit. Webster depicts how her struggle is plighted by an innocent and trustful nature. 

Knowledge and evidence:

• Throughout the play, Webster presents the low standards men hold towards women, even a high-status woman such as the Duchess:

  • Male characters make passing derogatory comments about female characters

  • The Duchess's twin brother, Ferdinand, insults the vanity of women when he says “What cannot a neat knave with a smooth tale; Make a woman believe?”

  • Bosola makes derogatory comments to an old woman:

    • These scenes are separate to the main plot and appear to function entirely to portray Bosola as misogynistic 

    • His comments touch on typical subjects used to demean women such as their appearance, their association with witchcraft and their promiscuity 

• The Cardinal and Ferdinand’s plot to control their sister’s bloodline is motivated by prideful emotion rather than respect for the Duchess:

  • Ferdinand believes that his sister’s sexuality defines her: “thou art but a bare name, and no essential thing” 

• The Duchess subverts gender stereotypes and social norms by choosing her own husband and proposing to him:

  • She gives him a ring

  • She joins them in union herself, discarding social conventions of marriage

• Throughout the play, the Duchess continues to defy male authority and assert her own agency

• Webster portrays the Duchess as a good mother, despite her disobedience to her brothers 

• Her character highlights patriarchal attitudes to unmarried mothers:

  • She reassures Ferdinand she is married when he calls her children illegitimate

• Facing her execution, she undermines her brother’s control by suggesting her murder will be the best gift she could give them:

  • She asks for her body to be taken to the women

  • Bosola shows respect for her after her death by following her wishes:

    • He says he will deliver her “body to the reverend dispose/Of some good women”

• Other female characters are shown as equally powerless:

  • Julia, the Cardinal’s mistress, is insulted and murdered when she no longer serves the Cardinal

  • Cariola, the maid, is murdered for her associations with the Duchess

What is Webster’s intention?

• Webster’s play expresses concerns with the imbalance of power within patriarchal institutions, especially related to female sexuality and motherhood

• Webster explores how patriarchal systems can lead to exploitation of women

• The play challenges social standards that restrict marriage in terms of class status

• Webster demonstrates how traditional constructs limit female agency 

• The play advocates for equal relationships that defy traditional systems of marriage

Fate

The play illustrates how attempts towards autonomy are thwarted by powerful external factors. Typical of a tragedy, the play’s characters, desperate to act out of free will, become unwilling victims of circumstance. Webster explores ideas related to fatalism and free will in his dramatic and tragic play. His characters illustrate varying degrees of agency as some are punished as a result of their own decisions and others are not rewarded for their attempts at self-determination. 

Knowledge and evidence:

• The play raises questions about whether individuals are simply subjects of chance or are agents of their own destiny

• In Jacobean society, ideas related to fate and the supernatural were associated with psychological inner turmoil and guilt as a result of misdeeds:

  • This idea transfers into Gothic literature

• The Duchess, neither superstitious nor religious, asserts her own free will to control her own destiny:

  • She places no value in religious or spiritual beliefs other than the idea of heaven:

    • As she is about to die she says she will be with “great” people in the afterlife

  • Cariola’s warning not to tempt fate with a false religious pilgrimage is rejected and the Duchess calls Cariola “a superstitious fool” 

• However, she is painfully aware of her limitations: “I account this world a tedious theatre,/For I do play a part in't 'gainst my will”

• Antonio, too, acts of his own free will initially:

  • He chooses to place himself in danger by defying powerful authorities in the city

  • His choice to marry the Duchess is presented as noble and genuine, albeit naive

• Webster’s play offers a cynical perspective on free will:

  • Although the Duchess and Antonio try to achieve autonomy, their faith in others leads to their downfall and the death of their family 

• Some of the characters turn to superstition or nihilism to find understanding in their corrupt world:

  • Certainly, Bosola and Antonio are conscious that their virtuous lives may not be rewarded in such a system

  • Antonio’s astrological calculation that his first child will have a “short life” and a “violent death” illustrates his passive acceptance of destiny:

    • It is he who has placed his son in danger

• The characters of both Antonio and Bosola are self-fulfilling:

  • Antonio’s nose-bleed, which he sees as a bad omen, suggests his acceptance of his own fate

  • Ironically, this leads to his exposure as he leaves a secret note behind in his haste

  • Antonio says that Bosola’s bitterness will poison him

  • Bosola acknowledges his deal with the “devil” when he accepts Ferdinand’s money: “you a corruptor, me an impudent traitor”

• When Antonio ignores the sound of echoing voices as he approaches the Cardinal’s court, his fate is determined:

  • The ethereal voices from the graveyard are the Duchess's warnings from beyond the grave

  • This scene adds a Gothic element to the play and highlights themes of fate through dramatic irony 

• The play’s resolution does little to restore order, suggesting instead that fate has powerful influence over the characters’ lives:

  • When Bosola accidentally kills Antonio, he suggests he is the victim of fate: “We are merely the stars’ tennis-balls, struck and banded/Which way please them” 

  • Ferdinand, too, refers to a karmic judgement before he dies:

    • He suggests punishment and suffering are dealt according to sins: “Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust,/Like diamonds we are cut with our own dust” 

    • These lines imply that the downfall of each character is a direct result of their own actions

What is Webster’s intention?

• Webster explores attitudes to human autonomy in relation to more powerful forces

• Webster comments on restrictions under corrupt systems that lead individuals to fatalism

• The play highlights how personal destiny is connected to other individuals’ decisions

• Webster considers fate in terms of punishment for sin 

• Webster challenges social constructs that contribute to nihilistic and fatalistic attitudes