Bio: Sarah Devine is a Senior English and Spanish major at Willamette University. Her English emphasis is creative writing, and she completed a novella as her thesis. She plans to attend law school with a social justice emphasis and work in the area of women's rights.

“Identity and Social Mobility in The Duchess of Malfi”
By Sarah Devine

Characters such as Bosola and the Duchess in The Duchess of Malfi challenge the societal structures of early modern England by attempting to increase their power and station. Although all are ultimately sanctioned, their ability to exist, however briefly, in defiance of class and gender roles is notably radical. These characters are important because they embody the tension between being part of a hegemonic, rigid system and having subjectivity. The prevalence of plays dealing with social mobility in early modern England reveals a societal consciousness highly concerned with aspects of class and societal roles. The early modern period was also a time when many aspects of societal identities were changing: the prevalence of capitalism meant that class was beginning to be determined more by acquired wealth and labor than by birth, and women were gaining social mobility and independence (Whigham). Because of these changes and the emergent destabilization of the traditional class system, characters like Bosola and the duchess are frightening and intensely problematic. Despite their ultimate sanction, their defiance reveals class structure as something inorganic and deeply linked with ideology; their punishment is the dominant class or gender restoring order and power, not the natural consequence of their actions. Their presence within the play, and their struggles to assert an autonomous identity, represent the exploration of and anxiety surrounding social mobility in early modern England.
The duchess in John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi embodies the anxieties that powerful widows and, more generally, powerful women, provoked in early modern England. Her station is the most significant aspect of her identity, as evidenced by the fact that she has no name in the play other than her title. Class standing is, therefore, immediately central to the characters and to the play as a whole. The Duchess’ brothers Ferdinand and the Cardinal, wishing to keep their wealth, forbid her to remarry. Her defiance of them is doubly potent because the man she secretly marries, Antonio, is of far lower class standing. It is also clear that she marries for love: "I do here put off all vain ceremony/And only do appear to you a young widow/That claims you for her husband? (2 1 390-2). When she proposes to Antonio, the duchess assumes a decidedly male role because of her class superiority; she says: The misery of us that are born great? / We are forced to woo, because none dare woo us? (1 374-5). It is she who places a ring upon Antonio’s finger, as he kneels before her.
In his essay “Sexual and Social Mobility in The Duchess of Malfi,” Frank Whigham says of the duchess: “The duchess begins the play as a widow. Upon her husband’s death she entered into a new realm of freedom from male domination, the only such realm open to Jacobean women, and it is this transfiguration that directly enables her outlaw marriage. The duchess privately assumes the unmistakably male tone of the Renaissance hero” (171). While she is able to successfully assume the role of the Renaissance hero in private, her defiance of her prescribed societal role is necessarily short-lived. Her actions are outside the realm of any woman’s power, even a widow’s. Her servant, Cariola, watches the duchess propose to Antonio and says afterward: "Whether the spirit of greatness or of woman/Reign most in her, I know not, but it shows/A fearful madness. I owe her much of pity? (436-8). Cariola’s words effectively identify the basis of the duchess’ struggle as a woman in early modern England; she is not permitted the kind of subjectivity she demonstrates through her marriage to Antonio. "The spirit of greatness" and her identity as a woman are mutually exclusive. In this light, Cariola’s sympathetic (but also scornful) reaction to the duchess’ marriage foreshadows her ultimate downfall.
The duchess’ murder at her brother’s hands is a means for them to regain control of her personally, as well as reestablish her societal role as a woman. Whigham says of Ferdinand’s motivations: Her action is also threatening to Ferdinand because it suggests that the supposedly ontological class categories are brittle and imperiled by the powers of flexible self-determination exhibited by the duchess and her base lover. Such rewriting of the rules threatens to reveal the human origin, and thus the mutability, of the ultimate elevation on which he rests himself (170).
That his motives for punishing her are as much based in self-preservation as his desire to reestablish her social standing reveals one of the central tensions present in conflicts surrounding class: notions of class are dependent upon the entire society’s recognition of them. This mutual dependency places high-born men such as Ferdinand in a place of extreme danger when someone in his own class, the duchess, refuses to acknowledge the importance of class distinctions. This knowledge also changes in some respects the significance of the duchess punishment: “to destroy her is to destroy the necessarily potent source of doubt, and in the process of its destruction reconstitutes [Ferdinand and the duchess] both: she is now the felon, the outlaw; he the transcendent judge” (Whigham 170). On the surface, her destruction could be seen to negate her defiance of class structure. In reality, however, such punishment is Ferdinand’s only option if he wishes to reestablish the (demonstrably precarious) class distinctions that allow him to function in such a privileged station.
The tension between public and private life is central to the duchess’ struggle and ultimate destruction. In his work “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,” Althusser identified the public sphere as being governed by the “Repressive State Apparatus.” This includes the government, army, police, courts and prisons and it functions by repressive violence. Because of her station and the fact that her actions are not technically illegal, she is not put at great risk by these public means to maintain order. Her downfall occurs because of what Althusser calls the “Ideological State Apparatuses,” which function in the private realm and include religious and political systems, the family structure, and education (?Ideology? np). The duchess’ brothers can be seen as representatives of these apparatuses: one, called only the Cardinal represents the authority of the Church, and Ferdinand operates with regard to his own wishes for the duchess and his family. Although she is a duchess, she is, as a woman, relegated primarily to the private realm, and therefore it is in this area that she is the most vulnerable.
Her marriage to Antonio is not illegal, but it is ideologically at odds with her societal expectations. Whigham says of her ambitions: The duchess? goal is what we now perceive as a marital norm; as such, it may seem too domestic to count as disruptive social mobility. But such a goal was notably new-fangled for the English aristocracy at this time. Issues of female self-determination and mobility across class lines, both social and sexual, had of late come to be commonplace in London. Still, the notion was only slowly comprehended (173).
The Ideological State Apparatuses function by ideology, which Althusser defines as “the system of the ideas and representations which dominate the mind of a man or a social group” (Ideology np). He also states that whatever form these apparatuses take, they always express class positions. Thus, the duchess true rebellion is against something relatively intangible; she is not fighting against the law, but against the ideology of her society. The fact that ideology and class are linked so fundamentally reveals the true importance of her defiance: to challenge class standing is to challenge the most basic tenants of her society.
The Duchess' identity is very much wrapped up in her social standing; she says “I am Duchess of Malfi still” (4 2 152).  Bosola, who does not have so clear a rank (and certainly not one as high), has a mutable, at times indefinable identity throughout the play. The variability of his identity is exemplified by his numerous disguises and deceptions. The connection between social standing (public) and identity (private) is essential to both their characters, and is particularly significant in Bosola’s case because his ?tormenting search for secured identity constitutes his role in the play? (Whigham 175). Without a set and visible public role, it seems, a private identity is impossible to secure.
Bosola’s struggle for a stable identity is also related to the concept of self-determination. His character is representative of the anxiety that surrounded servants in early modern England who are necessarily in a position of confidence, but are self-serving. His principal role in the play is that of a spy; both Ferdinand and the duchess take him into their confidence, without suspicion. He is adept at changing his demeanor at will, and can project whatever appearance is suitable in any given situation. His knowledge of such varied personas is evident in the first scene of Act Two, when he instructs Castruchio on how to be "taken for an eminent courtier" (1-2), giving him details regarding how to walk, speak and even how to smile. The changeable, mysterious aspect of his character is in many ways exemplified by the shaded lantern he carries in Act II; he is stealthy, and shields the majority of his thoughts and knowledge from those around him. His ability to acquire secret knowledge makes him a particularly dangerous spy; as he walks through the garden with his lantern, he hears a scream and says: "There’s some stratagem/ In the confining all our courtiers/To their several wards. I must have part of it; /My intelligence will freeze else? (2 3 3-6). In Act I, the Cardinal uses the word "intelligence" to mean "spy” when he recommends that Ferdinand employ Bosola to gather information. The double meaning of the word indicates to some degree Bosola’s dilemma: he has agreed to work for Ferdinand, and to be a "good" servant he must relinquish his own judgment (his intelligence).
Although the ease with which Bosola understands and can manipulate the social system makes him dangerous, until he murders the duchess he is, so to speak, a "good servant.”Despite his bitterness and misanthropic outlook, he has relinquished his identity and autonomy to his master in order to fulfill his duty. His eventual rebellion against Ferdinand is prompted by Ferdinand’s goading and abuse; he says he will pardon Bosola for the duchess’ murder, which Bosola carried out by his command. “Mine” Was I her judge?/Did any ceremonial form of law/Doom her to not-being? Did a completely jury/Deliver her conviction up I’th court?? (4 2 312-14). While serving Ferdinand’s private, ideological goals, Bosola puts himself in danger of the Repressive State Apparatus. He is vulnerable because of his low social status, and this overshadowing threat is particularly significant because Bosola is being sanctioned in much the same way as the duchess (and by the same person), but by the public, as opposed to the private, apparatus. He was a galley slave prior to the play’s beginning, also due to his master’s orders. As he speaks to the Cardinal: I fell into the galleys in your service, where/for two years together, I wore two towels/instead of a shirt? (1 34-6). Because of this, Bosola cannot dismiss Ferdinand’s threat to alert authorities to the duchess? murder.
Ferdinand is able to make such a threat only because of Bosola’s low rank, and he uses his superiority over Bosola to intimidate him. When Bosola refuses to relent, he says: Oh, horror! /That not the fear of him which binds the devils/Can prescribe man obedience! (4 2 327-9). Reflected in Ferdinand’s words is the anxiety such a rebellion fosters; much like class standing itself, the relationship between servant and master is mutually dependent.
When Bosola breaks from Ferdinand, he articulates the central conflict that a servant, particularly an intelligent one, experiences while trying to serve a master: Sir, /I served your tyranny; and rather strove/To satisfy yourself, than all the world; /And though I loathed the evil, yet I loved/You that did counsel it; and rather sought/To appear a true servant than an honest man? (4 2 340-5). These lines mark a fundamental shift in Bosola’s thinking (he served but does not serve, loved, but does not love) and it as at this moment that he becomes a danger to the servant-master class structure. Although he cannot save himself (and, in fact, does not try to), he evaluates his situation and the world around him in his own terms, not Ferdinand’s. He says: Off my painted honor! /While with vain hopes our faculties we tire. /What would I do, were this to do again?/I would not change my peace of conscience/For all the wealth of Europe? (348-53). His dismissal of vain hopes? makes his character especially problematic: he is no longer hoping for advancement, for a rise in station that Ferdinand could have helped him achieve (although the word “vain” indicates that he doesn’t believe Ferdinand would have ever done so). His defiance of his master, therefore, is not in order to achieve the kind of material status that the class system would impart to him; it is to act in accordance with his private ideology, his own morality. He, like the duchess, exposes the class structure as an agreed-upon construct; it is powerful, but only because society makes it so.
The ways in which Bosola and the duchess reveal the human origin of the class system echo the changes that were beginning to appear in early modern England. As capitalism became widespread and class was determined by wealth and labor, social standing became visible as an acquired station and not as an inherent quality. This understanding of class gives the duchess? and Bosola’s challenges to the system a different significance. Their punishment, instead of being a natural consequence, becomes the dominant party’s attempts to reestablish a social hierarchy. Their defiance profoundly destabilizes the class structure, exposing its mutual dependency and vulnerability. Along with the exposure of the class system itself comes an awareness of the institutions (or, as Althusser says, apparatuses) that enforce it. That Bosola and the duchess are sanctioned by two entirely different apparatuses but in much the same way shows the prevalence and variability of the institutions that enforce class standing as indisputable truth. Whether a person is sanctioned by the Repressive State Apparatus or the Ideological State Apparatus seems to depend upon class standing and gender, and the fact that they ultimately function in much the same way indicates that everyone, regardless of rank, is trapped in the same system.

Work Cited
Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes Towards an Investigation).
Transcribed Andy Blunden. 30 Jan 2009.
<http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm#n1>
Language Association. 100.2 (1985): 167-186.