Character Clues
Character Analysis
Actions
Webster mostly uses actions to demonstrate his characters' evil. In some cases, though, actions bring out good qualities—like when Isabella kisses Brachiano, demonstrating that she's still devoted to her nightmare of a husband. But stuff like these stage directions is more typical:
[A]s Camillo is about to vault, Flamineo pitcheth him upon his neck, and, with the help of the rest, writhes his neck about; seems to see if it be broke, and lays him folded double, as 'twere under the horse; makes show to call for help. (2.2)
If Flamineo just walked around saying dark and cynical things, but never backed it up with any real murders, we'd be suspicious: he might just be a big softie on the inside. But this makes it clear that he's really pretty awful: he'll snap your neck just to advance his position in the world. Also, when Monticelso brings out his book of known-criminals in scene 4.1, we get the sense this cardinal isn't just about serving Jesus—he's also ready to serve up a nice cold plate of cold vengeance.
Family Life
Like everything else in The White Devil, family life looks like a nightmare (except in certain cases, like when Giovanni stops the quarrel between Brachiano and Francisco [2.1]). Obviously, Isabella and Brachiano aren't happy, Camillo and Vittoria aren't happy, and Cornelia's relationship with Vittoria and Flamineo is pretty bad as well. She attacks Flamineo for helping Brachiano plot adultery and murder and Flamineo (jokingly?) replies by saying he wishes he'd been born to a prostitute:
Corn. O that I ne'er had borne thee!
Flam. So would I;
I would the common'st courtesan in Rome
Had been my mother, rather than thyself.
Nature is very pitiful to whores,
To give them but few children, yet those children
Plurality of fathers; they are sure
They shall not want. (1.2)
But, later on, after murdering his brother Marcello (in another sterling example of family unhappiness), Flamineo gets genuinely upset. He can't bear to see his weeping mother and admits that his life has been "riotously ill" (5.4). This hints that there might have been a possibility for real family happiness somewhere in the past—but Webster's nightmare world totally overrides it.
Occupation
The characters' occupations help show how corrupt they are. Since these are typically the jobs of people who should be good, it makes their badness stand out all the more: cardinal, nobleman, and noblewoman (oh, and fake monks if you want to count them).
While a cardinal should be serving God, good old Monticelso seems more interested in gaining power and plotting revenge. And as far as the nobles go, actually governing their citizens and improving their lives seems to be on the mind of absolutely nobody in this play (except maybe for Francisco)—all the noble people are just scheming for a leg up in the world, especially Brachiano, Vittoria, and Flamineo. They spend more time on adultery and murder than on making Italy a well-run country. This makes a nobleman like Giovanni all the more surprising—he's not a horrible guy. Whoa.
Sex and Love
Sex is a destructive force in Webster's play. Camillo doesn't bother with it, which results in his own death, and a more sexually active and interested nobleman—Brachiano—replaces him. And male characters constantly rage against female sexual appetites (like in Monticelso's rant against "whores" [3.2]). Love seems more like a synonym for sexual attraction than anything else, though characters like Brachiano pay tribute to it with flowery language:
Brach. …Let me into your bosom, happy lady,
Pour out, instead of eloquence, my vows.
Loose me not, madam, for if you forgo me,
I am lost eternally. (1.2)
This might just be verbiage—but Vittoria and Brachiano really do seem genuinely attached to each other. Their human passion is pretty much the only thing that endures up until death in this play. We don't see any examples of a more sacred or holy kind of love. This intense sexual attraction is basically the one solid human bond—at least, in Webster's dark cosmos.
Speech and Dialogue
We learn a lot from the tone and style with which Webster's characters speak. Take Monticelso, verbally attacking "whores," as an example:
Mont. …They are worse,
Worse than dead bodies which are begg'd at gallows,
And wrought upon by surgeons, to teach man
Wherein he is imperfect. What's a whore!
She 's like the guilty counterfeited coin,
Which, whosoe'er first stamps it, brings in trouble
All that receive it. (3.2)
First of all, this dude's a cardinal. He seems a little too riled up about promiscuous women for a devoted and spiritual person. It also demonstrates a fair degree of bitterness on his part—it's a little uncontrolled, out of range. On the other hand, Francisco speaks in a much more balanced manner in the same scene—using foresight and tact:
My lord, there 's great suspicion of the murder,
But no sound proof who did it. For my part
I do not think she hath a soul so black
To act a deed so bloody. (3.2).
It indicates he's not only a craftier and saner individual—he's the right guy to direct the course of vengeance.
Thoughts and Opinions
With the less developed characters, we never really see into their souls. But Webster uses thoughts and opinions to let us view not only the outward manipulations of his characters, but the inner principles, sadness, and discontents that crowd their lives. For instance, Francisco—who is a pretty slick operator, though still one of the better people in the play—expresses a belief in the equality of humans, very eloquently
What difference is between the duke and I? no more than between two bricks, all made of one clay: only 't may be one is placed in top of a turret, the other in the bottom of a well, by mere chance. (5.1)
Also, on a more emotional level, Flamineo regrets the way he's led his life, and gets all Maya Angelou on us and starts talking about how caged birds must feel:
I have liv'd
Riotously ill, like some that live in court,
And sometimes when my face was full of smiles,
Have felt the maze of conscience in my breast.
Oft gay and honour'd robes those tortures try:
We think cag'd birds sing, when indeed they cry. (5.4)
Flamineo would just be a mustache-twisting villain with no depth if it weren't for these moments of insight. But the fact that he's a humanized villain—who feels pain and has the usual run of emotions—makes him more horrifying, because he's more believable. It's possible he could exist in our world or that some of us could become like him.