Power and Control

Introduction

"This was my father’s poniard." - Ferdinand

AO1: Symbol of patriarchal power.

AO2: Phallic/metaphoric violence.

AO3: Inheritance = male dominance.

AO5: Freudian critics see incestuous repression.

"Whether I am doomed to live or die, I can do both like a prince." - Duchess

AO1: Embraces agency in death.

AO2: Noble simile = courage.

AO3: Subverts weak female tropes.

AO5: Feminists read this as dignity in resistance.

"The great are like the base, nay, they are the same when they are covered with the same crust." - Duchess

AO1: Class equality in death.

AO2: Simile undermines status.

AO3: Renaissance scepticism of nobility.

AO5: Marxist critics see social levelling.

“When i wax grey, I shall have all the court powder their hair with arras to be like me” - Cardinal

AO1: Vain power and corruption.

AO2: Satiric imagery.

AO3: Jacobean anti-clericalism.

AO5: Critics see moral decay in clergy.

"You live in a rank pasture here, i' the court; / There is a kind of honey-dew that's deadly." - Bosola

AO1: Court is corrupt and dangerous.

AO2: Natural/sensory imagery.

AO3: Court satire was common in revenge tragedies.

AO5: New Historicists link court with death.

“I am the king around here!” – Stanley

AO1: Domestic dominance.

AO2: Monarchy metaphor.

AO3: Post-WWII masculinity crisis.

AO5: Stanley as symbol of toxic masculinity (Tapp).

“I pulled you down off them columns and how you loved it.” – Stanley

AO1: Sexual, class-based conquest.

AO2: Violent metaphor of fall.

AO3: Fall of Old South.

AO5: Feminists see this as coercive dominance.

“Her delicate beauty must avoid strong light.” – Stage direction (Blanche)

AO1: Illusion protects her identity.

AO2: Light = truth; fragility.

AO3: Old South ideals can’t survive reality.

AO5: Critics like Bigsby see light as threat to constructed femininity.