Sunday Sermon in Court

Cardinal Monticelso’s definition of a whore is as a sermon in church. The comparison list against which he rails is so inclusive as to wonder exactly what he is expounding; a minister could easily plug in whatever ‘evil of the week’ he wanted to drive from men’s hearts and minds. Could be like sweets, perfumes, cheating, shipwrecks, cold weather, intense heat, taxes, legal technicalities, ringing bells, hanged men used for science experiments or finally counterfeit money. Mocking Monticelso’s logic and ultimate authority, as in the road from adultery to murder, one can observe how the church authority plays with loose conclusions about morality. This illustrates the intrusion and exploitative abuse of authoritative power, “O poor charity Thou art seldom found in scarlet.” (3.2.72-73)

Vittoria is ironically ravished in thought only, however publicly, by a form of stand-in justice. The Cardinal, acting as both judge and jury is less bombastic than his lawyer predecessor but not trained officially in the law. Monticelso is more skillful because of his experience as a shiftless detractor of truth and one who obscures the importance of empirical evidence. Like an over-zealous minister, “the Cardinal’s too bitter” (3.2.109) to be fair.

“Trader Mother”

In White Devil, Webster questions the natural bond between family members. The mother/son and brother/sister relationships are fraught with rejection and jealousy. Is there a biological imperative that strains the natural honored obligations or is it the mother’s fault? Cornelia is scorned by Flamineo for trading him up in education and expectation as well as arranging her daughter in a loveless marriage. Are the children’s character traits inherited by Cornelia’s failed alliance herself with her own husband’s reckless poverty that ultimately drives them to corruption, as Flamineo observes, “We sucked that, sister, From women’s breasts, in our first infancy.” (4.2.184-185).

To Complain or Not To Complain?

Are the arguments for “subversion” and “containment” discussed in Jonathan Dollimore’s Radical Tragedy mirrored in the characters of Vittoria and Isabella?