DOM quotes

• "These are mere gulleries, horrid things... The witchcraft lies in her rank blood"

  • Duchess becomes helpless against her sexual autonomy and domestic desires as they may eventually undo her
  • Ferdinand insults her blood in regards of her status before announcing his plan
• "She seems rather welcome to the end of misery than shun it; a behaviour so noble as gives a majesty to adversity"

  • Bosola muses about the Duchess taking her imprisonment well with dignity
  • 'Noble' implies her grace in this misfortune. Assume it's a compliment due to his disdain for women generally and appears to appreciate and admire her behaviour
• "Her melancholy seems to be fortified with a strange disdain"

  • Infuriates Ferdinand as it's not the reaction he expected nor wanted from the Duchess
  • Her resistance to his revenge is taken as her looking down on him. He dislikes this as it means she still has power over him and he has no control over her
• "Remember you are a Christian"

  • Encourages Duchess to live and reminds her that suicide is a sin (Only god can take her life)
  • Irony as Bosola (speaker) is a murderer and is aided by her destruction
  • Duchess both holds onto and turns away from Christian ideals as she bitterly wishes to die
• "I do account this world a tedious theatre, for I do play a part in't 'gainst my will"

  • Forced to live when she wants to die
  • Hints at this being a play, distancing audience by recognising this story as fictitious - or to showcase how she's being pushed over the edge and no longer feels in control
  • Webster may have used metatheatre to exemplify her grief
• "I'll go pray. No, I'll go curse"

  • Duchess turns to anger as she dismisses religion for something she believes is more feasible, echoing the inversion of religion as she takes her fury into her own hands
• "Damn her! That body of hers. While that my blood ran pure in't, was more worth than that which thou wouldst comfort, call'd a soul"

  • Ferdinand indicates the body is more precious than the soul due to her tainted blood
  • He wishes to completely break her spirit, an inversion of religion
  • Inversion of traditional church doctrine since they state the soul is worth more
• "We are forc'd to woo, because none dare woo us" AND "This is flesh and blood, sir, tis not the figure cut in alabaster kneels at my husband's tomb"

  • Duchess inverts tradition of men wooing women and the class hierarchy that says she must marry a noble person
  • Inverts power structure by marrying outside of the church
  • Reinforces the idea that she isn't a statue but a living woman with desires. The use of doubling showcases how Duchess isn't a virgin bride and how she is in control of who she is and will follow her own desires as she isn't merely dependent on her husband
• "thou'rt poison'd with that book"

  • Holy book being a murder weapon is grotesque, sadistic, and evidence of the Cardinal's religious corruption as he kills Julia with the thing that he should stand for
  • Poisoned Bible suggests a betrayal of what he stands for and shows how secrets are like poison (figuratively and literally)
  • Cardinal is unsympathetic and admits he has damned her to death instantly
• "I am Duchess of Malfi still"

  • Still proud and powerful, despite everything
  • Her title hasn't been and never will be stripped from her
  • Reaffirms position as she hasn't lost her sanity or identity
  • Keeps up her sharp wit, returning her dignity and character
• "He is a melancholy churchman"

  • Cardinal characterised as jealous, devious, and having a poisonous influence
  • Corruption extends to religion where he should illustrate integrity but instead abuses his power for his purposes
  • Highlights him as spiteful and a clear, vindicative, Machiavellian character
• "The law to him is like a foul, black cobweb to a spider"

  • Associates Ferdinand with 'foul' and dark connotations to emphasise corrupted character. Especially in terms of 'the law' which he has complete control over and traps and captures his victims in, like a 'spider'
  • Simile also emphasises how he construes the law to trap others, abusing his position of temporal power
  • Webster may have used a sinister tone to reinforce the corrupted characterisation associated with Ferdinand
• "Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, like diamonds we are cut with our own dust"

  • Ferdinand recognises that the world is cursed
  • Tries to bribe his way into heaven as they will ignore his bad actions and let him in
  • Consumed by guilt of Duchess until he dies shows that our own actions lead to our destruction
• "For if I see and steal a diamond, the fault is not i' th' stone, but in me the thief that pardons it"

  • Julia comments that she would be blamed for being with Bosola and not the other way around
  • A feminist may interpret the verge of double standards that Bosola is the one in the affair, but only Julia would be blamed
• "And now, I pray, let me be laid by and never thought of"

  • Cardinal wants to be forgotten, not forgiven - echoes the sentiment of what the Duchess asked earlier to be done to her brothers
  • Cardinal will be forgotten while Ferdinand was tortured by his madness
• "Some fellows, they say are possessed by a devil, but this great fellow were able to possess the greatest devil, and make him worse"

  • Early indication of Cardinal being corrupted through cruel, monotonous remarks to Bosola
  • Direct impressions of Cardinal to consider him as perverse. 'Devil' connotations emphasise him as worse than the devil and not a good ruling figure
• "Whether I am doomed to live, or die, I can do both like a prince"

  • Aware of male dominance in society and challenges it by comparing her abilities to that of a man
  • Talks in a dignified and honourable manner which suggests her future is sealed as her death is foreshadowed.
  • Expressing she can live and die gracefully
  • 'Prince' references 'The Prince', where virtue is shown naturally but must win favour of governor of Florence. Alludes to Duchess wanting, but not needing, to win in the favour of Ferdinand
• "Antonio!" AND "Mercy!"

  • Webster doesn't make it clear if Duchess mistakes Bosola for Antonio and believes they're reunited or if she calls for him as she notices she's still alive
  • Male characters have failed her again by not killing her instantly despite her pleas.
  • She dies by her own choice with no guilt
  • Last words are ironic as she hasn't had any mercy in the play
  • Calling out for Antonio may suggest her dependency on him, considered controlled by the patriarchy
  • Her independence is shown through her fight for her autonomy and her brief sucession in doing so
• "She's a young widow! I would not have her marry again"

  • Ferdinand's desire to exert control over his sister
  • Audience learns Duchess is a widow, associating her with more freedom (more than unmarried women), suggesting that the Duchess shouldn't be as controlled as she is
  • Incestuous tone.
  • Another reason could be they don't want her position, or theirs, to be disrupted, which would occur if she got married
• "You already know what man is"
• "A politician is the devil's quilted anvil"
• "The only thing to do my good is to kill my desire"
• "You were always too much in th' light"
• "I could kill her now"
• "whose throat must I cut"
• "My imagination will carry me to see her in that shameful act of sin"
• "Doth the colour of my hair change?"
• "We are forc'd to woo because none dare woo us"