1. Drama arises from conflict of one sort or another. What is the principal conflict underlying the action of the play?
2. We do not discover that the Duchess intends to marry Antonio until she proposes to him late in Act 1; but we have already
seen the quality of his character. What sort of man is he? What dramatic techniques does Webster use to reveal his character to
the audience? What is the effect of our getting to "know" him before we find out that the Duchess loves him?
3. Antonio is a commoner and a servant (albeit a high ranking one), rather than a gentleman or a noble. How does he compare
to the men of higher social class in the play?
4. In the wooing and wedding scene that takes place in Act 1, scene 2, traditional gender roles are reversed. Is the Duchess's
willingness to take the masculine role portrayed as heroic? Does she retain any traditional feminine qualities?
5. Near the end of Act 2, scene 1, the Duchess exits, feeling very ill and about to go into labor. She is absent from the rest of
the Act. What are the dramatic effects of Webster's placing the childbirth scene offstage? What are the dramatic effects of the
Duchess's long absence from the stage at this point in the play?
6. A "foil" is a character who helps to define and set off another character's personality by contrasting sharply with him or her.
Which character serves as the Duchess's "foil"?
7. When Act 3 begins, years have passed and Antonio and the Duchess have had two more children. In light of Act 3, scene 2,
how is the marriage relationship going?
8. In Act 3, scene 1, the Duchess's brother, Ferdinand, pretends to be supportive and friendly toward her, but in the next
scene, he privately confronts her, rebuking her for her soiled reputation, and presents her with a knife in the hope that she will
kill herself rather than live on in dishonor. Instead, the Duchess concocts an elaborate hoax, pretending to accuse Antonio of
embezzlement, so that they can both flee Amalfi (she pretending to go on pilgrimage) and rejoin in the safety of another city,
Ancona. How does this scene affect our sense of their heroism?
9. Because Bosola is able to trick the Duchess into telling him who her husband is, the escape plan is foiled, and the Duchess's
brothers arrange to have her and her family banished from Ancona. Rather than endanger the family by staying together, the
Duchess advises that she and Antonio separate. How does the parting scene and the arrest that follows affect our sense of her
character? Pay particularly close attention to the imagery in her speeches and to the things she says to and about her children.
 
Thursday, March 8, 2001

1. What are the principal themes of the Duchess of Malfi? Does the play have a "moral"?
2. In The Duchess of Malfi, Bosola's melancholy disposition is frequently noted; he is dominated by black bile or melancholy. What does his presence and his commentary on the action contribute to the reader's or audience's sense of the society portrayed in the play? Do you detect a predominance of any other humor (choler, blood, or phlegm) in any other characters?
3. The Duchess's brothers torture her in bizarre ways. In one scene, Ferdinand presents her with a dead man's hand, telling her
it is Antonio's, and then shows her a convincing waxworks display of her family in order to convince her they are dead. Is
Webster resorting to pure sensationalism (as in a horror film where the point is to make the audience scream)? Or do you see
some larger thematic significance to this scene?
4. Madness is much in evidence in this play: Cariola says she pities the Duchess and thinks her mad, the Duchess is tortured by
being kept in the company of madmen, and Ferdinand eventually goes mad. How does the action of the play define madness?
And why is it necessary to emphasize it as a theme in telling the story of the Duchess?
5.  Does stoic philosophy cast light on the Duchess's story?  Does she have the characteristics of a stoic?
6.  As we saw in one of our earlier study guides, one of the great Stoic philosophers of the Roman Empire was Seneca; Seneca also wrote many sensationalistic tragedies in which the passionate anger and madness of the tragic hero/villain brings devastation to the world.  Some common characteristics of Senecan tragedy are apocalyptic imagery (mountains falling, seas rising up, the sun and moon burning out, etc.), a ghost crying out for vengeance, and a great deal of blood and gore on stage (rather than off stage, as in classical Greek drama).  Why would a stoic philosopher write such dramas?
7.  Many Renaissance tragedies seem to have been influenced by Senecan tragedy.  (Shakespeare's Hamlet, for example).
Does The Duchess of Malfi have Senecan elements?
8. What is the effect and significance of the line "I am the Duchess of Malfi still" (Act 4, scene 2, line 128)?
9. Is it a dramatic flaw to have the title character of a tragic drama die in the fourth act with an entire fifth act still to come?
Does the fact that the Duchess dies in the fourth act change your sense of the play's theme or central focus?
10. Like Jonson in The Masque of Blackness, Webster uses the echo poem: the voice of the Duchess re-appears in Act 5 through the supernatural echo Antonio hears arising from her grave. Is this just an opportunity to be clever and include a fashionable genre? Or does it contribute to the effect of the drama? Is the use of echo thematically significant?