Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.
- Is the Duchess a heroine?
- Even though the Duchess went against the brothers' wishes, their pursuit of the wholesale slaughter of her and her family seems pretty harsh—do Ferdinand and the Cardinal destroy the Duchess to punish her? Control her? Something else?
- Quite apart from pissing off her brothers and upsetting the established order, is the Duchess being irresponsible as a ruler when she secretly marries Antonio and starts a family with him?
- Basically all of our main characters are dead at the end of the play—do you think anybody wins, ultimately?
- Late in the play, Bosola switches teams and decides to avenge the Duchess. What's up with that? Do you think this change of heart takes place all at once, or is it gradual?
- Characters spend a fair bit of time talking about Fate in this play—it's presence, absence, or unfairness. Having seen how everything goes down, do you think there's any macrocosmic guiding force at work (whether that be in the form of God, Justice, Fate, etc.)?
- Both Antonio and Bosola are non-aristocratic men who want to better themselves. How do their methods to achieve that goal differ, and what do the ultimate events of the play say about the possibility of social, political, or economic ascension in the society Webster describes?
- Here's a doozy: is there a possibility for lasting goodness in Webster's world? It seems like every time there's a glimmer of hope or virtue it's immediately snuffed out. Is the corruption and darkness present in the play something Webster believes is inherent to the world, or something specific to this particular place and group of people?
- Our play is called The Duchess of Malfi, and it's about—you guessed it—the Duchess of Malfi. If this is the Duchess's show, then why does she die in the fourth act of a five-act play?