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We can have a sense that the whole play was played around Edward’s homosexuality and his affair toward Gaveston, until the very end of Edward’s brutal demise. We learned in the beginning that the widow Duchess had fallen in love with Antonio, who was not in her social class. With two over protective siblings, the Cardinal (the eldest) and Ferdinand (her twin) were suffocating her. Evidences of over protections appeared with Ferdinand asking Bosola to watch over her while they were away. Thy absence made me droop and pine away, Tower, desired her more and waxed outrageous, So did it sure with me; and now thy sight (2, 2, 52-56) Ferdinand Your inclination to shed blood rides post Before my occasion to use you. I give you that To live I’ th’ court, here, and observe the Duchess: To note all the particulars of her ‘haviour, What suitors do solicit her for marriage And whom she best affects: she’s a young widow, I would not have her marry again. (1, 1, 241-247) Edward and the Duchess are two rebels, trying to rebel against what they thought was wrong with their situations. For Edward he felt that if he was the king, who is all mighty, then he should have the right to be happy with anyone he chooses. He might have loved being a king, but it were the very thing that kept him from happiness. In a way, he was being choked by his own crown, preventing him from being happy. For the Duchess, she too rebelled against his two brothers’ over protections of her. When I read this play. I was reminded of what someone once had told me. How would you hold a bird in your hand? If you would to hold it too tight, its only option would be to fly away. Nay, then lay violent hands upon your king; Here Mortimer, sit thou in Edward’s throne, Warwick and Lancaster, wear you my crown; Was ever king thus overruled as I? (1, 4, 35-38) You live in a rank pasture here, I’ th’ court; There is a kind of honey-dew that’s deadly: ‘Twill poison your fame; look to’t; be not cunning, For they whose faces do belie their hearts Are witches, ere they arrive at twenty years; Ay, and give the devil suck. (1, 1, 297-302) Duchess How can the church build faster? We now are man and wife, and it is the church That must but echo this-Maid, stand apart- As we come to the death scenes of Edward. His rebellion of his situations and his relationship with Gaveston, had came to an end. As the hire assassin, Lightborn enters his cell where he was kept, murdered him in a way that represented the undertones of this whole play. The play wasn’t about Edward‘s crown; it was about his homosexuality, and the jealousies of the Lords. They all saw how close their king was to Gaveston and they wanted to be as well liked as he was. In the death scenes of the Duchess, it was slightly similar to Edward being choked by his crown, preventing him from his happiness. The Duchess; however, was not choked by more than just her status, but by her two brothers as well. How she was murdered, being choked to death by an executioner and her unwillingness to fight to lived, only tells me, that she was already dead. Her executioner was not the one that was doing the actually killing, but instead it was her brother (Ferdinand), who has choked the life out of her with his over-protection. Being choked to death was the prefect reflection; of what the play was about, with Ferdinand as the executioner and the style she was murdered represented her isolation from the world due to his brother. There hands were never stained with innocent blood Nor shall they now be tainted with a kings’s ( 5, 5, 80-81) To rid thee of they life; Matrevis, come (5, 5, 106) So, lay the table down, and stamp on it, But not too hard, lest that you bruise his body (5, 5, 111-113) Doth not death fright you? (4, 2, 202) Duchess Who would be afraid on’t, Know to meet such excellent company In th’ other world? (4, 2, 203-205) Must go upon their knees [kneels] come, violent death, Serve for mandragora to make me sleep. Go tell my brothers, when. I am laid out, They strangle her (4, 2, 226-230) In conclusion, the two death scenes told me the undertones of what the two plays were really was. The sexual nature in, “Edward the Second” revolves on his homosexuality, while in the, “The Duchess of Malfi,” the sexual nature was the obsessions of his brother to protect her. Bibliography: Word Count: 883
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