The Duchess of Malfi

Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1614

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Summary

Background

Act Summaries & Analyses

Dedication-Act I, Scene 1

Act II, Scenes 1-5

Act III, Scenes 1-5

Act IV, Scenes 1-2

Act V, Scenes 1-5

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

Blood

The image of blood is invoked as a symbol of either someone’s lineage or their passion. When the Cardinal and Ferdinand are discussing the Duchess’s secret marriage and children, they invoke the corrupting of blood, but each uses it to symbolize something different. The Cardinal is concerned with blood as a matter of nobility: He says, “Shall our blood / The royal blood of Aragon and Castile / Be thus attainted?” (II.5.21-23, emphasis added). His concerns are primarily legal: any children of the Duchess’s, who might inherit her property and fortune, will also partially be of a bloodline less than hers. The Cardinal believes that this “attainted” blood affects their entire family by mixing them with someone of a lower social status.

However, Ferdinand misunderstands him. He tells the Cardinal to “apply desperate physic” (II.5.24), heating cupping glasses “[t]o purge infected blood, such blood as hers” (II.5.26). Early modern belief associated blood with the humors, and so an excess of blood could cause an imbalance that affected someone’s actions. Ferdinand thus interprets blood physically, bodily, and humorally, as it relates to someone’s sexual passions and desires. This misunderstanding about what blood symbolizes is characteristic of the brothers: While the Cardinal’s motivations are cold and calculated, Ferdinand’s are bodily and violent. The Cardinal wishes to control the Duchess to retain the supposed “purity” of their family blood, while Ferdinand reveals an obsession with policing his sister’s sexuality and the “blood” of her passion.

Whereas the Cardinal uses blood to symbolize status, the Duchess invokes blood to symbolize the inherent equality between human beings. While trying to woo Antonio, she says, “Make not your heart so dead a piece of flesh / To fear more than love me. Sir, be confident / What is ‘t distracts you? This is flesh and blood, sir” (I.1.451-53, emphasis added). She is aware that Antonio has misgivings about their class difference and her status as a widow, but the Duchess thinks their differences are immaterial. Despite her class, she insists that she is made of the same “flesh and blood” that he is, thereby signaling her disregard for the “blood purity” that obsesses the Cardinal.

Wolves

Wolves serve as both a motif and a symbol, depending on context. As a motif, the recurring image and idea of wolves contribute to the theme of Corruption, Deceit, and Betrayal. Bosola uses the image of an “ulcerous wolf” (II.1.57) to mock the Old Lady’s attempts to cover her aging with makeup, which Bosola interprets as a deceptive act. He believes that because she is covering herself and appearing as something other than what she naturally is, she is revealing her moral decay to the extent where he can compare her to an animal. Ferdinand uses the image of wolf pups to discuss the Duchess’s children. At one point he asks her, “Where are your cubs?” (IV.1.32). Later, after he has ordered the death of her children, he tells Bosola, “The death / Of young wolves is never to be pitied” (IV.2.257-58). He believes that the Duchess’s marriage to a man of low class resulted in children whose blood is corrupted; therefore, he uses these metaphors to dehumanize them and desensitize himself to their deaths.

When wolves are associated with Ferdinand, they symbolize his inhumane nature and actions. After Ferdinand orders the Duchess’s murder and sees her body, he is diagnosed with lycanthropy. While some historical views of lycanthropy envision it as a disease wherein a man fully turns into a wolf, this play envisions it as a disease wherein a man believes he is a wolf. Ferdinand is found in a graveyard with the limbs of a corpse, howling like a wolf. He tells the men who found him that, “the only difference / Was, a wolf’s skin was hairy on the outside, / his on the inside” (V.2.16-18). Ferdinand is hairy “inside”—for all the time that he has spent comparing other people to animals to dehumanize them, Ferdinand finally realizes the lack of humanity in his own actions and his own internal self. The wolf “inside” Ferdinand might also symbolize penance. It is reminiscent of a hairshirt: a shirt made of animal hair and worn close to the skin by penitents as a form of penance and mortification of the flesh.

The Duchess’s Ring

The Duchess’s ring is a motif associated with Transcending Societal Expectations. The first mention of a ring references a ring that knights would ride at in a courtly game. Ferdinand asks his courtiers, “Who took the ring oftenest?” (I.1.88), and Silvio replies that Antonio did. Antonio taking the ring foreshadows later in the scene when Antonio accepts a marriage ring from the Duchess.

Before the Duchess proposes to Antonio, she offers her ring to cure his bloodshot eyes, and says, “I did vow never to part with it / But to my second husband” (I.1.406-07). When she puts the ring on Antonio’s finger, she is proposing marriage to him—an act that transcends societal norms in two ways. First, Antonio is of a lower status than the Duchess; common practice was that people married among their own class and women especially did not marry below their class. Second, while men would traditionally propose marriage, here the Duchess courts Antonio—her forward and open declaration of romantic desire is unusual for an early modern woman.

Later, the ring is associated with Corruption, Deceit, and Betrayal. When the Cardinal intercepts the Duchess and her family in Act III Scene 4, part of the pantomime that ensues is him dramatically ripping her wedding ring off her finger. In an act of familial betrayal, he rips away the item that signifies her marriage to Antonio, and subsequently her family is ripped apart. Later, when the Duchess is imprisoned, Ferdinand brings her the hand of a corpse wearing a ring. Though it is not specified, it is likely it is the ring the Cardinal took from her. After he deceives her into kissing the ring on the dead hand, he says, “I will leave this ring with you for a love-token; / And the hand as sure as the ring” (IV.1.47-48). Ferdinand has tricked the Duchess into believing the hand is Antonio’s, and this supposed murder is the act of betrayal that finally resigns the Duchess to death.