A Thesis Submitted te the Scheel ef Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment ef the Requirements fer the Degree Master of Arts McMaster University September, … The Cardinal ’s illicit relationship with Julia provides an example of a woman successfully controlled by a man. Power is the underlying current that runs through both Webster’s ‘The Duchess of Malfi’, a 17th century revenge tragedy, and Williams’ ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, a 20th Century modern domestic tragedy. You must relate your discussion to relevant contextual factors. Irving Ribner The final act is designed to show that the way of the Arragonian brothers is that of madness and damnation, the complete descent of man into beast symbolised by the lycanthropia of Ferdinand. We will find almost all the elements of Revenge Tragedy in The Duchess of Malfi: The Duke in order to horrify the Duchess gives a dead man’s hand to her and she kisses it taking it to be the Duke’s hand. Yet plays also spring out of a particular culture. They both combat and uphold social norms of a patriarchal society with the Duchess only maintaining power through title and Julia through her sex. The Duchess is a young widow whose two brothers, Ferdinand and the Cardinal, are visiting her from Rome at the play’s start. Power is the underlying current that runs through both Webster’s ‘The Duchess of Malfi’, a 17th century revenge tragedy, and Williams’ ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, a 20th Century modern domestic tragedy. ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN REVENGE TRAGEDY A STUDY OF POWER RELATIONS IN THE SPANISH TRAGEDY, THE REVENGER'S TRAGEDY, THE DUCHESS OF MALFI, AND THE CARDINAL. In commenting to Delio about the French court, he remarks that politics function like a fountain that can be easily poisoned at the source. John Webster's play The Duchess of Malfi is an illustration of the unequal power relations between the sexes during the sixteenth century. You must relate your discussion to relevant contextual factors. From the very beginning of the play, Webster stipulates the low standards that men held to women, even those of good social standing like the Duchess. Bosola the malcontent. Power is the underlying current that runs through both Webster’s ‘The Duchess of Malfi’, a 17th century revenge tragedy, and Williams’ ‘A Streetcar … ... T hey’re a pathetic lot, the men who hang around this Duchess of Malfi. The Duchess (of Malfi) review – indictment of patriarchal power 4 / 5 stars 4 out of 5 stars. In placing ... Bosola’s similes and metaphors vividly capture the brothers’ enormous power and wealth, along with the greedy ambition of courtly suppliants. This widow attempts to secure herself politically by di- Antonio Bologna introduces the theme in the opening lines of Act 1, Scene 1. Explore Webster’s presentation of the Cardinal in The Duchess of Malfi. This chapter explores the political resonances of the pregnant female body as depicted in John Webster’s, The Duchess of Malfi, specifically the ways in which the duchess’s great belly challenges the universalized male human body as the dominant figure for authority. Julia is depicted according to the stereotype of a fickle woman, while the Cardinal is the constant figure of authority. Both plays are set in a time where women are essentially powerless to their male counterparts, yet each piece is arguably female-centric. plored in the ways in which the Duchess is represented as using her body natural and her body politic.3 Webster's Duchess of Malfi estab- lishes a system of rule in which she fails to consider her body's po- tential, either as a means to power or as a means by which she can lose power.