Necessary Suffering FC

suffering of women SND

Blanche fragile mental state as a result of abuse by men

Quotes 1: “(he tears the paper lantern … she utters a frightened gasp” “I don’t want realism … I want magic”

Quotes 2: “She sinks to her knees” “He picks up her inert figure” “She smashes a bottle on the table” - southern Gothic, utter resignation of her will

AO3: woman clinging to the past, is crushed under this new social order of New America. Her suffering is symbolic of women’s diminishing autonomy in a post-war patriarchal world.

AO5: Williams “she was a woman who had everything taken from her… and went under because of it”

Comparison: Duchess doesn’t allow her suffering to define her “I am Duchess of Malfi still”

AO5 - feminist reading: Both Mitch and Stanley reject her humanity once her sexual past is revealed, highlighting the double standard in how male and female sexuality is judged.

Suffering of women Malfi

Quote 1: “I will not die!” “She bites and Scratches” “ I am quick with child” - innocent suffer, foil to the Duchess still punished

Quotes 2: “(Holds out a book)” “Kiss it” “she dies”- immoral suffering of women through Cardinals blasphemous perversion of religious authority

AO3: misogyny is systemic not personal - women suffer because of who they were in the eyes of men around them

AO3: Webster’s critique of institutional corruption, particularly the idea that religion can be used to mask and justify evil.

AO5: Callaghan (feminist critic) “DoM shows that female sexuality is not just feared but systematically destroyed”

Comparison: Women who try to conform to SoC standards are still punished through accepted abuse of Stella and Eunice “you hit me”

Suffering of men SND

Quotes 1:“Shut up” “ I’ll be alone when she goes” “We’ll fix you a sugar-tit”

AO3: reinforces a hyper-masculine environment where showing emotion is ridiculed in post-war America

Quotes 2: “You..you…you..Brag…Brag” “(His gaze dissolved into space)” - defeated man suffers due to the emotional cost of conforming to societal expectations of masculinity

AO5: feminist lens - Williams critiquing post-war American masculinity where men were expected to suppress emotion

Comparison: Men suffer despite being the idealised version of masculinity “He fancies himself a wolf” Doctor about Ferdinand

Suffering of Men - malfi

Quotes 1: “I fell into the galleys in your service” “I wore two towels instead of a shirt” “Slighted”- exploited due to low social class

Quotes 2: “dead walls” or “vaulted graves” “Gloomy world” - semantic field of darkness - hopelessness - suffering he will face in afterlife as a result of his scheming and immoral behaviour

AO3: Suffered due to defying Great chain of being - morally dangerous - reflect Jacobean anxieties about corruption and ambition

AO5: Emma Smith “Bosola is at once the malcontent and the moral centre of the play” - duality shows how he is morally conflicted deeply internal suffering

Comparison: See how Stanley is perhaps exempt from suffering due to his lack of moral consciousness “We’ve had this date with each other from the beginning” no doubt just entitlement