ASND + TDOM Quotes and Critics

Blanche + The Duchess - deviating from accepted behaviour

Blanche - scene 6

‘The first time I had laid eyes on him I thought to myself, that man is my executioner, that man will destroy me’

Blanche + The Duchess - deviating from accepted behaviour

Duchess - act 4 scene 2

‘I am Duchess of Malfi still’

Blanche + The Duchess - deviating from accepted behaviour

Blanche - scene 11

‘I have always depended on the kindness of strangers’

Blanche + The Duchess - deviating from accepted behaviour

Critic - Christina Lucky

The Duchess ‘acts on human impulses in the name of virtue only to discover that she cannot control the consequences of her choices’

Blanche + The Duchess - deviating from accepted behaviour

The Duchess - act 1 scene 1

‘Let old wives report/ I winked and chose a husband’

Blanche + The Duchess - deviating from accepted behaviour

Stage direction - scene 10

[biting his tongue which protrudes between his lips]

Julia + Blanche

Cardinal - act 2 scene 4

‘Witty false one’

Julia + Blanche

Bosola - act 2 scene 3 (about the Duchess)

‘She’s oft found witty but never wise’

Julia + Blanche

Critic

‘Julia is a parody of the Duchess’

Julia + Blanche

Blanche - scene 10

‘Deliberate cruelty is not unforgivable. It is one unforgivable thing in my opinion’

Julia + Blanche

Cardinal - act 2 scene 4

‘Giddy and wild turnings of women’

Julia + Blanche

Stage directions/ Stanley scene 10

‘Mad’, ‘hysterical’, ‘tiger, tiger’

Stella + The Duchess

Stella - scene 4

‘I’m not in anything I want to get out of’

Stella + The Duchess

Blanche - scene 1

‘Mrs Stanley Kuwolski’

Stella + The Duchess

Critic - Ronald Hayman

‘I can almost be said that Stella represents young America, torn between its loyalty to antiquated idealism and the brutal realism of the present’

Stella + The Duchess

Cardinal - act 2 scene 4

‘Shall our blood,/ The royal blood of Aragon and Castile,/ Be thus attained?’

Stella + The Duchess

The Duchess - act 1 scene 3

‘This is flesh and blood, sir/ ‘Tis not the figure cut in alabaster/ Kneels at my husbands tomb’

Blanche + The Duchess - vulnerable

Blanche - scene 3

‘I can’t stand a naked bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or vulgar action’

Blanche + The Duchess - vulnerable

The Duchess - Act 3 scene 2

‘Why should only I… Be cased up like a holy relic? I have youth, and a little beauty’

Blanche + The Duchess - vulnerable

Blanche - scene 11

‘Whoever you are - I have always depended on the kindness of strangers’

Blanche + The Duchess - vulnerable

The Duchess - act 3 scene 2

‘Whether I am doomed to live, or die, I can do both like a prince’

Blanche + The Duchess - vulnerable

Critic - Kathleen McKluskie

‘The DOM reflects an unease with a woman character who so impertinently pursues self-determination’

Stanley + Cardinal

Cardinal - act 1 scene 1

‘Commonly… last no longer/ Than the turning of an hourglass’

Stanley + Cardinal

Stanley - scene 8

‘Remember them nights?… when we got the coloured lights going’

Stanley + Cardinal

Stanley - scene 8

‘Every man is a king! And I am the king around here, so don’t forget it!’

Stanley + Cardinal

Cardinal - act 3 scene 3

‘Doth she make religion her riding-hood to keep her from the sun and tempest?’

Stanley + Cardinal

Critic - Berry

‘The Duchess of Malfi offers a vision of a context for humanity, irretrievably prone to corruption and error’

Stanley + Ferdinand

Stanley/ Stage direction - scene 3

[he falls on his knees… snatches her off her feet]

Stanley + Ferdinand

Ferdinand - act 1 scene 1

‘This was my father’s poniard, do you see? I’d loath to see it look rusty’

Stanley + Ferdinand

Blanche - scene 3

‘Is he a wolf?’

Stanley + Ferdinand

Stanley - scene 10

‘Tiger - Tiger! Drop the bottle top! Drop it. We’ve planned this date with each other from the beginning’

Stanley + Ferdinand

Ferdinand - act 5

‘Whether we fall by ambition, blood or lust, like diamonds we are cut with our own dust’

Stanley + Ferdinand

Critic - Winchell

‘The Kowalski household embodies a patriarchal vision of home as heaven and Stanley here is king’

Mitch + Bosola

Mitch/ stage direction - scene 6

[Mitch is stolid but depressed]

Mitch + Bosola

Stanley - scene 7

‘He’s not going to jump in a tank with a school full of sharks’

Mitch + Bosola

Mitch - scene 9

‘You’re not clean enough to bring in the house with my mother’

Mitch + Bosola

Bosola - act 1

‘I am your creature’

Mitch + Bosola

Bosola - act 5 scene 5

‘It may be pain but no harm to me to die in so good a quarrel’

Mitch + Bosola

Critic - Tennessee Williams

‘I have only one major theme for my work, which is the destructive power of society on the sensitive non-conformist individual’

Social class - marriages

Cardinal - act 1 scene 1

‘The marriage night/ is the entrance into some prison’

Social class - marriages

Blanche - scene 2

‘Maybe he is what we need to mix with out blood now that we’ve lost Belle Reve’

Social class - marriages

Duchess - act 1 scene 3

‘Raise yourself, or if you please my hand to help you’

Social class - marriages

Stanley - scene 8

‘I pulled you down off them columns’

Social class - marriages

Duchess

‘Sir… be confident’

Social class - marriages

Critic - Martin P. Kelly

Characterises Stanley as ‘an intruder with immigrant ambition, therefore the new and emerging immigrant class instigates the fall of the south’

Social class - Bosola + Stanley

Bosola - act 1 scene 1

‘I am your creature’

Social class - Bosola + Stanley

Bosola - act 1 scene 1

Ferdinand and the Cardinal ‘are like plum trees that grow crooked over standing pools’

Social class - Bosola + Stanley

Stanley - scene 11 stage direction

[he crosses to the dressing table and seizes the paper lantern, tearing it off the light bulb, and extends it towards her. She cries out as if the lantern was herself]

Social class - Bosola + Stanley

Blanche - scene 4

‘Sub-human’, ‘ape-like’, ‘acts like an animal, has an animal’s habits!’

Social class - Bosola + Stanley

Critic - Frank Whigham

‘Stanley only attacks Blanche as she challenges his established order’