Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how the ideas presented in "The Duchess of Malfi" are inequality, injustice, and corruption, which were in fact commentaries on the England of the Elizabethan-Jacobean era. The paper looks at how the tragedy of "The Duchess of Malfi "ends with the death of the members of the ruling class: Duchess, Cardinal and Duke Ferdinand; as well as the poor Antonio and Bosola. While the Duchess's soul lives through the voice Echo, her son from Antonio remains the only descendant. At the end of the play, Delio announces that the Duchess and Antonio's son will be the duke. The paper contends that this is the cultural materialist view that one day 'the lower' can win; even rule the state.

From the Paper:

" When Ferdinand pretends to forgive the Duchess and offers his sister a dead man's hand instead of his own, and shows her wax figures that she mistakes for her murdered husband and children, it becomes a real psychological torture. Being a mother and a wife, the Duchess is shocked to see their death figures. Just after that moment, Ferdinand's calling Bosola marks the Duchess's torture being worse. She has lost his family and now, she is made to feel that she has lost her name too: When she asks Bosola "Who am I?", he replies, "Thou art a box of worm seed" (The Duchess of Malfi IV.ii.122-23). However, Duchess the sad mother is still strong and marks the Jacobean theatre as a rebellious woman in her lines: "I am Duchess of Malfi still" (The Duchess of Malfi IV.ii.139). "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Webster, John. The Duchess of Malfi. Ed. Elizabeth M. Brennan. London: Ernest Benn and Norton, 1964.
• Akrigg, G. P. V. Jacobean Pageant, or the Court of King James I. New York: Atheneum, 1974.
• Bartels, Emily C. "Strategies of Submission: Desdemona, the Duchess, and the Assertion of Desire" Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900. Volume: 36. Issue: 2, Rice University Press: 2002.
• Belsey, Catherine. Alternative Shakespeares. ed. John Drakakis. London: Methuen, 1985.
• Breitenberg, Mark. Anxious Masculinity in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

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