The Duchess of Malfi Questions and Answers
by John Webster

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  Discuss the line "Ambition, madam, is a great man's madness" from The Duchess of Malfi.
  The line "Ambition, madam, is a great man's madness" is spoken by Antonio in act I, scene iii. It shows Antonio's ambivalence at the prospect of marrying the Duchess. Antonio is merely a humble...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  Who is the man described as very honest in act 1, scene 1, in the play The Duchess of Malfi?
  In act I, scene 1, the Cardinal describes Antonio as very honest. The Cardinal tells Ferdinand that Antonio is "too honest." The Cardinal, the duchess's brother, is an evil and ruthless person, but...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  Analyze the significance of Ferdinand's madness in The Duchess of Malfi.
  The wicked Ferdinand has spent the entire play scheming and plotting to have his sister, the Duchess, brutally tortured and murdered for daring to defy his wishes. There's also a psychosexual...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  Compare the two Aragonian brothers, Ferdinand and the Cardinal, and discuss how they contribute the death of the Duchess in The Duchess of Malfi.
  There's really not much to distinguish Ferdinand from this brother, the Cardinal. They're both devious, greedy, and immoral schemers who deliberately set out to murder their sister out of greed and...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  Comment on the character of the Duchess as a very remarkable woman in a man's world using evidence from Webster's The Duchess of Malfi.
  As John Webster's early-1600s revenge play The Duchess of Malfi opens, the Duchess is recently widowed and childless, which places her in a particularly vulnerable position. Without the protection...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  How does the play The Duchess of Malfi end? Do you suggest any alternative ending?
  The play ends with the death of the Duchess's brothers, who had vied to take her fortune for themselves throughout the entire play. The brothers, having killed the Duchess and her daughters, get...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  Analyze the significance of Ferdinand's madness in The Duchess of Malfi.
  One of the things that separates Ferdinand from his equally wicked brother, the Cardinal, is his inconsolable grief at the Duchess's death. Whereas the Cardinal expresses not the slightest...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  Compare the two brothers, Ferdinand and Cardinal, and discuss how they contribute to the death of the duchess in The Duchess of Malfi.
  Ferdinand and his brother the Cardinal are very much two peas in a pod. Each one is as vile, grasping, and immoral as the other, and both contribute in no small way to their sister's tragic demise....

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  Which characters stray from blank verse in The Duchess of Malfi, and when do they do it?
  While The Duchess of Malfi uses a somewhat looser form of blank verse (some shorter or longer lines), Webster's play largely stays in verse. Like other Early Modern dramatists, he follows the...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  What was the portrayal of the Duchess in The Duchess of Malfi, and how it can reflect social criticism?
  The Duchess of Malfi portrays its titular heroine as a strong-willed, dignified, and courageous woman. Compared to her brothers Ferdinand and the Cardinal, she is an authority figure with integrity...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  What are some similarities and differences of plot and character between John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi and William Shakespeare's Othello?
  John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi and William Shakespeare's Othello both are considered revenge tragedies. This genre, influenced by the Roman playwright Seneca, was extremely common in the...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  In the wooing scene in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi (act 1, scene 3), is the Duchess's speech written in prose or blank verse?
  The wooing scene of John Webster’s play The Duchess of Malfi (Act 1, scene 3) is written in blank verse, as can be seen by consulting, for instance, the edition of the play in the Norton Anthology...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  Theme of madness in The Duchess of Malfi?
  In the play The Duchess of Malfi by Joh Webster, the author touches upon many themes, including reality versus unreality, identity, appearances, deception, and insanity. The Duchess is subjected to...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  Even though the drama is full of verbal deception, physical disguise only happens twice. First is when masked Bosola tries to capture the Duchess. Second is when Bosola disguises himself as an old man to strangle the Duchess. Is there significant...
  In the first case, when Bosola tries to capture the Duchess, he's wearing a mask. This is a sign that he's simply carrying out Ferdinand's orders. He personally has come to admire the Duchess for...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  In The Duchess of Malfi, in which instances does Bosola show that there is indeed some good in him or do we presume he is ultimately sinful?
  In The Duchess of Malfi, the audience has no misconceptions about Bosola, the malcontent, released from prison despite his part in a vicious murder. Bosola is not happy with his status in life and...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  How is Italy represented in the world dramatized in John Webster's play The Dutchess of Malfi? For Webster, Italy was not so much a place as it was a psychological condition, an imagined space of unimaginable cruelty, fear and courage, and one...
  During the English Renaissance, Italy was often imagined and presented as a place of moral and even spiritual corruption, and certainly this is true in John Webster’s play The Duchess of Malfi. The...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  What is Webster’s view of women in The Duchess of Malfi with regards to the characters of the Duchess and Julia?  
  Some might argue that Webster is creating a dichotomy with the two women as the Duchess is noble, keeps her feelings to herself, and plays the roles that a woman should by being proper and...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  What is the historical significance of John Webster's play The Duchess of Malfi?  
  John Webster’s play The Duchess of Malfi is historically significant for a number of different reasons, including the following: It exemplifies the emergence of Webster as an important successor to...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  Discuss The Duchess of Malfi in relation to the revenge play tradition.
  Critically speaking, The Duchess of Malfi is considered to be a Jacobean era (1603-1625) revenge play, or revenge tragedy. In writing The Duchess of Malfi, Webster borrowed elements form other...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  In Act 3, Scene 5, Bosola visits the Duchess with a mask on. What is the symbolization of this mask? I personally think that there is no need for Bosola to hide his identity. He have already gotten the duchess. Then why is he wearing a mask?
  Bosola is a spy and so used to playing a part. When he comes to arrest the Duchess, with a troop of masked horsemen, that's effectively what he's doing. Earlier in the scene, when he brought...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  What was the significance of Bosola giving the Duchess the apricots? Did she get sick from eating too much, too fast or was it that apricots make pregnant women sick.
  Bosola has the Duchess eat the apricots to confirm his suspicions that she is pregnant. Her pregnancy is confirmed when she throws up and goes into labor. It's suggested that they should say the...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  What is the role of Bosola in The Duchess of Malfi?  
  In a purely literal sense Bosola's role is that of the hired assassin. More fundamentally, he represents the repentant sinner by the end of the play; he moves from performing cold-blooded acts of...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  What is the nature of power centered in men like Cardinal and Ferdinand?
  The nature of power in men like Cardinal and Ferdinand is physical, coercive, and assertive with all the manifest derivatives of control, manipulation, pressure, and authority. In The Duchess of...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  How is the language of act 4 scene 1 significant and what literary devices does Webster use?
  Act Four in The Duchess of Malfi is full of captivity-themed language and imagery. In Scene 1 we are told that, "She seems to welcome the end of misery more than shun it." Her treatment in the...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  How is gender represented in The Duchess of Malfi?
  The main character, the Duchess, is shown to contravene gender roles in this play. She is shown to be a strong and wilful woman who acts independently of societal and familial expectations. Women...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  Is The Duchess of Malfi a revenge tragedy?
  First, we should think about the definition of a "revenge tragedy." The term was first used by the American Shakespeare scholar Ashley H. Thorndike (1871–1933) in a 1902 article "The Relations of...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  Describe the murder scene in the play “Duchess of Malfi.”
  This is during Act 5, Scene 5 of the play. At the beginning of the scene, the Cardinal is pondering the nature of hell when Bosola enters, along with a servant carrying Antonio's body. Bosola tells...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  Please give a critique of aristrocracy in as presented in the "Duchess of Malfi"?
  This Renaissance play paints the aristocracy is a mostly negative light. The brothers of the Duchess are jealous, hypocritical and vindicative. The Cardinal, supposedly a man of God, not only has...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  Comment on the title of the play The Duchess of Malfi.
  The play’s full title, The Tragedy of the Duchess of Malfi, presents an interesting conundrum as to what type of tragedy befalls and to whom. Though based upon an actual historical figure and...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  What are some important themes (besides death and good vs. evil) in John Webster's play The Duchess of Malfi?
  Many important themes found in John Webster's play The Duchess of Malfi are evident or implied right from the very beginning of the work. Delio's opening speech, for instance, alludes to the...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi explores the issue of female agency vis a vis the Duchess’ symbolic identity. How is the Duchess' personality defined by the others around her?
  The Duchess stands out in this play as a contrast to practically all the other characters. She is the only true strong, independent personality. She remains true to her own ideals and dies with her...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  Can The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster be called a revenge tragedy?
  The revenge tragedy is a genre that was common in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. It was modelled primarily on Seneca's tragedies, especially the Medea. The earliest work of the genre is usually...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  Analyse the significance of the story that the Duchess tells at the end of Act III scene 5.  
  The significance of this story lies in what has just happened to the Duchess. She has just been arrested by Bosola in disguise and is going to be taken to her palace by guards. The story she tells...

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• The Duchess of Malfi
  What are some examples in The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster of intersection between the personal and the political?
  An important example of the intersection between the personal and the political occurs at the conclusion of the play. Antonio, the Cardinal, the Duke and Bosola lie in "this great ruin," with...

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