Consider the significance of death and disease in 'The Duchess of Malfi' and 'The White Devil'.

University Degree Linguistics, Classics and related subjects

Consider the significance of death and disease in ‘The Duchess of Malfi’ and ‘The White Devil’.

T.S. Eliot claimed that ‘Webster was much possessed by death’. This statement seems to be correct, but unsurprisingly so as Webster had already lived through several years of plague and had, one assumes, seen much of death and disease. It does seem, however, that Webster expresses ideas within his plays using the images of disease more often and more effectively than many of his contemporaries. It is perhaps this imagery and the poetry driving through to the final death scenes of his characters that gives Webster’s tragedy an extra pain and paradoxically a special appeal.

Webster uses very graphic imagery both as description and as metaphor. It was noted by Ralph Berry of The White Devil that ’66 images out of a total of about 500 in the play (some 13 per cent) are concerned with disease or corruption’. The use of this imagery affects our feelings about the action of the play as it influences our reading or viewing by putting suggestions and pictures in our minds that the plot development and action alone would not necessarily evoke. It seems that the imagery in The White Devil is more important and more involved than in The Duchess of Malfi. Although in the latter play there are many obvious examples of the images of death and disease they seem to be used less frequently and are slightly more likely to be descriptive than metaphorical.

It is interesting that the imagery begins before the plot has begun or any real information regarding the events of the plays have been imparted. In The White Devil Gasparo says: ‘Your followers

Have swallowed you like mummia, and being sick

With such unnatural and horrid physic

Vomit you up i’th kennel’

This is said in the first twenty lines of the first act. The use of the word ‘mummia’ is particularly strong as mummia is a medicine prepared from embalmed flesh. We have these images in our minds before we know anything of the central characters of the play, let alone what is going to happen throughout. In a similar way in The Duchess of Malfi, Webster uses strong imagery at the beginning of the play;

Antonio: ‘But if’t chance

Some curs’d example poison’t near the head,

Death and diseases through the whole land spread.’ (I.i.13-15).

This is an indication of the action which is to follow, again within the first twenty lines of the play. The diseases mentioned here are a common metaphor for the corruption in the play, the death will be real. Another point to mention here is the use of the rhyming couplet. Webster tends to use these to end a speech rather than as an ordered structural device, yet here the couplet is in the middle of ...

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Antonio: ‘But if’t chance

Some curs’d example poison’t near the head,

Death and diseases through the whole land spread.’ (I.i.13-15).

If we compare Webster to Shakespearean tragedy it is clear that the imagery of death often starts right at the beginning of the play in order to prepare the audience for the horrific events of the play. Webster tends, however, to use the images metaphorically early on whereas Shakespeare is usually recalling past events, for example in Macbeth the first image of death comes in the second act when the Captain says of Macbeth: ‘Disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel,/ Which smoked with bloody execution,/ Like Valour’s minion carved out his passage.’ (l. 17-19). This is about a previous battle which has been fought and although it uses these images it tells of the past rather than giving a glimpse of the future. The imagery is rarely as strong as that used by Webster. When, in The White Devil, Vittoria is at her wit’s end she proclaims: ‘I had a limb corrupted to an ulcer,

But I have cut it off: and now I’ll go

Weeping to heaven on crutches.’ (IV.ii.121-3).

The idea of corruption as an ulcerated limb is painful enough and added to that is the thought of death. To make this even more powerful Webster uses two caesuras in consecutive lines to make the point hit the audience even more clearly. This speech was written to make the audience sit up and pay attention to the horror of what is happening on stage. The imagery combined with Webster’s poetic flair is what, in my opinion, makes his tragedies even more powerful than those of Shakespeare as the audience are given so much more than what they see on the stage.

The themes of death and disease in Webster’s plays can also be seen as a structural device. The imagery of blood and hell is contrasted with beautiful descriptions of jewels and nature. This balance of imagery and its relative timing within the play makes the work flow smoothly and allows the audience to enjoy a glimmer of light amongst the dark images and actions. This is perhaps a device which mirrors the tragicomedy within Webster’s plays. The love that is felt is real, passionate love. The hate and envy is also very real. This is reflected in Webster’s metaphors for both good and evil which are not always explicit. Reversed and indirect imagery is often employed to emphasise the contrasts in the play and in the individual characters themselves. An example of this is ‘the devil in crystal’ (IV.ii.84), a line spoken by Brachiano of Vittoria in The White Devil. The duality seen in the character of Vittoria makes her seem more alive. The paradox of her beauty (both physically and socially) and her evil is expressed here. The idea of balance in the plays makes Webster seem less obsessed with death than obsessed with death as the most powerful image known to man.

Webster’s death scenes and last words are probably the main feature which distinguishes him entirely from his contemporaries. The death scenes linger and are drawn out with eloquent speeches and characters who have fallen silent after they are struck down only to return for a few, valuable words before they finally die. Again the use of caesuras within sentences becomes more frequent to make the words more poignant and to emphasise the horror and finality of death. In The Duchess of Malfi among the final utterances of the Duchess are the lines:

‘I know death hath ten thousand several doors

For men to take their Exits: and tis found

They go on such strange geometrical hinges,

You may open them both ways:’ (IV.ii.215-8).

The overruns and caesuras make the sentence unfold like a plot. The rhythm is lost and the sentence takes the form of free verse, reflecting the freedom of death after a life of subservience. The views of death portrayed by Webster in his plays are diverse. They are beautiful and haunting, desolate and awful. He makes his characters portray the pain of death and also the overwhelming release and often shows the state of hopelessness which results in an almost complete lack of any emotion. In The White Devil Flamineo and Vittoria ‘remain defiant in death’. Flamineo declares that

‘I do not look

Who went before, nor who shall follow me;

No, at myself I will begin and end.’ (V.v.223-5)

Webster uses last words to such effect that he gives characters two or three death speeches or makes them continue in dialogue with another character until their demise. Unlike many other plays the death is not reserved for the last scene or even the last act. Webster surprises us by bringing death about at unlikely times and often too quickly after the plans have been made for a character’s murder, for example in the dumbshows in The White Devil which occur in Act II. This gives the audience a sense of the uncertainty and spontaneity of death. Another view may be that Webster is in fact not obsessed with death as much of his work focuses on the corruption of the state and the lives of the murderers rather than engaging the audience completely with those who are about to die. He is concerned with all the issues surrounding death rather than death itself. The imagery of death is very powerful and may be the most effective way of getting a desired reaction from the audience.

In comparison with his contemporaries Webster, in my opinion, does not seem obsessed with death and disease. Poets such as Donne write about death and also death into poems on other matters entirely as metaphor:

The Dampe

‘When I am dead, and Doctors know not why,

And my friends curiositie

Will have me cut up to survay each part,’ (1-3)

This obsession may be a reflection of the times in which they were living, namely of the plague. Shakespeare and numerous contemporary playwrights and poets use the theme and imagery of death and disease, especially in tragedies, to emphasise the awful facts of life ending. It seems that Webster’s contemporaries appear less obsessed with death as they have written comedies and other works to balance their opinions. Death is an important feature of Webster’s work as a tragedian but not the only important feature. His poetry and imagery fit well together and the balance in his work is impressive. Death and disease featured heavily in the world in which he was writing and those he was writing for. This is apparant not only in his own work but in most other work of the time.

From Simon Trussler’s commentary of The White Devil, Methuen, p. xxvi.

The italics here are my own to show the amount of imagery in just one short speech.

Dollimore, p244.