Bell in Campo – Victoria and Jantil
The juxtaposition of Lady Victoria and Lady Jantil in this play struck me as strange upon my initial reading. Both of these women represent good wives taken to some extreme by the love they bear for their husbands. Lady Victoria is compelled to follow her husband into battle (at least initially), and Lady Jantil seems to want to follow her husband in death by living as an anchorite next to his tomb.
After the women are sent away from the army, Lady Victoria takes charge and becomes the “Generalless” of the feminine army. In her first big speech after the women are cast away, she states that women “are fit to be Copartners in their governments…where now we are kept as Slaves forced to obey; wherefore let us make our selves free, either by force, merit, or love” (scene 9). This notion of “making our selves [women] free” might be at the heart of the play. For Lady Victoria, she seems to choose force as the vehicle to feminine freedom…and she ends up being successful. Lady Jantil has a similar sentiment about feminine freedom in scene 21, when she states that she will be “like an Executrix to my self executing my own will.” I am wondering how these two main female characters are alike. They both occupy a position beyond wife (general and anchoress), they both concern themselves with economic power (spoils of war and the money from a husband), and they both control other women (Victoria’s brass tablet of commandments to her army and Jantil’s Will offering Nell Careless money for living “a single life”). Both women also take a place that is ostensibly for males and transform it into a feminine domain, even going so far as to take on the roles of their husbands. Victoria obviously takes over the place of her husband as the great military leader. Jantil creates a tomb for her dead husband, but it quickly becomes more like a monument to her own fidelity (when she dies she is placed in the tomb as well). Given all of this, what is being contrasted with these two women? They both move beyond the role of the simple wife and exalt themselves through quite different avenues, but is one preferred over the other? Are they essentially doing the same thing—becoming “free” in some sense? I’m not sure how to negotiate or bring together these two plots.
Marriage in The Convent of Pleasure
Lady Happy is a strong voice of feminine freedom for the entirely of the play, yet by Act 5 we can assume that she knows the Princess is a Prince, and she hardly speaks at all. As I examined some of the language of this scene, I was struck by the way that her individual agency is completely taken away from the discussion. The Prince asks that a messenger be sent to the “Counsellors of this State…that I ask their leave to marry this Lady; otherwise, tell them I will have her by force of Arms” (5.1). We later learn that “the State is so willing, as they account it an honor, and hope shall reap much advantage by the Match” (5.2).
Again, what happened to Lady Happy’s voice, or all those previous ideas about marriage? Now that the convent has been infiltrated by a man, it seems that nothing much has been accomplished. Does the marriage become political (masculine?) rather than personal (feminine)? It does seem to be offered as an opportunity for the state (males in power) to make some sort of alliance with a male foreign prince. And what about that line about having Lady Happy “by force of arms”? How do we make sense of this focus on male values/benefits in these lines given all that comes before it?
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