Theme Of Corruption In The Duchess Of Malfi
John Webster 's The Duchess of Malfi is often said to be placed only slightly lower than Shakespeare 's greatest tragedies due to the orthodox criticism of the past century. Although, the themes of corruption and putrefaction of court life and of courtly reward and punishment are continued throughout the play, there is yet another significant theme, of that of The Duchess of Malfi being a play endowed with atrocities by the kin of the main protagonist, which is the Duchess. And thus the play takes the form of being subjected to the consequences and the aftermath of what follows to be known as dishonourable treatment of the royal blood and rank. In other words, if the play The Duchess of Malfi should be regarded as play with its central theme as honour killing. The play can be very well interpreted as focusing upon the suffering of the Duchess amidst a gathering of cynical and inhumane people who aim to impose a common orthodox on the questioning and defiant individual. The play turns the few dark hints of the sister tragedy into actuality and brings into focus on the stage all the terrors of a dying cosmos. Not sudden death, but dying by slow degrees, sinking deep into the snare of disease and rot. The suggestion here is of something working in secret to produce a greater horror than man can bring on himself, a natural evil which is out of man 's mortal control. Focusing the attention to the plot of the play, the First Act gets the readers aqquainted with the series of
How Does Thomas Putnam Use Mass Hysteria In The Crucible
710 Words | 3 PagesAccording to the play this outbreak of fear in Salem has caused delusions of fear which has turned into a mass hysteria, a mixture of anxiety. This mass hysteria has led them to use this in fear as a tool in personal gain; it is also used towards political gain, and revenge.
How To Stop Panic In The Crucible
602 Words | 3 PagesThis shows that people need to do the right thing no matter how hard it is so that events in real life do not get out of hand like they did in the play and like they did in the real Salem Witch
Cruelty In The Crucible
570 Words | 3 PagesIt reveals how people commit cruel acts out of selfish intentions. In this situation, the girls claim to “come to Heaven’s side” by pointing fingers at others for witchcraft, although they were only doing so to get themselves out of their own trouble. These acts of cruelty reflect upon the evil motives of the perpetrators that become more common after it is done once, as seen through the continuous trials and suspicions, which acts as one of the most major conflicts in the play. Without these cruel accusations, there would be neither plot nor ending. With this same situation, it can be concluded that accusations become more frequent during an interval of time when there are more people accusing.
The Role Of Lying In The Crucible
444 Words | 2 PagesIt shows whoever reads it why lying is a sin. A society or puritans, focused on perfection of religion, is shocked by an occurrence of witches. Witches are the Devil’s evildoers, and should be persecuted at once. Abigal, the drama queen of the play, attempts to kill the wife of the man she loves with witchcraft. They are found, but whenever Abigal and the others attending are being accused, they lie, blaming others of being witches.
Violence In Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus
1191 Words | 5 PagesIn Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, the audience encounters a dreadful array of violent acts, increasing in brutality and volume, which conclude in Tamora eating her own children ‘baked in a pie | Whereof their mother has daintily fed’ (5.3.59-60). The vivid representation and portrayal of violence, which begins with state-mandated execution, extends to rape and mutilation, and culminates in cannibalism, has earned Titus Andronicus the reputation of the most violent play written by Shakespeare. Through a close examination of the nature of the violence in the play, one could deduce that the chain of aggressions from a loss of control over legally authorized violence. The legal violence delineated in the earlier parts of the play is a dispute
Death In A Streetcar Named Desire
718 Words | 3 PagesThe lives of the main character revolve around desire. Throughout the play, the theme of death is the opposite of desire is developed through the main character’s need to be desired or desirable. Blanch wants to be desired. She will do anything to be desired. She lies to everyone around her, pretending to be something she’s not.
Influences Of Niccolo Machiavelli's The Duchess Of Malfi
1134 Words | 5 PagesJohn Webster, the great Elizabethan dramatist was little admired during his life time. The Elizabethans failed to appraise his genius as a dramatist and after his death he fell for nearly two hundred years into the lap of oblivion to be brought back into the limelight by the criticism of such distinguished critics as Lamb, Swinburne, Rupert Brooke, who popularised his works and establised his claim to be recognised as a great dramatist of Elizabethan age. But now the tide has turned in Webster 's favour and he is recognised today not as a dramatist who carried forward the revenge theme in drama but as a great poet, and above all, a great moralist, who held aloft the moral vision of life at a time when the dramatists of the age were piling horror and glorifying murder into a fine art. This tragedy THE DUCHESS OF MALFI, the revenge is further degraded and the moral motive of the dramatist come to the forefront. There are some influences of other Elizabethan authors.
The Audience In Othello
931 Words | 4 PagesThe interest of an audience is held by themes that are fundamental to the human condition, as these reflect our world and examine human nature. For example, Othello explores themes of jealousy which is still relevant to this day. Therefore most themes in this play have a broad appeal to all people. The lives of a twenty first century audience are substantially different to those of a Shakespearean time but the themes of love, hate and death are timeless.
Theme Of Death In Romeo And Juliet
884 Words | 4 PagesIn the infamous tragedy of the play ‘Romeo and Juliet’ by William Shakespeare, the theme and influence of death are poignantly prevalent through the course of the play. The use of death in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is portrayed through 3 instances of the deaths of 4 major characters, Romeo, Juliet, Mercutio and Tybalt, in which the context of each death, are relative to the cause and development of their demise. Shakespeare capitalizes on the sophistication and complexity of death along with its varying impacts in relation to the context in which guides their tragedies. The death of Romeo is the result of his intense love and passion for Juliet as he refuses to exist in a world without his true love, “ The lean abhorrèd monster keeps thee here in dark to be his paramour? For fear of that, I still will stay with thee, And never from this palace of dim night depart again.”
Masculinity In Othello
1010 Words | 5 PagesFor Shakespeare’s plays to contain enduring ideas, it must illustrate concepts that still remain relevant today, in modern society. Shakespeare utilises his tragic play Othello, to make an important social commentary on the common gender stereotypes. During early modern England, Shakespeare had to comply to the strict social expectations where women were viewed as tools, platonic and mellow, and where men were displayed as masculine, powerful, tempered, violent and manipulative. As distinct as this context is to the 21st century, the play exposes how women were victimised by the men who hold primary power in the community in which they compelled women to conform to the ideal world of a perfect wife or confront an appalling destiny for challenging the system. Moreover, Shakespeare utilises the main antagonist, Iago, to portray how men are desperate to achieve what they want and to indirectly fulfil the stereotype of masculinity and power through manipulation.
The Memory Play: A Streetcar Named Desire
929 Words | 4 PagesThe chronological structure also makes the audience aware of Blanche’s spiral into a destruction which is tragic and inevitable. The plot of the play is advanced
Power And Ambition In Macbeth
954 Words | 4 PagesWhat drives apparently good men to become ruthless, ambitious, jealous and greedy? We see an example of this in the play “Macbeth” performed at Pop Up Globe, directed by Tom Mallaburn, was written originally by the well-known author, William Shakespeare. Macbeth is based upon a big tragedy, where the two main characters, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, inevitably were forced to do evil things due to their ambition; taste the sweetness of victory and then downfall again. Although the play was written by an English author, Shakespeare smartly sets his story based upon the idea of ambition, a concept that relates to all of us, no matter where we are from. We have to admit that in our minds, the concept of power and ambition is linked to men.
Violence In The Tempest
2448 Words | 10 PagesIn the Shakespearean comedy The Tempest, we are presented with the psychological violence associated with the abuse of power and continuous theme of colonialism explored throughout the play. In early works of Shakespeare it is evident that the violence interrogated in his plays consists of bloodshed and physical torture as opposed to his later works such as The Tempest where the play focuses on the ideology of psychological violence. The Tempest was one of the last plays written by Shakespeare and is recognised as one of his most popular works
A Dead Rose And A Rose For Emily Analysis
932 Words | 4 PagesFirstly, the story emphasizes on the atmosphere of suspense and horror, with the theme of death. For example, in the story it quotes, “... two years after her father 's death ... people hardly saw her at all. She told them that her father was not dead. She did that for three days ... Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quickly.”
Lady Macbeth As The Fourth Witch Essay
1079 Words | 5 PagesShe had the total control over her husband in plotting the murder of Duncan and chiding her husband for not acting more like a man; yet, despite this participation, she seems to be the main motivation for the revealing of the Macbeth’s stand in the usurpation of the throne: Hie thee hither, That I may pour my spirits in thine ear, And chastise with the valor of my tongue All that impedes thee from the golden round Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem To have thee crowned withal.(Macbeth 1.5.23-28) Next to this part some of her speeches for ambition of power portray her as an unnatural character that almost certify her as the fourth witch of the play. During her persuasion her cruelty and tendency for violence is intentionally brought to light when she claims even to kill her own child for what she has promised to do: I have given suck, and know How tender ’tis to love the
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