Triangle of Evil in The Duchess of Malfi

John Webster’s (1580-1625) masterpiece is “The Duchess of Malfi”, of which it may confidently be alleged that it is the finest tragedy in the English language outside the works of William Shakespeare. It is a story of revenge, a story of blood-shedding. In this play we find the triangle of villainy, even evil works through such triangle. Evil forces here operate their jobs through three characters- Ferdinand, Cardinal and Bosola. Let us now have some ideas in brief about the triangular villainy in “The Duchess of Malfi”.

          In the centre of the play there is a duchess, the Duchess of Malfi, who is young but widowed. She has two brothers, Cardinal and her twin, Ferdinand, the duke of Calabria. Both the brothers of the Duchess are vicious, pernicious and dangerously sinister. Their motive is to prevent their sister from re-marriage. Because they do not want to share her property with anybody, rather they want to share it within themselves, or maybe if she remarries, she will be over independent and might not listen to the brothers anymore. So the brothers wanted the Duchess not to remarry, and if she violates their instruction, she will have to suffer the pain of death.

          After warning her, neither Ferdinand nor Cardinal believes their sister, the Duchess. So they employ a spy, Bosola, to look upon her activities secretly. He was the gentleman of the horses to the Duchess. But the irony is the Duchess eventually falls in love with the steward of her household, Antonio, and marries him. Cariola, the maiden of the Duchess was the only witness of this marriage. Bosola acts as a spy on behalf of Cardinal and Ferdinand because he was promised to get a handsome reward of money or gold. From the very beginning of the play we can see clearly that the brothers have no compassion for their sister, rather they are inimical towards her.

          The actions of the play go on, and one day Bosola suspected that The Duchess is pregnant. So in order to know the real fact, Bosola hits upon an iniquity plan. He gifts The Duchess some apricots that quicken the birth of child. The Duchess display great greed for them and devours them greedily, even without removing the skin. We witness at this point some devilish asides from Bosola:

          “Good; her colour rises.” (2. 1. 138)

          “How greedily she eats them!” (2. 1. 154)

After taking the apricots The Duchess feels sick and is taken away to her private room. After conducting the test Bosola comes to know surely that she is pregnant.

          The Duchess gives birth to a son. These entire situations raise a frightening status in Antonio’s mind. He in his frightened state drops the horoscope by accident and Bosola picks it up. So Bosola after reading it becomes firmly sure that The Duchess has given birth to a child. But still he does not know who the father of this child is. He then passes this news to the cruel brothers and their anger knows no bounds. Ferdinand curses her disgustfully, but Cardinal remains silent and makes a more evil plan against The Duchess. We witness their grim expression in a different way:

          “Car- Yes, I can be angry / Without this rupture;” (2. 5. 53-54)

          “Fer- I would have their bodies / Burnt in a coal-pit with the ventage stopp’d; / That their curs’d smoke might not ascend to heaven;” (2. 5. 62-64)

          From these dialogues mentioned above we find the character interpretation of Cardinal and Ferdinand. Cardinal is silently evil, he has a calculating mind. But Ferdinand is loudly evil, impulsive and hot-tempered. Cardinal keeps his foul plan, sinister intrigue suppressed. So his mind is not easily readable. And Ferdinand does not keep his evil design suppressed. His foul design is easily readable. Both the brothers have a culpable design for their sister. They device to punish her through death as she has succumbed to her youthful longing. The brothers of The Duchess are devoid of mercy, pity and kindness. They are stone-hearted.

          The Duchess gives birth of two children more. Though Cardinal remains sound and cold making some vile plan, but Ferdinand rushes to Malfi to punish her. Ferdinand gives the Duchess a dagger to kill herself, because according to him she does not deserve to live anymore. Ferdinand here exhibits threatening gesture to the Duchess. And Cardinal, who has the evil master mind, is not only hostile to his sister but also to his mistress Julia. He kills her blasphemously by poisoning The Bible. He is silent killer.

          Like the brothers, Bosola as well a devilish villain. Through subtle flattery he extracts the secret from The Duchess that Antonio is her husband. He passes this news too to the brothers. After knowing about the marriage of their sister, the anger of the brothers does not subside. This news does not assuage their fury, they remain as harsh as before. At this stage Ferdinand makes his comment on Antonio:

“Antonio! / A slave that only smell’d of ink and counters, / And never in’s life look’d like a gentleman,” (3. 3. 70-72)

          The satanic brothers finally finish the light of her life along with her two innocent children. Bosola, the partner of the villainous plan of the brothers kills her with the help of the executioners. “Antonio” and “Mercy” were last two words uttered by the Duchess. In her last sentence she said:

“Pull, and pull strongly, for your able strength / Must pull down heaven upon me:” (4. 2. 224-225)

From the light of the above discussion it has been cleared that Webster has visualized a triangle of evil to work against the pivoted character of the play, the Duchess. At any rate this triangle of evil, Cardinal, Ferdinand and Bosola bring the catastrophic happening in the life of The Duchess and do all the ruinous actions.