Changing Roles: Metatheatre and The Performance of The Widow in John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi and A Cure For A Cuckold
There is something theatrical about weddings and funerals. These events tend to have set scripts, clearly defined roles with stage actions, costumes, and some kind of visual spectacle. Early Modern playwright John Webster is aware of the theatrically of human life, and plays on the performativity of everyday life in his metatheatrical plays. Webster’s work explores the defined roles people play in their everyday lives. There are the roles people choose, and for Webster more often than not the roles people have thrust upon them. Webster's plays The Duchess of Malfi, and A Cure for a Cuckold both explore the fabrication and fragility of the role of the widow in the Early Modern period.
In the Early Modern period the widow was a threat and a figure of anxiety. She is a woman of experience: knowledgeable about sex, and outside the dominion of a husband’s controlling influence. This anxiety of the widow who knows too much is present in The Duchess of Malfi. When the Cardinal and Ferdinand approach the Duchess to forbid her from remarrying Ferdinand tell her “You are a widow/You know already what man is” (1.1 285). This knowledge is at the heart of the anxiety surrounding the widow, and the Duchess’ status as such: she is not an innocent virgin who can be married off and controlled, and if she is married off again than the brothers lose their control of her. The experienced sexuality of the widow threatened Early Modern men and there was paranoia surrounding the idea that the widow was a carnal figure who, now that she had a taste of sex, wanted more. After the brothers’ conversation with the Duchess Ferdinand exits saying,“Farewell lusty Widow” (emphasis added 1.1 118). Before the Duchess has even shown any actual sexual interest in the play Ferdinand has labeled her as inevitably lusty.
A Cure for a Cuckold and The Duchess of Malfi do not exactly dispute the stereotype that widows are lusty figures, but the plays do not condemn this notion as a bad thing either. The Duchess does desire to have a sexual relationship again. Antonio notes that “Twere strange if there was no will in you to marry again” (emphasis added 1.1 382). Antonio acknowledges the Duchess’ desire, and her “will” which is sexual, and he normalizes this desire. The play argues against a negative reading of a widow’s sexuality. The Duchess remarks to her brothers concerning the possibility of remarriage that, “Diamonds are of most value/They say, that have passed through most jeweller's hands’” (1.1 290). In this argument there is nothing cheap, or dirty about a widow remarrying, and her experience should actually make her more valuable than a virgin. Another significant aspect to the play is that while the Duchess does remarries she is loyal to Antonio. She does not have a “lusty” string of lovers, nor does her previous marriage somehow make her susceptible to craving all men. The Duchess marries Antonio and remains a faithful, dutiful wife to him with no hint that there is anything devilish about her conduct just because Antonio is not the only man she has ever been married to. In A Cure for a Cuckold Urse’s sexuality is treated similarly by the morality of the play. Unlike the Duchess, Urse does not have an actual dead husband, but for four years she thought her husband was dead. In otherwords for four years Urse would have gone through the mourning process, worn the mourning clothes, and felt the emotions of a widow because for all intents and purposes she was one. While thinking she was a widow she is seduced and bears Franckford’s child. She is careful to tell Compass that, “No indeed husband to make my offense/ both least and most/ I knew no other man” (3.2 77-78). Webster makes it clear that Urse desired to engage in a sexual relationship with Franckford, but also that he was the only man with which she did so during his absence. Like the Duchess, Urse was not uncontrollably “lusty”: she had one affair when she thought her husband was dead and she owed him no more loyalty. While both the Duchess and Urse are figures of lust, neither play depicts them as amoral or out of control because of this lust.
The Duchess and Urse are both made widows twice. For Urse it is untrue both times, and for the Duchess it is only true the first time. Urse tells Compass when he returns that “rumour laid thee out for dead long since/I never thought to see this face again/I heard thou were dived to the bottom of the sea” (2.3 86-89). Urse believed Compass was dead and at the bottom the sea, which resulted in her thinking for years that she was a widow. It is only with the actual return of her husband that Urse learns she has been miscast in a false role for the last four years. The Duchess too is falsely lead to believe she is a widow, albeit under much darker circumstances. As scholar Martha Lifson points out, “Webster's is a drama which draws constant attention to its own theatricality, particularly in terms of the startlingly grotesque visual scenes” (Lifson 49). It is through these grotesque visuals and a sense of the metatheatrical that Ferdinand convinces the Duchess she is seeing her dead family, and has kissed her dead husband’s hand. It is revealed to the audience that the figures were wax, but for the Duchess from 4.1 until the very moment of her death she believes she is a widow again. In this false widowhood Webster begins to point to the theatricality of widowhood in general. The use of the wax figures, and Ferdinand’s use of the hand as a prop are set up so that the whole horrific scene points to the fact that it is in fact a performance. The props and actors on stage are reflective of the roles played in real life. In this case Webster is commenting on the social construction of the widow. There is nothing innate about being a widow. There is no dramatic physical change in being or personality. The Duchess and Urse can both be made into widows without that actual being true. The widow is therefore a role that is believed. Widowhood is a mental and not a physical experience for women. The Duchess confirms the theatricality of the horror show she is in when she tells Bosola “I account this world a tedious theatre/For I do play a part in it against my will” (4.1 84-85). In this scene she is talking about her “part” being her existence in general as she no longer wants to live without her husband and children, but she is also unknowingly pointing to the falsity of her role as a widow. In the text of the play Antonio and her children are still alive at this point so the Duchess is not a grieving widow, but she is forcibly and falsely playing the part of one because her brothers’ performance has fabricated her into a widow again.
Webster is even more forward displaying the construction of the widow through Urse’s second widowhood in A Cure for a Cuckhold. Compass makes Urse a widow using the two most basic aspects of performance: he speaks the words, and he has them witnessed by an audience. Compass does not need to kill himself to make Urse a widow he just has to declare her one, “Urse I renounce thee, and I renounce myself from thee. Thou art a widow” (4.1 216-217). With those words Urse has lost her husband for the second time and is made a widow. Compass’ “cure” to legitimize himself, his wife, and his child is to remarry Urse. He arranges the wedding by telling her, “Farewell widow, remember time and place; change your clothes too do ye hear widow?” (4.1 221-223) In this line Compass has again called up the support columns of theatre: he has named Urse’s character “Widow,” he has given her the stage direction of a time and place, and he has directed her to change her costume. By calling forth these aspects of the theatre Compass has effectively cast Urse as a Widow.
The difference between The Duchess of Malfi and A Cure for a Cuckold, and the difference between the fates of the Duchess and Urse is in genre. The Duchess of Malfi is a tragedy, and A Cure for a Cuckold is a comedy, but what is it in the treatment of these women that murders one, and saves the other? The answer does not lie in the character of either of these women themselves, because as mentioned before both plays are very understanding to the lust of these women. The difference lies in the men of the play and their understanding, or lack thereof, of female sexuality. In The Duchess of Malfi when Ferdinand discovers the Duchess has remarried he declares that “Thou hast taken that massy sheet of lead/that hid thy husband's bones/and folded it about my heart” (3.2 113-115). He calls upon the memory of the Duchess’ first husband, and bizarrely makes the Duchess’ relationships about himself. Ferdinand is deeply possessive of the Duchess, and her body. Webster acknowledges male domination of women through the patriarchy when he has Ferdinand admit at the Duchess’ death that “I must confess I had a hope/Had she continued a widow to have gained/An infinite mass of treasure by her death/And that was the main cause” (4.2 275-278). Ferdinand desired the Duchess’ wealth, and in order to control her inheritance he took control of her body by forcibly restraining her to the role of widow. Webster displays Ferdinand as a wicked masculine figure who uses his power to control the sexuality and autonomy of the Duchess the play’s good female figure. In doing this Webster demonstrates the unjust way men direct women’s bodies.
In A Cure for a Cuckold on the other hand instead of reacting to Urse’s affair with feelings of personal victimhood, or the greedy desire to control her Compass does something revolutionary in his reaction: he forgives her. Compass does not insult, torture, or kill his wife for having made him a cuckold. He is nothing but understanding to the fact that Urse thought he was dead, and the fact that women have sexual needs. Instead of playing out a blood-soaked revenge fantasy Compass writes his own ending:
WOODROFF: This is a new trick
COMPASS: Yes, sir, because we did not like the old trick (5.1 391-392).
In this exchange Compass admits that he knows how the story goes: he is supposed to be a cuckold, and he is supposed to be angry about that, and he is supposed to hate his wife for that. Instead Compass changes the narrative by recharacterizing himself and Urse: she is a widow, he is a widower and these titles mean the rebirth of their relationship not the death of it or the death of Urse. Brilliantly Webster has Compass performatively kill Urse and make her a widow in order to save her from actually having to die. In The Duchess of Malfi Ferdinand is supported by his brother, by the mad men, by servants, and for a time by Bosola all of whom give in as oppose to resisting his treatment of the Duchess. In a parallel direction Compass’ community support his and Urse’s performance of the widow as opposed to resisting it. The community plays the role of the audience in these performances of widowhood and the success of the performance rests on a community’s support of the show. In The Duchess of Malfi Ferdinand and the Cardinal fall when Bosola breaks away from his assigned role and starts improvising. In A Cure For A Cuckold Compass and Urse are spared bloodshed when the community goes along with their remarriage in act five. Ultimately The Duchess and Urse’s fates are directed by the men in their lives, and their communities support of these men’s choices.
In The Duchess of Malfi and A Cure For A Cuckold Webster offers a defense and deconstruction of widowhood. He is sympathetic as opposed to suspicious of the widow and her lust. The happy and tragic fates of Urse and the Duchess are put down not to their own actions but the actions of the men around them, and their communities support of those actions. Ultimately Webster uses self-reflexive metatheatre to show that there is nothing inherent in the state of being a widow. The widow is a role that can be easily cast and performed like any role in a play.
Works Cited
Lifson, Martha Ronk. “Embodied Morality in ‘The Duchess of Malfi.’” Pacific Coast Philology, vol. 23, no. 1/2, 1988, pp. 47–59. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1316684
Webster, John. A Cure For A Cuckold, “The Duchess of Malfi and Other Plays,” edited by Rene Weis, Oxford University Press, 1996.
Webster, John. The Duchess of Malfi, “The Duchess of Malfi and Other Plays,” edited by Rene Weis, Oxford University Press, 1996.