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Love and marriage: the Duchess What of the Duchess herself? According to Clifford Leech and James L. Calderwood, in studies of the play produced in the 1950s and 1960s, she is portrayed in accordance with the stereotypes of the highly sexed widow voiced by her brothers, and her marriage to Antonio is depicted as wilful, wanton and irresponsible ...
The marriage scene, in addition to contrasting the Duchess’s vivid personality with Antonio’s rather passive one, also foreshadows the tragedy to come. It opens with the Duchess telling Antonio she wants to write her will, immediately evoking the thought of death.
In another inversion of power structure, the Duchess opts for her marriage to be done outside of a church. She invokes a legal precedent by which she and Antonio can simply declare themselves wed, and she seems more concerned with the legal implications of the marriage than the religious ones.
Feb 7, 2024 · One of the conventions of revenge tragedies, which contribute to their popularity, are the shocking and brutal scenes depicting violence: In The Duchess of Malfi, Webster shows the strangulation of the Duchess and her maid, Cariola, as well as the murder of Julia, who kisses a poisoned Bible.
Marriage for love: family opposition. Having alerted us to the autocratic and criminal propensities of the Cardinal and Ferdinand, Webster goes on to inform us in the opening scene of their opposition to the idea of their widowed sister’s remarrying.
Oct 21, 2024 · While Webster’s satirical play ends pessimistically with death and tragedy, Chaucer’s fable, told by a merchant as an allegory about marital tensions, ends with the continuation of an unhappy marriage, perhaps as a warning to men to avoid imbalanced marriages or to present the inevitability of unhappy marriage
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The representation of love in The Duchess of Malfi begins in earnest with the Duchess’s courtship of and marriage to her steward Antonio. This is also a major dramatic climax, the event which drives the action of the rest of the play. Yet it does not take place until the end of Act 1.
