I Love You More than Parmesan

“Is this a churchman’s voice?”: Religious Officials in ‘Tis Pity

Religion and religious officials occupy a strange place in the play. We have yet another corrupt Cardinal in ‘Tis Pity. Grimaldi flees to the Cardinal’s quarters after murdering Bergetto. Richardetto says (quite hopefully) that “The Cardinal is noble: he no doubt / Will give us true justice” (3.9.21-2). Yet the Cardinal quickly exonerates Grimaldi of his crime because he is “nobly born” (56). Donado asks, “Is this a churchman’s voice? Dwells justice here?” (62), and the answer is that when even Cardinals “think murder’s not amiss” then justice via religious law is worthless and ineffectual. The Friar is Giovanni’s tutor and supposedly his spiritual advisor, yet cannot seem to out-argue his student when it comes to the most fundamental issues of Christianity. The Friar seems more concerned with having Giovanni ask for forgiveness rather than preventing his sin. He often hints that Giovanni is a lost cause, early on stating, “I see thou’rt too far sold to hell; / It lies not in the compass of my prayers / To call thee back” (2.5.38-40). In the end, the Friar gives up and abandons Giovanni” “I must not stay / To know they fall…would I had never known the …I leave thee to despair” (5.3.65-70).

When the play ends, it is the Cardinal who is left as the only authority, meting out punishments (Putana’s burning and Vasquez’s banishment) and confiscating the wealth of the murdered men for the Church. He also delivers the final line of the play—“’tis pity she’s a whore”—that ostensibly restores order. In most every tragedy there is an attempt to restore order that is never successful or satisfying. For ‘Tis Pity, the ending is even more unsatisfying, because we see the Cardinal as corruption embodied right up to then end. In a play that has a central conflict wrapped up in religious discussions of sinfulness, what are we to make of religion in this play if we take the religious official as an example? Are the Cardinal’s punishments valid? In finding the Cardinal and his world unsatisfactory, are we only left with Giovanni’s extreme (and irreligious) worldview?

Desire in The Changeling

The relationship between Beatrice-Joanna and De Flores is so complicated as it progresses throughout the play, and I was wondering what their relationship suggests about desire (sexual and otherwise). In their first meeting, De Flores reveals an almost masochistic need for Beatrice’s scornful attentions (“I know she hates me, Yet cannot choose but love her” (1.1.231)) and compares himself to a “Garden-bull” that keeps returning to the ring. Beatrice, who openly hates and abuses De Flores, also reveals a certain paradox in that she often initiates exchanges with De Flores (see the glove incident of 1.2). She admits that De Flores “more disturbs me / Than all my other passions” (2.1.52-3), and that after she leaves De Flores, she “scarce leave[s] trembling of an hour after” (91). I feel like there’s an almost sexual subtext to her comments about him, and it is interesting to note that De Flores never threatens her life when he blackmails her for sex, he only threatens to “blast the hopes and joys of marriage” (3.4.148) by confessing his part in the murder. In the final Act, Beatrice says of him, “Here’s a man worth loving” (5.1.75).

I am a bit confused by her change. Has she become tainted in some way by her association with De Flores? Has she confused her desire for Anselmo with De Flores, who had to kill Alonzo so that she might marry the man she really wanted? The Changeling seems to be a play that emphasizes complicated psychological issues about the confusion/projection of various desires, and Beatrice’s relationship to De Flores would be key to understanding this. How does desire function in this play? What does desire ultimately lead to?