39. Malfi
The
Duchess of Malfi is a young widow. She has a role to
play – that of dutiful sister to her two brothers. The three
of them make up a kind of family triumvirate ruling their city state.
One brother is a senior churchman – a hypocrite, an adulterer, a political manipulator. The other is Duke Ferdinand – violent tempered, desperate that his sister should not remarry.
For their benefit, the Duchess of Malfi assumes a disguise.
She portrays herself as a simple, generous person, easy to please, calm
in adversity. For some time, watching the play, you become frustrated
with her – her docility. Then she begins an affair, a happy but
secret affair. She and her lover have three children while the brothers
are absent in attendance on a more powerful court.
Then the story blackens. The Duchess of Malfi is imprisoned, her lover
flees. Ferdinand devises powerful, vindictive strategies of torture
of his sister in order to send her mad. No other
punishment will do. He shows her two counterfeited corpses and pretends
that they are her lover and son.
And through all of this you feel somehow let down, disappointed in her acquiescence.
Then the Duchess of Malfi delivers a speech of enormous power and authority. If you look in your dictionary of quotations under John Webster, you will find her words. Despite the mental and physical torture she insists:
'I am Duchess of Malfi still.'
Now, it's about 400 years since Webster wrote this bloodthirsty play. I don't know if it was his intention to turn the audience's perception of the woman 180 degrees with this moment. But he does.
If that was his intention, what fantastic nerve he showed, waiting his moment.
