AE Project Preliminaries

1.) Introduction: 

-During the Seventeenth century women were seen as inferior to men and usually had extreme restrictions on what they could or could not. Yet, because of works such as Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath” allowed an opportunity to criticize the realities that women had to face and allowed more control in their lives. Although the shift was small, there were more authors that began to show the realities of gender relationships and women’s very complex roles that started to develop some type of empowerment; however, females had to work harder to maintain control over their lives. As demonstrated in John Webster’s, The Duchess of Malfi, the protagonist struggles against her violent and possessive brothers and tries to display control over her own life in a more passive manner. Although people can display power in different ways, there was a difference in the way that men and women were able to attain power based on the expectations of their gender.  For instance, women in a patriarch society were expected to be submissive and were not allowed to speak their minds. However, the women in The Duchess of Malfi,  illustrate different ways that they display power whether it is passive or active, opening a new way on how women are viewed not only in drama but also in society.

2.)Quote Analysis:

1.)    “So I through frights and threatening will assay / This dangerous venture. Let old wives report / I winked and chose a husband” (1.3.54-6).

-This shows her first rebellion towards her brothers, but also illustrates her independence and willfulness to get what she wants. Even behind their backs she makes sure that she does what she wants.

2.)    "Be not amazed; this women of my counsel/ I have heard lawyers say, a contract in a chamber/ Per verba de presenti is absolute marriage"(1.5.177-79).

-basically, this starts to demonstrate to go through with her decision but she is finding the loophole in marrying secretly so now one contest it she makes sure there is a witness. She displays her intelligence and sidesteps her brother’s plot to keep her oppressed from remarrying for their selfish reasons.

3.)     “For know, whether I am doomed to live or die, / I can do both like a prince” (3.2.68-69).

-The Duchess once she knows she is going to die, she proclaims her bravery by comparing herself to a prince. Even to the death for making her own decisions, she believes in asserting her authority and not being submissive.

4.)    “Why should only I, / Of all the other princes of the world, / Be cased up, like a holy relic? I have youth / And a little beauty” (3.2.134-137).

-As she continues to call herself a prince to her brother Ferdinand she illustrates the new view of women empowerment which she asserts her authority and her dislike i such restrictions. 

5.)     “Dispose of my breath how please you, but my body / Bestow upon my women will you?” (4.2.206-07).

-After the executioner ask if she is ready to die, she responds without fear and tells him to take her breath as he pleases, but she still gives him an order as her life is coming to an end.

3.)Critical Article: Fred Wigham’s “Sexual and Social Mobility in The Duchess of Malfi”-Analyzes different themes such as the use of sexual and social mobility but focuses on the "Anthropological kinship theory" to understand  the theme of “brother-sister incest,” in regards to Ferdinand and the Duchess.  In addition to that, it discusses the plays theme of social mobility, specifically focusing on Antonio and Bosola’s rise on the socioeconomic ladder. It gives a different viewpoint from the anthropological perspective that addresses the "social-structural relations come into view among Ferdinand's incestuous inclination, his sister's cross-class marriage, and Antonio's and Bosola's upward social mobility” (Abstract).  Wigham also focuses on the women’s different display in power including Julia, Cariola and the Duchess and how they deviate from the traditional expectations of a “woman’s duty”. He compares the importance of these topics by comparing these characters with other stories of the same time period.

1.)     “The duchess is excessively exogamous: fettered in Ferdinand's enclosure, she seizes self-definition by reaching out not only past the interdicted purity of her family but beyond the frontiers of her class, to marry her admirable steward” (141).

-Because the Duchess feels confines by her brother’s possessive and restricting rules regarding her class and sex, she seeks a way to rebel against those norms and creates her identity of a strong independent woman by marrying in secrecy outside of her class as well as “tainting” the name by not remaining a widow after being told to.

2.)    “Upon [the Duchess’] husband's death she entered a new realm of freedom from male domination, the only such realm open to Jacobean women, and it is this transformation that directly enables her outlaw marriage.” (171).

- Since she became widowed so young, she expressed her marital freedom to marry again, but the second time was out of love. She gains more confidence and can explore different reasons to love and choose to marry out of her class.

3.)    “Julia contrasts with the duchess insofar as the duchess's project does not aim at self-subjecting relational identity but itself founds substantial identity in the normatively masculine sense”(172).

-Julia the mistress of both the Cardinal and Bosola is a completely different illustration of power because she subjects herself to the men she is with and sacrificing her body to illustrate her power. However, the Duchess is completely different because through her noble actions she uses her wits and not her sex to get what she wants but instead demonstrates what was considered a masculine trait where she is true to her word and loyal to the very end.

4.)    “Self-giving will of another sort, practiced by Julia, deflects the judgmental charge of lasciviousness away from the duchess” (172).

- Again demonstrating illustrating a different type of power to have control on the men they have. Julia seems to be the opposites because she uses her sex as a way of gaining only remains loyal to one man after he agrees to marry her.

5.)    “Issues of female self-determination and mobility across class lines, both social and sexual, had of late come to be commonplace in London”(173).

-It took a while before feminist ideologies where women decided to control their abilities in their socio-economic status or their choice in marriage, but because of many stories it gave a new ideology for female’s roles in society.