Characters: Bosola

introduction: Bosola’s characterisation and thematic significance lies in the fact that he is a malcontent, and this allows him to represent the qualities that allow for advancement in a society such as the one he lives in

Bosola represents the lack of autonomy of the working class

Bosola’s actions are recognisable in their immorality, and his being in league with the antagonists of the play, however, it is arguable that unlike Ferdinand and the Cardinal, he has a moral compass. That he is, for the large part of the play, unable to act according to this moral compass, is due to the lack of autonomy of the working class (of which he is a representation), and the lack of choice they have in a society such as the one they live in, where truth and virtue are not rewarded, but deception and villainy are.

According to Aristotle, poetry is a better means of instruction than history because it concerns the universal, and ‘The Duchess of Malfi’ imitates Aristotelian ideology in this regard in that it makes commentary on the relationship between the upper and lower classes and how the latter is at the mercy of the former.

^^Where do we see that Bosola has a moral compass?^^

• he criticises the construction of the court, and the way in which people leech off of the riches of the upper class, showing he is not blind to the flattery and bribery of the court, as a means of advancement in life; he recognises the decadence of the court, and he simultaneously recognises his own quickness to become one of those ‘flattering panders’   * $Bosola: ‘he and his brother are like plum trees that grow crooked over standing pools. They are rich and o’erladen with fruit, but none but crows, pies and caterpillars feed on them. Could I be one of their flattering panders, I would hang on their ears like a horse leech till I were full, and then drop off’ (11)$     * in this quote he also shows his awareness of and criticises the innate greed and thus fallibility of human nature, by comparing wealth to rotting fruit, and this shows his moral awareness even further
• he recognises his own hypocrisy further in act 4, scene 2:   * $‘I loathed the evil, yet I loved you that did counsel it’ (121)$
• through presenting the audience with information about Bosola’s past, Webster also allows him to be characterised as an educated man   * $Delio: ‘I knew him in Padua, a fantastical scholar like such who study to know how many knits was in Hercules’ club, of what colour Achilles’ beard was, or whether Hector were not troubled with the toothache’ (85)$
• the references to classicism in this quote suggest that he would have been familiar with philosophy and teachings of morality, increasing the sense that he has a moral awareness yet again
• Antonio’s dissection of the characters of the court in act 1 also describes Bosola with a level of virtue and integrity that juxtaposes his antagonistic position   * $Antonio: ‘tis great pity he should be thus neglected. I have heard he’s very valiant’ (13)$

^^where do we see that Bosola has no choice but to disregard his moral compass?^^

• by himself and other characters, Bosola is often put in the passive position - for example in the constant reference to his neglect at the hands of Ferdinand and the Cardinal. This takes away his autonomy, as does the metaphor that he is working as one of Ferdinand’s familiars - as well as casting Ferdinand as some kind of witch, this shows just how little choice Bosola, someone of lower social status, has at the hands of the upper class   * $Bosola: ‘I was lured to you’ (21)$   * $Bosola: ‘it seems you would create me one of your familiars’ (22/23)$     * both of these make a point of putting Bosola in the passive position
• Bosola is offered money by Ferdinand, and responds by commenting $‘So, what follows? Never rained such showers as these without thunderbolts i’th’ tail of them? Whose throat must I cut?’ (22)$, showing that it is his financial position, his lower social status, that puts him in this passive position of being unable to have autonomy and act on his own moral compass, instead having to commit the immoralities of the upper class to survive
• imagery of sleep is also used to give a sense of passivity:   * $‘I am angry with myself now that I wake’ (121)$

In contrasting the characters of Ferdinand and the Cardinal, Bosola represents the idea that no human being can live without consequence

even if he lacks the autonomy to act on it, awareness of his moral compass allows the audience however, to see Bosola as a juxtaposition of the upper class, in such a way as to expose the fallibilities of the aristocracy, making indirect commentary on the Jacobean court within which Webster’s writing can be contextualised (mention how Webster would be able to make this commentary subtly by using a foreign setting and in particular, a Catholic one)

after the point of the duchess’s death, all three of the antagonistic characters begin to feel guilt, but Bosola does so in a vastly different way from that of Ferdinand and the Cardinal; it could be argued that he in some way expects it

• this is due to his characterisation throughout the play as a malcontent, as someone who acts immorally out of necessity for social advancement, yet still has a moral compass
• it is also clear in the juxtaposition between the ways in which the three characters respond to guilt - the brothers in such a way that their characterisation seems almost melodramatic, and Bosola’s seems rational, and he meets his guilt with action, resolving to repent by protecting Antonio and the Duchess’ eldest son:   * Ferdinand and the Cardinal’s arguable madness in their presentation of guilt suggests an experience of the feeling in which they are unable to rationalise it and understand it, therefore suggesting that they were not expecting it. References to Old Testament incarnations of hell help to suggest this idea:     * $Cardinal: ‘Methinks I see a thing armed with a rake that seems to strike at me’ (151)$     * $Ferdinand: ‘Stay it! Let it not haunt me’ (129)$     * $Ferdinand: ‘You are a fool! How is’t possible I should catch my shadow unless I fall upon’t?’ (129)$     * $Malateste: ‘Oh, my Lord, you are angry with nothing’ (129)$     * $Ferdinand: ‘when I go to hell’ (129)$   * Ferdinand’s madness and irrational reaction to the Duchess’ death is also shown in his lycanthropy:     * $Doctor: ‘A very pestilent disease, my lord, they call lycanthropia’ (128)$   * as well as through his characterisation throughout the play as someone with a moral awareness, the fact that Bosola responds to his guilt and the death of the Duchess with action and not debilitating madness suggests that it has not entirely surprised him and he was expecting it.     * $Bosola: ‘Well, good Antonio, I’ll seek thee out and all my care shall be to put thee into safety from the reach of these most cruel biters that have got some of thy blood already’ (142)$   * Bosola contrasts the arguably feminized (at the time) emotion that the brothers, especially Ferdinand, display     * $Bosola: ‘this is manly sorrow’ (122)$
• this juxtaposition makes commentary on the aristocracy, suggesting a self-delusion in them that they can live a life without consequence - a belief that is not held by the working classes   * this relates to the idea of the divine right of kings, which Webster was arguably making commentary on - this ideology experienced a revival with the ascension of James I to the throne, as he had to justify his rule (due to the fact that his mother was Mary I/ Bloody Mary, and executed at the hands of Elizabeth I) - as James I believed himself comparable to a God, so did the Cardinal and Ferdinand.
• returning to our introduction to Bosola, this is shown in that the aristocracy believe that the working class exist to hold the consequence of their actions; imagery of war helps in illustrating this:   * $Bosola: ‘I wore two towels instead of a shirt, with a knot on the shoulder after the fashion of a Roman mantle’ (11)$   * $Bosola: ‘I fell into the galleys in your service’ (11)$   * $Delio: ‘I knew this fellow seven years in the galleys for a notorious murder, and ‘twas thought the Cardinal suborned it’ (12)$
• Bosola however, disproves this idea through his juxtaposition to their response to guilt, and through this comment he makes in Act 4, Scene 2, when he reminds the Duchess of her position as nothing more than a mortal, in a quote that can be easily regarded as a summary for the whole play, and applicable to Ferdinand and the Cardinal even more so than to the Duchess:   * $‘thou art a box of wormseed - at best, but a salvatory of a green mummy’ (111)$     * a ‘salvatory of a green mummy’ is a box containing embalmed flesh

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