Tragic figures in "The Duchess of Malfi"

By Portia Walker, Student

The roles of Bosola and the Duchess in Webster's "The Duchess of Malfi" as tragic figures.

An essay hosted at LiteratureClassics.com

In the “Duchess of Malfi” both the Duchess and Bosola are tragic figures. Dicuss.
The Duchess of Malfi is a peculiar tragedy, ironic and given to anomaly in its structure. Its supposed “tragic heroine” dies an entire Act before the end of the play. William Archer asserts that this makes the play “broken-backed” and Ian Scott-Kilver wrote that the last act is made an “anti-climax” because of this, stating that the Duchess’ early death is “fatal to the unity of the play”. As an inevitable result of the strange nature of the play, the tragic figures share this peculiarity. Bosola is a very unlikely tragic figure and the Duchess is certainly an unconventional one
A tragic figure is to be interpreted on the most basic level as a character to which tragic events occur and whose life is irrecoverably affected by or in itself tragic. A key figure in a tragic play would also be a tragic figure, particularly if they demonstrated their tragic status through their language and attitudes. For Aristotle, the purpose of tragedy was to evoke the strong emotions of terror and pity from the audience which would purify their souls by releasing these tensions in a safe environment in way which would be beneficial to society as a whole. A tragic figure in the Greek mould would be someone (usually a man), in a position of power but possessed of harmatia, a “fatal flaw” that is somehow triggered during the course of the play and is directly responsible for their demise. For example Macbeth’s lust for power or Faust’s pursuit of knowledge. Tragic characters are victims and character is in itself destiny.
The events of the Duchess’ life are undeniably tragic. Her situation in the corrupt and decaying court society, forced to live in a “rank pasture” (I.2.28) is relieved only by her love for Antonio and the private, gentler world they inhabit together. She is forced into ‘seeming’, having to take on the dishonesty of the court to mask her relations with a good man whose only crime is to be lower than her in the perceived social hierarchy of the times. Her beloved husband and three children by him are taken from her by her brothers, who torture her in a grotesque masque, surrounding her by madmen and telling her that are husband and children are dead. She is ultimately killed, alone and imprisoned.
Bosola’s tragedy is of a more complex but wholly differing vein. However the events of his life are perhaps even more tragic. Bosola’s bleak and cynical attitudes initially fails to set him up as tragic figure but viewed in the light of his later realisations he does evoke pity. When Bosola naturally assumes the worst from all “whose throat must I cut?” (I.1.170), it is easy to regard him as the unpleasant character he is. But Bosola’s pessimism born of “this gloomy world...a shadow...a deep pit of darkness” (V.5.99-100), the world which he inhabits. Bosola’s response is perhaps more indicative of the nature of Ferdinand’s requests than of Bosola’s own character. Bosola’s tragedy is not so much what is taken from him but what was never given to him. While the Duchess chooses to disregard class, rejecting “vain ceremony” (I.1.456), Bosola is unable to, born low in the order of society that was so important in the Jacobean Period. He had been a “fantastical scholar” (III.3.40) when Delio knew him in Padua, greatly interested in the backways of history. Delio accuses him of doing so “to gain the name of a speculative man” (III.3.45-6) and it seems as if Bosola has spent his whole life trying to further himself. He is intelligent and perceptive, fully aware of the corruption of the court, “places in the court are but like beds in the hospital, where this man’s head lies at that man’s Foot, and so lower and lower” (I.1.66-68) and versed in techniques of manipulation and blackmail, yet he has had to struggle. Bosola has been forced to lower himself to a "notorious murther” (I.1.70): a hired assassin without conscience.
He has been through far more than the Duchess, spending “seven years in the galleys” (I.1.69) and receiving no real recognition from his master “You enforce your merit too much.” (I.1.34) the cardinal tells him. But when the duchess is at her lowest point, imprisoned and awaiting the arrival of the lunatics her brothers has set on her she compares herself to “the tann’d galley slave” (IV.2.29), showing perhaps an empathy for Bosola’s suffering and an acceptance of it. She could however, merely be referring to the fact that the position of the galley slave was a terrible one and emphasising Bosola’s plight to us unknowingly.
Bosola’s disillusionment is therefore understandable, he has not had the Duchess’ advantages, whilst she has seen some of the corruption of the court she has been able to take refuge in her private world with Antonio and as a woman in Jacobean times much would have been hidden from her, the intricacies of which would have been fully exposed to Bosola. He however sees what has been hidden from the Duchess and which she refuses to see and will not allow to affect her. Bosola has seen so much of the bad in man’s nature, having a lifetime on the receiving end of their cruellest whims and requests: the reason he becomes involved in the plot is because of is being employed to spy on the Duchess.

The Duchess is clearly a key figure in the play, she gives her name to it and the central tragedy of the first four acts is focused on her. The tragedy of the “Duchess of Malfi” is according to Jacqueline Pearson “scripted by Ferdinand, enacted by Bosola and centred on the Duchess”. She is set up by Webster as a classic tragic heroine, her good qualities being emphasised from the onset of the play so that more pity and terror can be evoked from her downfall. Even before she appears on the stage we know her to be of “so divine a continence” (I.1.121) that “She stains the time past: lights the time to come.” Antonio’s description of her is reverend in its tone, throughout the play she is described as almost goddess-like, a light-emitting deity. In the dark of the court she is a like a Precious jewel. The duchess herself makes several references to diamonds and pearls (III.5.13), and when talking of her death “what would it pleasure me, to have my throat cut/ with diamonds?” ( IV.2.213-4). Much of the imagery surrounding her is concerned with light, and as light representing truth and realisation. At her death Ferdinand exclaims, “Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle: she died young.” Her honest nature is too much for him, who has to live with his guilt. In Act IV, Scene 1 where Ferdinand tortures the Duchess light is used on stage for dramatic emphasis: he gives her a dead man’s hand in the darkness, to enable his deceit and then calls for lights so she can see the truth. He also tells her she was “too much it’d’ light.” (IV.1.42), reinforcing the light imagery used for her in contrast with the dark imagery use for the court and its “seeming”. This very positive portrayal of her is what makes her death tragic.
Bosola is also a key figure in the tragedy though he does not come into his own so much until Act V after the death of the Duchess which he is irrecoverably affected by. The Duchess’ essential failing is that she is blinded by love to the dangers of her relationship, or perhaps given a false courage that makes her foolhardy in the face of her brother’s wrath. In this respect Bosola is all too seeing and aware. But in the face of tragedy, she is “well awake” (IV.2.224); finally re-affirming her identity “I am Duchess of Malfi still” (IV.2.139) She cannot collapse even under intense pressure, like the diamonds she refers to. She is ultimately accepting of her plight, saying of the lunatics “Let them come in.” (IV.2.45) and dying without scream, struggle or resistance.
In contrast Bosola’s judgement is clouded by his response to the Duchess’s death, his is a complex acceptance of tragedy, unsure and unstable. At her death a conscience emerges from within him and he asks, “Must I see her again?” (IV.2.130) and his growing awareness unsettles him “I would not change my peace of conscience / For all the wealth in Europe” (IV.2.334). He weeps against his nature “These tears, I am certain, never grew/ In my mother’s milk.” (IV.2.356-7) and is filled with self-loathing at the close of Act IV, Scene II. However Bosola’s relationship with the truth and the depth of his reformation is never quite certain. He lies to the Duchess I at her final moments, telling her a fictional account of how Antonio is alive and reconciled to her brothers (IV.2.345) and although is honest to Ferdinand, telling him that he and his brother “have a pair of hearts are hollow graves,/ Rotten, and rotting others” (IV.2.313-4) Bosola’s transformation does not come until he has lost al hope of reward and there is a strong undercurrent of personal spite. The old Bosola is certainly still present, even after the death he can immediately say “Where’s the waiting woman?/ Fetch her. Some other strangle the children.” (IV.2.234) So it is hard to judge the full nature of the change in Bosola.

The Duchess, although unusual as a tragic heroine, fulfils the necessary criteria. She differs from conventional tragic figures in her constancy in the face of tragedy and ultimate calm welcoming of death but is certainly a tragic figure, evoking both terror and much pity for the audience through her downfall.
Although audiences and critics alike have seen him as a heartless villain since we are never given access to a private world of Bosola’s that would endear us to him, it is hard not to feel pity for Bosola, indeed for anyone who has so degraded themselves, and then doubled their crime but full knowledge and understanding of it. Bosola manages to be both a creator and later a victim of tragedy. If tragedy is to be defined in terms of fatal flaw, he has many: ambition, ruthlessness, cynicism, cruelty but his tragedy is that he creates one, not enough to make him a tragic figure, but his realisation and coming to terms with the realisation of what he ahas done is tragic, painful ad courageous. Bosola can evoke much terror from the audience for his sheer ruthlessness and cruelty, but on reflection he is to be pitied, his life is a struggle for the base things of his world: wealth, power and acceptance, the Duchess is born with all of these. She only ever has to fight for what is good, she can never be judged on the same plane as Bosola since she has never been affected by what has made or claimed him.
Jacqueline Pearson writes that in the play: “tragedy is again poignantly and precariously achieved, but here Webster is more interested in the aftermath of tragedy, and the failure of tragedy in a world without a centre.” That is precisely what Bosola does represent: his star is on the ascent in, and as a result of the aftermath of tragedy. He represents the failure of tragedy through his flawed redemption and cynicism in the face of death. To A Jacobean audience, Bosola’s tragedy could be that he is ultimately damned, he does not repent and would go straight to eternal suffering in the flames of hell, they may have seen hell as a fitting punishment. The Duchess however would join Antonio and her children in heaven. A contemporary audience may not share those views entirely but Bosola’s death is still tragic, he is as pessimistic in death as he had been in life and sees no hope of an afterlife “We are only dead walls, or vaulted graves/ That, ruin’d, yields no echo.” (V.5.96-7) If judged on the premise of this life alone, at least the Duchess had happy moments with Antonio and their children and died optimistic and free from guilt or remorse. Bosola tragedy is the greatest of all: not what he did, but what he was not able to do.