Critics - Streetcar and Malfi

‘Blanche is the victim of the mythology of the Southern Belle’

Tapp (Streetcar)

Duchess’ final defeat to her brothers, resigning to her fate.

Gemma Arteton on ‘I am Duchess of Malfi, still’

‘Masculine power within society ‘sees itself as an egalitarian world where every man is a king.’

Gabi Reigh (Streetcar & Huey Long’s ideology)

‘Stanley, the master player and Darwinian survivor, controls all’

Quirino (Streetcar)

‘Webster presents the Duchess not as an oversexed pleasure-seeker, but as real and fully human’

Dympna Callaghan (Malfi)

‘[Julia conveys] the deep inner struggle of a woman who has compromised herself for uncertain gain and finds herself the victim of a cynical and abusive man.’

Christina Lucky (Malfi)

‘Blanche turned to sexual intimacies when vulnerable for a sense of validation.’

Alice Reeve-Tucker (Streetcar)

‘[Antonio is presented as] dull passive and weak’

‘Do not weep’ (duchess)

‘Darwinian tragedy’

John Peters (Streetcar)

‘Destructive lusts for sexuality and power’

Billington (Malfi)

‘The ultimate tragedy of Webster’s world is not the death of any individual but the presence of evil and decay which drags all mankind to death.’

Travis Bogard (Malfi)

‘[Bosola] ruthlessly exposes the vices and follies of mankind’

Gunby (Malfi)

‘The Duchess speaks of her own sexuality with admirable common sense’

Pacheco (Malfi)

‘[Blanche tries to] invade the sacred marriage of Stella and Stanely’

‘In bed with your […] Polak!’

‘Blanche’s tragic flaw is that she adheres to the Southern tradition that she needs a man for completion’

Elia Kazan (Streetcar)

‘Blanche’s changing costumes […] represents her survival strategy in a threatening world.’

Gabi Reigh (Streetcar)

‘The desperate struggle to survive in a corrupted society’

Emma Smith (Duchess)

‘Webster presents the Duchess not as an oversexed pleasure seeker, but as real and fully human’

Callaghan

‘An almost desperately morbid turn of mind’

Richard Watts Jr.

‘Pure and chaste, yet desirable and virtuous’

WJ Cash on the Southern Belle