Sexuality, Power, and The White Devil

Jonathan Dollimore discusses Terry Eagleton’s analysis of witches as “deviants” who “subvert…the social order which demonizes them” (xxvi). Conceptions of witchcraft in the Middle Ages and beyond were rooted in many factors, including men’s fear of the power of women and women’s sexuality. Accusations of devil worship often reflected men’s castration anxiety, as witches were blamed for impotence and even hiding men’s private parts in trees. Flamineo contextualizes such an anxiety when he tells Vittoria that she “need not have carved him, in faith,” referring to Vittoria’s symbolic castration of her husband (1.2.127-28). But Vittoria is not wholly branded as a witch, but rather a devil, which seems even more damning than being accused of witchcraft. For starters, the devil has much more power and agency than a witch. Vittoria exercises her sexual agency by taking on a lover rather than stagnating in an unsatisfying marriage. How does the male fear of a sexually powerful woman construct the way Vittoria is positioned as a devil and in league with the devil? How does her treatment reflect and complicate the persecution of women as devils and witches? How does the male fear of castration and women as sexual agents inform the treatment of Vittoria? Finally, why is Vittoria positioned as a devil rather than as a witch?


In the crucial scene of her trial, Vittoria swears that “I scorn to hold my life at yours or any man’s entreaty, sir” (3.2.140-1). Here, she rejects the laws of men and the society that enforces such laws. As punishment, she is sent to a house for reformed prostitutes, although she is an adulteress and a murderer. This punishment seems fairly mild to me. Vittoria’s actions as an adulteress are conflated with that of a prostitute. How does this substitution relate to male constructions of sexuality, and, more specifically, deviant sexuality? Were women’s carnal ‘crimes’ lumped together under the heading of the prostitute? If so, why? Is being sent to a house of reformed prostitutes worse than going to a traditional jail, and if so, in what ways? Further, how would the play have changed if Vittoria had admitted her guilt and sworn repentance? How would the persecuting characters have treated her if she had become contrite? And, how would it change the meaning of the play itself?