The Duchess of Malfi Themes

The Duchess's desire to beget herself a shiny new family with the man of her choice directly clashes with her brothers' desire that she remain their single, obedient sister. In Renaissance times, t...

Quick background note: when the Duchess insists to Ferdinand that she's not reinventing the wheel by remarrying ("I have not gone about in this to create / Any new world or custom" (3.2.110-11)), s...

For a lot of The Duchess of Malfi, it looks like the ability to manipulate and cheat is what keeps you on top. The Duchess and Antonio are fine as long as their own lies keep them afloat. But when...

If you just go down the Dramatis Personae of The Duchess of Malfi, you're already looking at a complex web of duty relationships, which are made even more complicated by the events of the play. Ant...

At the historical moment when The Duchess of Malfi is written, times are a changin' in a big way. With the birth of capitalism, English society is moving away from the old social model where the pr...

Did you think it was kind of weird that the majority of the first 20 or so lines of this play are about a king and a kingdom that are basically never mentioned again? Well, it's not a mistake. The...

Bottom line on morality and ethics in The Duchess of Malfi: they're in decidedly short supply. In Jacobean tragedy in general, you see traditional Christian ethics in a state of decay, and in this...

Loss, hatred, the inescapable corruption of human society: these are a few of John Webster's favorite things. It's not hard to come away from watching (or reading) The Duchess of Malfi thinking it...