Ontological mobility: it's obsessed mankind for thousands of years, it'll bag you a mighty impressive Scrabble score, and it's at the heart of The Duchess of Malfi. What is The Duchess of Malfi About and Why Should I Care? Webster's depiction of the Duchess's hopes, struggles and ultimate destruction in the face of these obstacles has led many critics to argue that, in this play, Webster managed to create what Shakespeare himself never really did: a truly tragic female protagonist. See, the Duchess faces the dual problem of (1) being an independent woman in a society that doesn't really know how to handle independent women and (2) trying to maintain a family on the down-low while hanging onto her power as a ruler.
Problem is, not only are her brothers maniacally fixated on controlling her, but she lives in a world that isn't ready for her. In addition, our girl's got the personality to match all that power: she's independent, smart, strong willed, and doesn't see why she can't have it all-sovereignty, motherhood, sexual freedom, and the hubby of her choice.
As the widow of the Duke of Malfi, the Duchess is in an almost unique position among Renaissance women because she not only has legit legal rights, but she also has considerable political power. While there's a lot of intense, interesting stuff going on in this play (check out "Why Should I Care?" below for more) The Duchess of Malfi is probably most famous for its depiction of the Duchess herself. On the surface, The Duchess of Malfi is about a widowed noblewoman who defies the wishes of her elder brothers and secretly marries her non-aristocratic steward, Antonio, out of love, and then faces the terrible (and, at times, impressively creative) retribution of her brothers. Most of the characters are based on real people, although Webster definitely spiced things up a bit. That's right-the Duchess and Antonio were real people, whose marriage ended up going about as well as it does in Webster's play (which is to say, not well at all). The Duchess of Malfi, which he wrote around 1612, is about an actual historical couple who'd lived about a hundred years before. To be fair to Webster, it's not all his fault: both of his major tragedies are based on real life events. Eliot as the man who "was much possessed by death / And saw the skull beneath the skin" (from Whispers of Immortality, 1-2). If most scholars had to describe John Webster and his work in one word, that word would probably be "bleak." Webster's definitely got a rep, and it's not undeserved: his two most famous works, The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, illustrate an unrelentingly black and cynical worldview, so much so that Webster has been immortalized by T.S. You're gonna want your tissues, pint of chunky monkey, and whatever fluffy animal is handy ready to intervene when it all gets to be too much.
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