John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi is a terrible, macabre play that is soaked with the twin themes of class and disenchantment.
Act 1, Scene 1 of the play does not contain dialogue exchanges between the Duchess and Antonio and Cariola. However, upon reading the other parts of the play, we find that the conversations between the Duchess on the one hand, and Cariola and Antonio, individually and separately, on the other, particularly reflect the theme of class inequality.
The Duchess was a lifelong aristocrat with a natural sense of entitlement. On the other hand, Cariola, her full-time lady-in-waiting and part-time confidante, and Antonio, a steward in the Duchess’s palatial household, were mere staff in the Duchess’ employ, who were used to a lifetime of servitude. Given this background, it’s easy to understand why the Duchess approached almost all of her conversations with Cariola and Antonio from a position of plenty, power, and privilege.
The Duchess was widowed in the prime of her life and found in Cariola an abiding friend and trustworthy confidante. The Duchess entrusted Cariola with her intimate secrets in a bond that gave Cariola a modicum of power over the Duchess. However, it’s obvious that the friendship between the Duchess and Cariola was based on genuine affection and loyalty. Thus, Cariola alone was invited by the Duchess to witness both her wooing of Antonio and her marriage to him.
In the Duchess’ relationship with Antonio, the class difference is much more pronounced. Their relationship, even though a romantic one, is an instructive study of class inequality during the Renaissance. When the Duchess commenced her wooing of Antonio, he was constantly mindful to interpret all of her conversations as though she was giving orders and he was taking them. On occasion, it appears that the Duchess made it a point to remind Antonio of the class and economic disparity between them – notice how even as she slipped her ring on Antonio’s finger, she pointed out that:
This goodly roof of yours is too low,
I cannot stand upright in’t, nor discourse
The Duchess did offer to raise Antonio’s station in life through his marriage to her, but Antonio fully recognized the dangers that lay ahead of him. He remarked, “But he’s a fool / That, being a-cold, would thrust his hands i’ th’ fire / To warm them”. In her effort to convince Antonio to marry her, the Duchess goes so far as to discharge him of his debt to her by granting him a quietus.
We find that these reminders of class distinctions between the Duchess and Antonio are a constant and recurring motif in their lives together as a married couple (albeit a secret one). It is only towards the end of the play that we find the Duchess and Antonio being able to put aside their class differences and converse without any echoes of inequality.
Act 1, Scene 1 of the play does not contain dialogue exchanges between the Duchess and Antonio and Cariola. However, upon reading the other parts of the play, we find that the conversations between the Duchess on the one hand, and Cariola and Antonio, individually and separately, on the other, particularly reflect the theme of class inequality.
The Duchess was a lifelong aristocrat with a natural sense of entitlement. On the other hand, Cariola, her full-time lady-in-waiting and part-time confidante, and Antonio, a steward in the Duchess’s palatial household, were mere staff in the Duchess’ employ, who were used to a lifetime of servitude. Given this background, it’s easy to understand why the Duchess approached almost all of her conversations with Cariola and Antonio from a position of plenty, power, and privilege.
The Duchess was widowed in the prime of her life and found in Cariola an abiding friend and trustworthy confidante. The Duchess entrusted Cariola with her intimate secrets in a bond that gave Cariola a modicum of power over the Duchess. However, it’s obvious that the friendship between the Duchess and Cariola was based on genuine affection and loyalty. Thus, Cariola alone was invited by the Duchess to witness both her wooing of Antonio and her marriage to him.
In the Duchess’ relationship with Antonio, the class difference is much more pronounced. Their relationship, even though a romantic one, is an instructive study of class inequality during the Renaissance. When the Duchess commenced her wooing of Antonio, he was constantly mindful to interpret all of her conversations as though she was giving orders and he was taking them. On occasion, it appears that the Duchess made it a point to remind Antonio of the class and economic disparity between them – notice how even as she slipped her ring on Antonio’s finger, she pointed out that:
This goodly roof of yours is too low,
I cannot stand upright in’t, nor discourse
The Duchess did offer to raise Antonio’s station in life through his marriage to her, but Antonio fully recognized the dangers that lay ahead of him. He remarked, “But he’s a fool / That, being a-cold, would thrust his hands i’ th’ fire / To warm them”. In her effort to convince Antonio to marry her, the Duchess goes so far as to discharge him of his debt to her by granting him a quietus.
We find that these reminders of class distinctions between the Duchess and Antonio are a constant and recurring motif in their lives together as a married couple (albeit a secret one). It is only towards the end of the play that we find the Duchess and Antonio being able to put aside their class differences and converse without any echoes of inequality.
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