As a courtier who has sacrificed for its rulers, Bosola personifies the sickness of Ferdinand’s court as it becomes less able to repay its subjects and more tyrannical in its regulation of their behaviour. Bosola’s disgust of the old lady in Act II Scene I is his disgust of morality. Bosola has no respect for morals and principles. He does not acknowledge authority and merely uses Ferdinand and the Cardinal for ambitious gain, even if it means he becomes an ‘impudent traitor’ accepting ‘curs’d gifts’ off a corrupter. It is not the first time Bosola has abandoned his morals and principles for personal gain. He ‘fell into the galleys’ for a murder whilst in the Cardinal’s service. It is evident that although Bosola is morally corrupt, the Cardinal and Ferdinand manipulate him by using his weakness for ambition against him. Bosola’s moral corruption is deemed wrong and so negative consequences arise from it.
The Aragonian brethren see the Duchess as corrupt when she goes against their orders and marries. Ferdinand and the Cardinal exert a lot of control over the Duchess, despite her powerful role, which emphasises male dominance over female, typical of the Jacobean era. The common opinion of women is revealed through the brothers. The Duchess is seen as inferior, her ‘heart placed too far upon the left side’ causes her to be lustful and unfaithful. In her disobeying of her brothers to marry again, the Duchess is seen as a ‘lusty widow’ marrying for nothing other then desire. Ferdinand is worried this will taint the family honour; something that women do not carry well because they are weak and honour is weighty. It is ironic that he says this because in the end it is his and his brother’s fault the family honour comes to nothing. The Duchess is a woman lost in a world corrupted by men who try to control her life, and on failing this, rob her of her last happiness and bring about her death.
Though the Duchess remains unaffected by the corruption of her brothers, she does corrupt convention within the play. By wooing and marrying her steward she inverses the tight Jacobean male/female roles and class restrictions. The Duchess’ defiant insistence on marrying Antonio is an action that shows she has a more dominant will then anybody around her. She has all the qualities that her husband lacks, qualities not thought to be desirable in a woman of that era. Structural order is also corrupted when the Duchess dies an act before the play’s end.
With order itself comes corruption in the play. Ferdinand holds political power and the Cardinal holds religious office, yet both abuse their power, manipulating and corrupting others in the process. The Cardinal’s corruption is made apparent early on when his dealings with Bosola establish him as a dishonest person, even before he is seen with Castrushio’s wife, Julia. The Cardinal’s sins, which include this breaking of his celibacy vows and murdering of a married woman go against all that the Church, for which he holds office in, stands for. The Cardinal is a sly character and ‘will not be seen in’t’. He likes to stay in the background and uses the Church to hide behind, something which he accuses the Duchess of doing: ‘Doth she hide behind religion?’ The Cardinal speaks of Julia in terms of sickness; he is ‘sick of her’ and wants rid of her. He views all women as unfaithful, and the sick-terms in which he relates to Julia highlight her own corruption in cheating on her husband. Through the play, the Cardinal is associated with anti-religious images such as ‘fires’, ‘hell’ and ‘burning’, associations that link him with evil and hell. In his death the Cardinal is troubled yet not repentant as a ‘guilty conscience is so tedious’ to him.
Ferdinand is the antithesis of the Cardinal, whose behaviour is less sinister then his own. His incestuous feelings for his sister lead him from jealousy and suspicion through an obsession and finally to madness. Ferdinand is known to be a corrupt judge to whom the law is not the means of bringing justice to his people; it is like a ‘foul, black cobweb to a spider’. Ferdinand demonstrates this by using the law as an instrument to take Antonio’s lands off him illegally, and in hiring Bosola as an intelligencer to spy on the Duchess. Ferdinand’s desires to control both the political and natural body of his sister, causes him to exert an unnaturally cruel attitude towards her, and finally this results in his downfall.
As a convention those involved in the web of deceit; the Duchess, Ferdinand, the Cardinal, Bosola, Antonio and Julia must all die. Death is seen as the only process of purification, the ‘physician should be put in the ground to be made sweet’. Through death the corruption and evil present in the play are removed and a new regime can begin with the Duchess’ heir.
