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Dear Readers,
I've seem to have taken on an 'Oh, what the hell’ attitude this month. With Cait's blessing, I've decided to submit one of my latest research papers on the slightest chance that some of you may enjoy. As contemporary writers, we all read the classics, do we not? Anyway, while my fiction-writing skills may still leave much room for improvement, I can humbly say that my essay-writing skills are stronger. Regardless, what I enjoy best is that both are an asset to each other! Works for me!
Cheers,
Donna
Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi:
Two Parallels of Patriarchal Oppression
While William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew is a romantic comedy, John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi appears to be quite the opposite. It is a Senecan tragedy. However, both plays provide a stark reflection of the social culture in which they were written and first preformed. In his play, Shakespeare’s primary character, Katherine, or Kate, is passed off to marriage by her father. Although reluctant, Kate’s silence is interpreted as consent to enter the marriage covenant with Petruccio. Through the course of the play, we see Kate transformed from a vehemently strong-willed woman, to an agreeable and submissive wife. Her initial wildness and obstinacy is in direct conflict to Elizabethan mores within a patriarchal society, which dictate that women be subordinate to their men. Webster’s central figure and noble ruler, the Duchess, marries her steward, Antonio, secretly. She defies the commands of her brothers, a Duke and a Cardinal, that she remain a widow. Through motivations of greed, noble pride, and incestuous desires, the brothers conspire to kill the Duchess for her transgressions. Insofar as these two plays differ in genre, two main parallels that focus on gender and class can be drawn between them. The significance of these parallels hinges upon the way Renaissance men struggled to maintain their oppressive hold over women. The central female character in each play, whether through scenes of tragic seriousness or comic irony, seeks to rise above this oppression. Kate does so, but apparently also makes some concessions to Petruccio. Conversely, the Duchess maintains her noble independence until her unfortunate death.
The first, more extensive parallel is apparent in the way each play is presented as both a reflection of and a challenge to the dominant social ideology of the times. During the Elizabethan / Jacobean period, a social hierarchy prevailed. Society was patriarchal, whereby men were considered the dominant gender. Women were born into the ownership of their fathers, only to be subsequently transferred to their husbands. However, Kate defies this notion by struggling to maintain her independence with her father, Baptista, and Petruccio, her suitor. Secondly, Shakespeare and Webster both reflect the notion of providential justice in their plays. Renaissance women, who did not submit to the will of their patriarchal society, specifically the men who ‘owned’ them, were punished. Shakespeare’s Kate is psychologically tortured by Petruccio in an effort to break her independent will and reconstruct her identity to the patriarchal ideals of what a wife should be. The Duchess’s brothers pass moral judgment on her as they plot to have her murdered. The Taming of the Shrew and The Duchess of Malfi effectively portray this notion of hierarchy and also challenge it, thus portraying Renaissance social ideology as well as possible redemption from it.
In recorded history, there is no doubt that Elizabethan society consisted of a male majority. However, it is also concluded that there was a high proportion of women who came from various sectors of society to watch plays. These included “’ladies’ down through ‘citizen wives’ or ‘city madams,’ to ‘apple wives,’ ‘fish wives,’ and prostitutes” (Levin 165). Elizabethans were accustomed to violent spectacles like beratings and public executions. They were an audience that craved brutality. Insofar as the audience had influence over the dramatist as to their preferences, the imaginative dramatist also held influence over his audience by way of what he presented. According to Moody E. Prior, Coleridge felt the audience was “no longer defined by the lowest order of persons at the Globe or by the limitations of taste of any one of its critics; it was, for Coleridge, the universal mind” (Prior 112). Prior also suggests that the dramatist had to yield to public opinion, and this came from the lowest order. In other words, this meant the women. Shakespeare and Webster were able to present a cross section of current societal issues in order to meet the expectations of the collective Elizabethan mind.
The dominant parallel between Shakespeare and Webster’s plays first involves a reflection of society. Elizabethans believed in the divine order of nature, as can be seen in Webster’s opening lines. The Duchess of Malfi begins with this opinion. “To a fixed order, their judicious king / Begins at home; quits first his royal palace / Of flattering sycophants of dissolute / And infamous persons— which he sweetly terms / His Master’s masterpiece, the work of heaven” (1.1.7-10). This, in essence, was the definition of a patriarchal society. The hierarchy began at the top with God, king and lord. Women belonged to man’s domain. They were born into the strict care of their fathers who then passed this ownership onto their husbands. Highly important to the marriage was that women remain virginal. Otherwise, they would be labeled as ‘tainted,’ and their dowry would be of lesser value to a prospective husband. Children were also treated as public property. However, in defiance of this, the Duchess is portrayed as being preoccupied with her children at the time of her death. She views them as heirs and not as mere commodities. “I pray thee, look thou giv’st my little boy / Some syrup for his cold, and let the girl / say her prayers ere she sleep” (4.2.182-85). Strong female representation on stage did not go unheeded; their male counterparts sought vigorously to restrain such subordination.
The plays strongly affirm Renaissance patriarchal views regarding a woman’s subordination. In The Taming of the Shrew, Baptista assumes his role of ownership over his daughters. He does not allow the marriage of Bianca and her suitor, Lucentio, to take place until such time as his troublesome daughter, Kate, is married off. “Gentlemen, importune me no farther, / For how I firmly am resolved you know: / That is, not to bestow my youngest daughter / Before I have a husband for the elder” (1.1.48-51). Petrucio steps forward to accommodate Baptista. After hearing about the feisty Kate and discussing the economics of her dowry with her father, Petruccio boldly states his intentions for her. “Now by the world, it is a lusty wrench! / I love her ten times more than e’er I did. / O, how I long to have some chat with her!” (2.1.158-60). Petruccio assumes he knows just what he is getting into, and that he will be the one to tame Kate. Meanwhile, Kate does not hesitate to remind him just who what kind of woman she is. “If I be waspish, beware my sting” (2.1.208). Spectators, at this point, are assured that the woman’s place is to be ruled and to have her identity formed to the will of her husband. The play ultimately reveals not only Baptista and Petruccio’s rights of ownership over Kate, but also, the extent of Kate’s spirited will of independence, as seen through her shrewdness.
Within similar confines of patriarchy, Webster’s Ferdinand counsels his sister the Duchess not to remarry. “Now hear me: / you live in a rank pasture, here, I’ th’ court; / There is a kind if honeydew that’s deadly; / Twill poison your fame look to t’ be not cunning’” (1.3.14-17). Audiences are introduced to the most based natures of man. Not only do Ferdinand and Cardinal plot the murder of their sister, but Ferdinand also has incestuous desires for her. “Would I could be one. / That I might toss her palace ‘bout her ears, / Root up her goodly forests, blast her meads, / And lay her general territory as waste / As she hath done her honors” (2.5.15-19). While also being somewhat debased, characters such as the brothers uphold for Elizabethan society, the masculine values of divine order.
The Taming of the Shrew further reflects Elizabethan / Jacobean ideology. Petruccio is confident of his role as Kate’s prospective husband to transform her into an obedient woman. First he will convince her of her potential, as if such nature is already apart of her.
I’ll attend her here,
And woo her with some spirit when she comes.
Say that she rail, why then I’ll tell her plain
She sings sweetly as a nightingale.
Say that she frown, I’ll say she looks as clear
As morning rose newly washed with dew.
Say she be mute and will not say a word,
I’ll then commend her volubility,
And say she uttereth piercing eloquence. (2.1.167-174)
Furthermore, audiences are entertained with one of the first sparing matches between Petruccio and Kate; they are shown her drive and determination to be her own person. “Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing. / They call me Katherine that do talk of me” (2.1.182-3).
This initial parallel between plays also involves a challenge to Elizabethan / Jacobean patriarchal society. Female inferiority and subordination are challenged. Characters and plot are structurally situated by being cast against class, gender and civility. Gender differentiation was a challenge to the divine order of nature. The fundamental values of audience society were such that women were created to be socially subordinate. For the most part during Renaissance times, a female Monarch such as the Duchess was an anomaly. However, Webster creates his Duchess as a strong and noble ruler. She challenges her brothers’ authority by defying them and secretly marrying Antonio. Moreover, Kate opposes class order; Antonio’s stewardship is considered beneath her nobility. The Duchess proves to be confident of her sexuality in the way she woos Antonio. “Beauteous? / Indeed I thank you: I look young for your sake; / You have ta’en my cares upon you” (1.3.75-78). She continues to shows her authenticity and sensuality when she flirts with Antonio by giving him her wedding ring that was meant, “But to my second husband” (1.3.127).
Similarly, Shakespeare’s Kate challenges patriarchal values by simply being the shrew that she is. She first protests to her father about the arranged marriage he has in mind for her. “Talk not to me. I will go sit and weep / Till I can find occasion of revenge” (2.1.35-6). Next she directs her unmitigated protests toward Petruccio on their wedding day.
Why, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak,
And speak I will. I am no child, no babe.
Your betters have endured me say my mind,
And if you cannot, best you stop your ears.
My tongue will tell the anger of my heart,
Or else my heart concealing it will break,
And rather than it shall I will be free
Even to the uttermost as I please in words (4.3.73-9).
Insofar as Shakespeare provides societal affirmation by way of Petruccio’s determination to tame Kate, he also entertains his audiences with Kate’s tenaciousness, empowering strength of character.
The Duchess is potentially destructive to the gender hierarchy. She is a noble ruler in her public life. “From the moment of her assertion of sexual independence, the Duchess moves with dignity and inexorably towards a ritual chastisement worthy of a flagrant breach of public order” (Callahan 68). In her private life she is authentic and true to her selfhood. She marries for love rather than class distinction. Of primary importance to the play, is the fact that the Duchess goes against the social order of her times and the patriarchal rule of her brothers. For this she is punished. Ferdinand clearly expresses his murderous thoughts to Cardinal. “So; I will only study to seem / The thing I am not, I could kill her now, / In you, or in myself; for I do think / It is some sin in us heaven doth revenge / By her (2.5.64-68).
Traditionally, most Elizabethan plays were against women being portrayed as heroes. Such theatrical content would have been considered anti-patriarchic. The society in which these women were written belonged to the masculine realms of ideology. Aside from the Duchess, other strong, theatrical women have been portrayed as “ultimately defeated and demoralized” (Kurtz 270). Joan of Arc, who led men to battle, was deemed a whore and burned at the stake. Such female characters seem to reflect a criticism against male characters and their struggles for political power and conquest. The women on stage were in a position of being strong roles models. Even in their pre-feminist society, they offered themselves and their female audience members a sense of personal empowerment. In the context of playwright efforts to both reflect and challenge societal norms, the influential power of the female actor on stage would have been pivotal. While these women were denied political power off stage, they conveyed a sense of theatrical authority on stage. Crowded among the men, their gender, highlighted by costuming, maintained considerable fictional power. In The Duchess of Malfi and other productions such as Richard III, the female characters bring an intensity and almost hypnotic ambiance to language. Such woman as the Duchess and Queen Margaret are portrayed as strong and confident political figures, thus making the women “a kind of moral touchstone in the plays” (270).
Ironies in the two plays also appear in true patriarchal form. Comic irony, and along with it, a sense of pathos regarding the Duchess and Kate’s struggles, were part of Renaissance entertainment. Webster has overshadowed the Duchess’s death scene with the on-stage appearance of a chorus of masked and howling madmen. While this decision may act as comic relief about her tragic death, it may also be considered an artistic flaw which instead creates confusion surrounding the tragedy of her life and death. Inga-Stina Ekeblad suggests in her paper, “The ‘Impure Art’ of John Webster,” that “Webster’s method of mixing unrealistic conventions with psychological-realistic representation leads to lack of structure in his play as a whole” (253). Nonetheless, this criticism does not negate the fact that like Shakespeare, Webster’s ironic moments are also provided in the context of patriarchal Elizabethan times.
Speaking to Shakespeare’s portrayals of ironic overtures, the question may be asked, is The Taming of the Shrew’s theme of identity construction all a façade? There is much speculation as to the roles that both Kate and Pertuccio play. Is Petruccio truly the archetype of male dominance, or is he merely playing this role as it is dictated by the society in which he lives? Neither do audiences know for sure whether Kate’s identity is transformed into the authentic, dutiful wife. Perhaps she has merely made the conscious decision to play the role as expected of her by society’s mores. Kate begins this conundrum in the scene between herself and Petruccio, where she accepts his authority that the moon is indeed, the sun. “Then God be blessed, it is the blessed sun. / But the sun is not when you say it is not, / And the moon changes even as your mind” (4.6.19-21). Has Petruccio successfully crafted Kate? Her final speech of the play (5.2.140-183) lends the most weight to this speculation. Does Kate subscribe to Petruccio’s views a broken and reconstructed woman, or as an independent one in charge of her own free will? In his book, All of Shakespeare, Maurice Charney offers criticism that the farcical elements are good fun for pre-feminist audiences, who operated on different gender assumptions than today. He notes Shakespeare’s ambiguity regarding who is taming whom, and who emerges the triumphant party. Charney also suggests Kate’s last speech as tedious and unoriginal; the ambiguity does not raise the speech to the next level of interest, possibly intrigue. Barbara Hodgdon suggests an interesting proposal. As women spectators and readers are “called into an imaginary relationship with the ideology of the discourse being played out onstage by their counterparts, [they] seek to renegotiate the text’s address rather than accept the identifications it encourages” (Hodgdon 2). Personal accounts of Renaissance women that would either back up or dismiss her theory are simply not available. In any case, Shakespeare successfully offers his audiences speculative entertainment through verbal and situational irony between Kate and Petruccio.
The second way in which these two plays reflect a parallel of gender conflict is by way of affirming a strong sense of Renaissance providential justice. Although this concept is more boldly portrayed in The Duchess of Malfi, a likeness can nonetheless be seen in Shakespeare’s play. Both plays affirm their superiority over women, and thus their divine right to punish disobedient wives, sisters, and children. The strong female voice was considered the antithesis of providential order. In an arrogant speech about the control the two brothers assume over the Duchess, Cardinal likens his sister to a falcon.
You may thank me, lady,
I have taken you off your melancholy perch,
Bore you upon my fist, and showed you game,
And let you fly at it. I pray thee, kiss me. (2.4.27-30)
About the Duchess’s imminent death at the hands of Bosola, the brothers’ henchman, Ferdinand says this. “I will send her masks of common courtesans, / Have her meat served up by bawds and ruffians” (4.2.123-4). He then asks for confirmation from Bosola. “Must I see her again?” (131). No matter the gruesome punishment that she must endure in the name of providential justice, the Duchess remains a noble woman to the very moment of her strangulation. “Pull, and pull strongly, for your able strength / May pull down heaven upon me” ((211-12). Whether or not some audience members were satisfied with this kind of just punishment or horrified by it, they were certain to recognize such justice as a theatrical mirror to the social culture in which they lived.
Petruccio punishes Kate’s shrewd obstinacy in more subtle, yet apparently effective, ways. In the name of love, he denies Kate food and sleep. He then explains his control over her. “Last night she slept not, nor tonight she shall not. / As with the meat, some undeserved fault” (4.2.179-180). Much to Kate’s suffering and confusion, he reasons “[t]hat all is done in reverent care of her” (185). Petruccio continues his shaping of Kate’s new identity to be the submissive wife he is determined to have. He instructs the tailor to cut up a new gown in front of her, then much to her dismay, suggests, “We will do unto your father’s / Even in these honest, mean habiliments. / Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor, / For t’is the mind that makes the body rich” (4.3.163-6). Elizabethans no doubt knew this treatment to be, if not common, certainly an acceptable illustration of Renaissance patriarchal society.
William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi are both products of their Elizabethan / Jacobean times. Although the former is a romantic comedy and the latter a Senecan tragedy, a definable parallel of class and gender conflict can be drawn between the two. Both plays reflect Renaissance ideology; a strong notion of divine order and patriarchal control over women prevailed. Shakespeare’s Kate, in all her shrewdness, struggles against her father’s and then her suitor’s oppression. Not withstanding, by the end of the play, her identity is reconstructed by Petruccio, and conformed to the Elizabethan mores of how a wife was expected to look, act, and feel. However, audiences are never completely sure whether this change is the result of Kate’s broken will, or her conscious decisions to submit and merely ‘play’ the societal role imposed upon her. Aspects of Shakespeare’s insightful creativity lie amid this ambivalence. Similarly, the Duchess of Malfi is expected to conform to the patriarchal constraints her two brothers place on her. Contrary to Kate, she remains unbending in her noble struggles for independence. Consequently, her brothers conspire to have her murdered. Both plays, while reflecting the Renaissance culture in which they were written, have as their central character, a female who challenges the norms of their day, and act as an antithesis to them. Within these contexts, a mirror of society and a challenge to it, the convention of providential justice can also be seen in each play. The Duchess is killed for her defiant remarriage, while Kate’s obstinate, independent will is methodically broken down by Petruccio’s subtly effective means of torture, primarily food and sleep deprivation. Whether through conventions of solemnity or comic irony, The Taming of the Shrew and The Duchess of Malfi reveal two main parallels that are significant to the social culture of Renaissance women, and worthy of acknowledgement.
Works Cited
Abrams, M.H., Stephen Greenblatt, George Logan, Barbara Lewalski, eds. “The Duchess
of Malfi.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Sixteenth Century,
The Early Seventeenth Century, 7th Ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company,
2001. P.1433-1507.
Callaghan, Dympna. Women and Gender in Renaissance Tragedy. NJ: Humanities Press
International, 1989.
Charney, Maurice. All of Shakespeare. NY: Columbia University Press, 1993.
Ekeblad, Inga-Stina. “The ‘Impure Art’ of John Webster.” The Review of English
studies, New series. 35:9 (1958):253-267.
Greenblatt, Stephen, Walter Cohen, Jean Howard, Katharine Maus, eds. “The Taming of
the Shrew.” The Norton Shakespeare: Based on the Oxford Edition. New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, 1997. P.133-201.
Kurtz, Martha A. “Rethinking Gender and Genre in the History Play. Studies in English
Literature, 1500-1900. 2:36 (1996):267-287.
Levin, Richard. “Women in the Renaissance Theatre Audience.” Shakespeare Quarterly.
2.40. (1989):165-174.
Prior, Moody, E. “The Elizabethan Audience and the Plays of Shakespeare.” Modern
Philology. 2:49 (1951):100-123. |
donna hill
