After completing the lesson on Act 4, please respond to the following statement:
Psychological disintegration is often the central horror of Renaissance tragedy. With particular reference to Act 4, how far do you think this statement is true in relation to Duchess of Malfi?
For extension, I'd like to see some research/investigation, and therefore Ao3 references, psychological issues as expressed in the Renaissance period.
Regards,
Mr. D
16 comments:
In Act 4 we are presented with a Duchess who 'nobly' endures her imprisonment and shows little despair at the prospect of her imminent death. The renaissance saw the first major developments in psychological theology, which though primitive and lacked evidence, had wide ramifications on how society viewed the human mind. Humanist psychology was the most commonly believed, and expresses an optimistic view that human-beings are self-determined and capable of personal development. Whilst renaissance psychology is also open to the influences of society upon the human mind, the ideas of self-control shift from the Christian beliefs of Almighty consequences and God's ultimate control over humanity. Whilst Webster himself is likely to have been a Christian and therefore probably did not wholly accept God's supposed lack of involvement in human behaviour, however these theories are likely to have informed the construction of his characters. The Duchess herself shows an unwavering resolution towards Ferdinand's attempts to 'bring her to despair' and although the fact that she eventually surrenders herself to death could be interpreted as weakness, it could also be seen as a determination to be with her supposedly death husband and children in the afterlife. Psychological disintegration may be the central horror of Renaissance tragedy, but through the minimalist reaction of the receiver of the torment, Webster presents a character that shines above such undignified treatment, and instead resorts to the use of Titus Andronicus-style visual horrors, such as the dead man's hand, to entertain his audience.
-David L
Psychological disintegration in theatre, was firstly introduced to Renaissance England through the plays of William Shakespeare, who used it as the core for tragedy in some of his most famous work, such as Othello, Macbeth and Hamlet. Although, Webster explores the psychological break down of characters within Duchess of Malfi it is not to the same depth of Shakespeare. Webster appears to adopt techniques more similar to Shakespeare’s blood tragedy Titus Andronicus, particularly in Act 4 with the violent and visually horrific torturing and eventual death of the Duchess. Traditionally in theatre, deaths of characters occurred off stage and were reported on by a messenger to the audience; however, Webster’s decision to show the barbaric and brutal death of the Duchess and her children on stage demonstrates a change in attitude, to make the tragedy more visually horrific rather than psychological. Undoubtedly, psychological disintegration plays a major part of the tragedy in the Duchess of Malfi but in this particular play, the central horror appears to be the visual disturbance of the torment rather than the psychological collapse.
DK
Within Renaissance tragedy, psychological disintegration is evident. They usually consist of a morbid ending in which the protagonist dies, as is true of the Duchess. It was most prominent in England, with playwrights such as Shakespeare helped its popular rise. Plays such as “Hamlet” explore monarchs being born into certain situations which they do not choose. Although this is not strictly true of Webster’s “The Duchess of Malfi”, it still portrays the story of a monarch who is forced to face terrible circumstances, which she undoubtedly doesn’t wish to. However, within “The Duchess of Malfi” it seems to be Ferdinand who suffers psychological disintegration, rather than the Duchess herself. Her seeming psychological disintegration stems from Ferdinand’s torture of her, such as presenting her with the dead man’s hand. Throughout the play she upholds her dignity, even up until her dying moments, therefore it cannot be said that she begins to lose her mind, whereas Ferdinand suffers from lycanthropia, showing a clear psychological break down. However, despite her death being dignified, Webster still presents it as violent, and the fact that she mentions her children is particularly moving, does illustrate the torture instilled upon the Duchess, rather than her actually losing her mind.
By Aimee
Sorry if it's wrong :(
Within Act 4 of Malfi psychological disintegration is a prominent theme, with particular regards to the mental state of the Duchess as Ferdinand carries out his “honourable’st revenge.” In Webster’s play the audience are exposed to the horrific treatment that the Duchess is subjected to, such as the receiving of the mutilated hand - “I affectionately kiss it” , the dramatic technique he employs of having the wax figures of Antonio and the children and the release of eight madmen into her lodgings. It can be argued that such events are central to the play as they act as the driving force behind the actions and emotions expressed on stage. In Act 4, prior to the Duchess’s horrific death, we witness the slow decline of her inner psyche at the hands of Ferdinand’s torment. Leading up to this Webster appears to portray the Duchess as growing in humanity, with the dignity she retains in the face of death, “I am Duchess of Malfi still” and the references she makes to her children moments before she is to be murdered “giv’st my little boy some syrup for his cold…let the girl say her prayers” This serves to make the unjust murder of the Duchess even more horrific as the audience may just have been starting to empathise with her; evidently the psychological disintegration illustrated in Act 4 appears to be the central focus to Webster’s ‘Duchess of Malfi’ conveys the immorality and sheer brutality that underlies the whole play, whilst also serving to evoke an empathetic reaction in a Jacobean audience.
And the visual horrors also play a major part too :)
Lauren
Act 4 presents us with a Duchess who amplifies her stance against her antagonists by enduring her imprisonment with dignity and pride. The Duchess does not falter at the thought of her demise denoting how strong her mental state is at that particular moment. During the Renaissance,philosophers and poets became more interested in the working of the mind methods such as epistemology and theology were the forerunners of modern psychology. Psychological disintegration in renaissance tragedy explored characters psychological collapse, examples of this can be seen in Shakespeare s work. Shakespeare was the first poet to introduce psychological disintegration, creating characters such as macbeth who we see is broken down psychologicly. John Webstar perhaps follows in that vain but his protagonist does not fall to that psychological torment she endures it even when the antagonist ferdinande presents the duchess with the dead man s hand or when he presents her with wax figures of her husband and children she stand resolute in her mind, does not give in to her brother s torture thus leaving him frustrated. This portrayal of the Duchess severs as a changing in direction in renaissance psychology, she is not broken down psychological or to the satisfaction of her tormentor thus the visual implication add significance to the play.
In the Renaissance period, many writers became interested in psychology, and humanist psychology was the popular belief. this is reflected in Act 4, where Webster is portraying the Duchess as being psychologically strong instead of scared as the audience might have expected.However, this is not exactly psychological disintegration, as the Ducess remains in control of her mind and despite the madmen being around her, she does not loose her sanity. In Act 4 we see more of Ferdinand's psychological disintegration as he seems to get frustrated by the fact that the duchess still stays sane despite his efforts. this is demonstrated by the way he presents her the hand and the bodies of her family. Although it is not evident so much in Act 4, Ferdinands psychological disintegration comes to the surface in Act 5. Therefore, psychological disintegration is less emphasised in Act 4 then it is in Act 5, and the visual horrors seem more significant in this particular Act.
-Harjit.
(apologies for the lack of quotes...my text is not with me)
Psychological disintegration often play a major and central role in Renaissance tragedy.Within Act 4, the presentational change of the Duchess becomes the key issues. The audience alongside Ferdinand expect to see the Duchess’s desperation as her situation turns worse. We presume that because of the losing all her status and respect and then becoming a helpless victim, her psychological state would reflect this with her begging for herself and her families lives, which to any reader would be deemed acceptable. This situation created presents Webster of having a perfect opportunity for providing his audience entertainment with the degradation and breakdown of the Duchess’s mental state. However, although despite knowing the full extent of her predicament the Duchess maintains her role as a noble aristocrat. . ‘Nobly: I’ll describer her… behaviour so noble As gives a majesty to adversity.’ Despite being part of the reason for why she’s is in her current situation, Bosola still compliments her in the way she handles herself. This arguable presents Webster’s choice of not portraying the central horror of his play the psychological disintegration of one of his central characters, but rather choose to focus on challenging views and expectations of a revenge tragedy of his time, this can be understood of being of one the factors on why the play was not well received during its time, as it did not conform to the full extent of conventional revenges tragedies.
. ‘Nobly: I’ll describer her… behaviour so noble As gives a majesty to adversity.’ Despite being part of the reason for why she’s is in her current situation, Bosola still compliments her in the way she handles herself. This arguable presents Webster’s choice of not portraying the central horror of his play the psychological disintegration of one of his central characters, but rather choose to focus on challenging views and expectations of a revenge tragedy of his time, this can be understood of being of one the factors on why the play was not well received during its time, as it did not conform to the full extent of conventional revenges tragedies.
It is interesting in this act to see how the methods of Roderigo and Bosola to destroy the Duchess’s mind fail. The duchess remains a stable and gracious character, upholding a psyche of control and stability which is reflected in the way she openly accepts that she is going to die. The contrast between how the Duchess is dignified in her death to that of how Cariola is uncontrolled, and does in part loose her mind when faced with inevitable death exemplifies the Duchess lack of psychological disintegration in her final act. The psychological degradation of tragic characters within tragedies, acts to make the play be more believable. The theory behind this was that adding an essence of recognisable human behaviour that being of fear, panic, insanity all credible aspects of human behaviour when that person is distressed, makes the play believable. In this renaissance tragedies base their psychological degradation on the limits of human probability, and how humans might behaviour to certain situations. We do not see this with the Duchess. This might beg the question therefore, of whether or not the Duchess as a character is believable as the lack of psychological degradation of her when she should be distressed with the knowing of her inevitable death is not apparent. The Duchess’s calmness is signified in her controlled rhythm of speech and to the intellect her witticisms portray. “Let them loose when you please, For I am chained to endure all your tyranny”, the Duchess’s speech her not with pace, she calmly and coolly accepts the mental torture, as she embraces it in an inviting way that shows her tormentors that she will not be so easily defeated. She accepts that she must face these madmen therefore she bravely and nobly conjures the servant to release them. The way the Duchess also after the madmen scene uses Rhetory to disregard Bosola’s torture, shows how she remains unresponsive to his attempts to unsettle her, and in doing so reiterating her dignity. “Am not I the Duchess of Malfi?”, later she says “I am the Duchess of Malfi”. Her statements are controlled, she doesn’t explode, a pitiful passage of overwhelming emotion in fear, as would be expected as a result of psychological degradation. Instead she cleverly responds in a controlled way that which does not rise to Bosola. She maintains the moral high ground.
A common renaissance theory of human psychologically explored here by Webster is that of acquired reason. Similarly explored many of Shakespeare’s tragic dramas, this common belief was that mental processes where used in human psychologically to learn, but moreover that passion can interfere with reasoning. This can often be traced to have derived from the story of Adam and Eve, and how Eve ate the forbidden fruit. Yet here passion does not act consciously blind the Duchess of the way she controls her behaviour. The Duchess shows that she is not applicable to this psychological degradation in that her last thoughts are with her children before she dies. “The apoplexy, catarrh, or cough o’th ’lungs would do as much as they do” The Duchess’s last thoughts are not of her passion for Antonio, but for the wellbeing of her children, passion here does not help the process of psychological deterioration neither does it blind the Duchess’s reasoning of how she acts in front of Bosola.
I cannot agree that psychological disintegration is often the central horror of Renaissance tragedy is in any way relevant to specifically the Duchess. The only character we see this evident with is Cariola, of which her psychological disintegration only is used to exacerbate the lack of psychological disintegration of the Duchess. For the character of the Duchess, the opposite of such occurs, she remains pshyclogically intact.
Regards,
Antony West
Act 4 marks the pivotal point in the play, and the transition of a physical threat to the Duchess to a psychological one. Act 4 brings the fall and death of the Duchess. We see her in total loss of her status and the breakdown of her psyche. The use of psychological disintegration is a theme that drives on this act and the remainder of the play. However, it isn’t a so successful psychological breakdown as we do see the Duchess hold her strength against her brother and the men he has sent to kill her.
One example of an attempt of psychological breakdown against the Duchess is Bosola and Ferdinand presenting the Duchess with a severed hand. The hand represents Antonio’s hand, and though the audience know he is not yet dead, we are unsure if the hand is foreshadowing future events. The hand is also important as it is not a physical attack on the Duchess, but an attempt to break her down mentally, and erode her psyche. Another example is again the Duchess being presented with models of her children, which we can infer means their death in the future. Again this is an attempt to break down the Duchess who has a high status, but is losing her position in society. One good point that can come out of this scene was the gracefulness we see restored in the Duchess. Though she’s losing her status she does stand up for herself, especially in the scene where she’s with Bosola.
In addition to these two examples of where people are trying to mentally disintegrate the Duchess, we are also shown an event that foreshadows the Duchess’ own death. In scene ii of act 4 we are shown a coffin or tomb as it is referred to in the text that is for the Duchess. Also, when Bosola is talking to the Duchess he refers to himself as “a tomb-maker”, which suggests that he is going to be the one who kills the Duchess and puts her to rest. The Duchess though meets her fate with a degree of honour. She says to Bosola “peace, it affrights me not”, which suggests she knows that she is going to be killed, but is not fighting against it. This means that the character of the Duchess is strong, something that we question from earlier in the play. Another device used to show the importance of act 4 is the use of the ‘madmen’ in scene ii. The impact of this part of the act is subtle, but what it influences us to feel is important in our assumption of act 4 being a time for psychological disintegration. The madmen somewhat confuse the audience, which in itself show mental deterioration, is also a device used by Ferdinand to try to break down the Duchess. Also, the use of the madmen defer our concentration on the Duchess, so a transition in her mentality, character, psyche is able to change more effectively.
Carl
Despite the use of psychological devices that is used against the Duchess and drive forward, its arguable that psychological disintegration is not used successfully. For example, the way that the Duchess is killed is physical – she’s strangled. This means that the use of ‘playing mind games’ with
the Duchess haven’t really elevated to much. Also, the Duchess seems strong, like I mentioned, against the use on psychological disintegration methods. She holds herself with Bosola, and then with Ferdinand she is quietly confident, so despite her psyche being broken down, she remains strong by becoming weak. This could be a mistaken understanding of how the Duchess is supposed to be brought to the audience. However, in my opinion by the Duchess almost giving up on fighting against anything, she’s not allowing Ferdinand’s mind games break her down further, which to him would be irritating.
Also, for the matter that the Duchess is merely being affected by Ferdinand’s psychological breakdown attempts, it means that in relation to act 4, the importance of the device is not central to the act, and nor the play otherwise there would be confusion and the play might not be able to move forward. Instead, the psychological deterioration of the Duchess is important in making the pathway for what is to come, and allows us to understand characters (Bosola & Ferdinand) on a much higher level.
Carl
In particular relation to act four this statement is very true. The psychological torture that is unleased upon the duchess by a man who himself is obviously psychologically affected in some ways is a clear portrayal of the force it had in renaissance tragedy. The three madmen that are set upon the Duchess in this act at the time probably had an affect on the audience that would have provoked scared and worried emotions, thoughon reading the scene in which they are unleashed upon the Duchess I felt more to laugh than a sense of horror. Although if actually faced with the mad men my reactions may have been different, so in actual fact they may have more of an affect on the person in question face to face which would have most definately been Ferdinands intentions. The Duchess however seems not to be affected by them and goes on to say that Ferdinand is the real madman and questions why he is not there to be here torturer if he is as mad as the madmen are.
During the renaissance period, abnormal behaviour of the human being, or as we now call it , psychological disorders, were thought to have been caused by demons spirits or ghosts, factors outside of the body controlling the person from the inside. Certain methods were used in this time to get rid of these spirits that were thought to have been controlling the body. Trephenning was one of the main treatments. They literally drilled the head to try and let out the spirits or demons, obviously this had a high risk of not working and or death, so the success rate was never high.
Mr Bradley Simson
Psychological disintegration is traditionally the centre of Renaissance tragedy, but Webster disregards the conventions and creates a 'new take' on tragedy itself and combines psychological with physical. By killing The Duchess on stage as she graphically suffocates, Webster is removing some elements of psychological disintegration and introducing visual horror. This technique shocks the audience into a state of unsure excitement. Similar to when we see Antonio’s wax work hanging as if he were dead, we are not sure what to think as we are stunned by the visual representation and graphic display, but we know that Antonio is still alive. I think the combination of psychological and physical horror, both help Webster to portray his dark vision of human nature effectively and in a way the audience will leave remembering.
Sam Ellis
Interest in the workings of the mind grew during the renaissance period with epistemology and theology being primary concerns of the literary and philosophical minds of the time. John Webster pays particular attention to the psychological state of mind of his Duchess; he takes her from her moment of ascendancy in Act 1 and then systematically engineers cruel scenes of psychological torment through her brothers. The composure that the Duchess manages to retain is an interesting point of analysis which conveys a criticism from Webster; if a person is bolstered by a just and noble cause such as love then they have the tools to withstand psychological disintegration.
In Act 4, we see the conflicted Bosola embark on a campaign of terror as he tries to break the Duchess’ spirit; her ability to resist this psychological onslaught highlights Webster’s particular emphasis on the power of a just cause. Bosola enters Act 4 Scene 2 vested as the Duchess’ ‘tomb-maker’, he also claims ‘her sickness is insensible’ portraying her as nothing more than a mad woman. He disregards her precarious position labels her effectively labels her as a lost cause and as one soon to meet death. The effect of this is to weaken the Duchess’ position as Bosola gains authority over her; he is the bringer of death, he is healthy whilst she has an insensible sickness etc. The psychological disintegration comes into play here as revoking the Duchess’ stature after the loss of her husband, family and honour has an immediate affect on her sanity. However, despite this role reversal, the Duchess asserts her position and proclaims “I am Duchess of Malfi still”. The emphasis of her position reassures the Duchess psychologically; she knows she is of noble birth and that Bosola is nothing more than a galley slave. The factor which helps maintain the Duchess’ position is her noble cause; she showed grit and determination right from Act 1 when she boldly declared that if her brothers were to get in the way she would make them her low footsteps. This determination seems to have bee valued by Webster which is why his creation maintained her composure despite the torture inflicted upon her.
The graphic nature of Ferdinand’s response to the Duchess and his quest to break her resolve shows Webster making a criticism of Renaissance morality. Machiavelli, a philosopher of the period stated “we Italians are irreligious and corrupt above all others.” This decay of moral value in the period in which the play is set in is illustrated by Ferdinand’s cruel goal to destroy the Duchess’ psychological state. For example, near the start of Act 4 he hands her a severed limb to kiss in the dark which grieves the Duchess. The systematic campaign of terror is continued with the waxwork figures being revealed in silhouette form to the Duchess; this is a further attempt to chip away at her sanity. The cruel intentions of Ferdinand compliment perfectly Machiavelli’s comment on renaissance Italy and highlights how psychological disintegration is key to creating to empathy as physical pain is transient. As psychological torture is deeper and more insidious, it exemplifies the immoral nature of the period. In relation to my argument, despite Ferdinand’s best attempts to break the Duchess, she comes to her own as to how she’d like to pass. She asserts she’d like t die rather than live and suffer; the greatest torture souls feel in hell’. This self-assertion shows she hasn’t been bullied by the duke, but she has made her own mind. And this is because she is justified in her cause.
Conclusively, The Duchess of Malfi is a well crafted piece on psyche and morality. T.S Eliot believed Webster had the ability to show the skull beneath the skin. To look into the inner recesses of the human mind and show the fear of psychological disintegration. The Duchess encounters this fight and loses the physical battle. But because of the nobility of love she gains ascendancy over her tortures, particularly Ferdinand who himself loses his mind. This engineering of plot by Webster critiques the dystopian Italian Renaissance and emphasises the value of virtue.
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