Death, Mortality and Tragic Endings
Theme 8 of 8 — Comparative Analysis
Overview
Both plays end with female protagonists destroyed by patriarchy—the Duchess executed in Act 4, Blanche institutionalized in Scene 11—yet the meanings their deaths/removals carry differ radically, reflecting distinct tragic worldviews and historical understandings of suffering’s significance. Webster’s Jacobean revenge tragedy provides catharsis through the Duchess’s dignified martyrdom: she faces execution with composed Christian faith, transforms strangulation into spiritual ascension (“Pull, and pull strongly, for your able strength / Must pull down heaven upon me”), and asserts identity that death cannot erase (“I am Duchess of Malfi still”). Her death is meaningful—it vindicates her virtue, condemns her brothers’ tyranny, and ensures cultural memory (Delio promises to teach her sons about her integrity). Act 5 delivers revenge tragedy’s required bloodbath where villains face consequences: Ferdinand goes mad then dies, the Cardinal dies unrepentant, Bosola dies attempting redemption. This spectacular violence provides moral closure reassuring audiences that cosmic justice operates, however delayed. Williams’s realistic/anti-realistic drama denies such consolation entirely: Blanche’s removal to psychiatric institution is social death (permanent erasure from community) presented not as tragedy but bureaucratic procedure—Doctor and Matron arrive, she’s processed and removed, poker game continues as Stanley deals: “This game is seven-card stud.” Life goes on without her; she’s instantly forgotten; no consequences follow Stanley’s crimes; no moral order asserts itself.
The contrast crystallizes different tragic visions: Webster’s tragedy assumes transcendent meaning where individual suffering matters cosmically (God witnesses, divine justice eventually operates, virtuous are vindicated posthumously), while Williams’s modern tragedy presents immanent meaninglessness where individual suffering may be simply waste, forgotten by society that produces it. The Duchess dies but is remembered heroically; Blanche is removed and immediately erased from social memory. Webster’s ending provides emotional catharsis—audience grieves but also feels moral satisfaction that evil is punished and virtue recognized. Williams’s ending is deliberately anti-cathartic—flat, deflating, offering no emotional release or moral satisfaction, leaving audiences disturbed rather than purged. This reflects modernity’s loss of cosmic moral order: without God or transcendent meaning, suffering is just suffering, not redemptive or meaningful. Both playwrights show patriarchy destroys autonomous women, but Webster allows tragic dignity and cultural immortality while Williams shows complete erasure. The shift from martyrdom to institutionalization, from spectacular visible death to quiet bureaucratic removal, from cultural memory to instant forgetting, reflects how modern power operates—not through spectacular punishment audiences witness and condemn, but through institutional management that appears routine, medical, necessary rather than violent.
Key Similarity
Both plays end with female protagonists destroyed by patriarchy. The Duchess executed; Blanche institutionalized. Both show women who assert autonomy are eliminated—physically (death) or socially (removal/erasure).
Key Difference
Webster provides catharsis, moral closure, and vindication—the Duchess martyred and remembered; villains punished. Williams denies all consolation—Blanche erased; Stanley unpunished; life continues indifferently. Tragic meaning vs. meaninglessness.
Historical & Literary Context
Jacobean England
1940s America
The Duchess of Malfi
Death, martyrdom, and posthumous vindication in Webster
A Streetcar Named Desire
Social death, erasure, and anti-cathartic ending in Williams
Comparative Analysis
Similarities
Female autonomy punished by death/removal
Both plays end with female protagonists destroyed for asserting autonomy. The Duchess chooses husband; Blanche criticizes Stanley and seeks independence. Both autonomies threaten patriarchal control, resulting in elimination (execution; institutionalization). Both plays indict patriarchy’s destruction of autonomous women.
Physical vs. social death as equivalent
Though the Duchess physically dies and Blanche is institutionalized, both are equally eliminated from society. Death and indefinite institutionalization achieve same outcome: permanent removal of threatening woman. Both playwrights show patriarchy has multiple mechanisms for eliminating women—spectacular execution or bureaucratic confinement.
Suffering witnesses evil
Both plays make audiences witness unbearable suffering—the Duchess tortured then strangled; Blanche raped then removed. Neither playwright shields audiences from violence. Both force recognition of patriarchal brutality, making audiences complicit witnesses who cannot claim ignorance.
Death/removal as inevitable
Both plays structure trajectories as inexorable—the Duchess moves from freedom to imprisonment to death; Blanche from Belle Reve to apartment to institution. Progressive confinement creates sense of fate/inevitability. Both show patriarchy systematically closes options until elimination is only outcome.
Differences
Martyrdom vs. erasure
The Duchess becomes martyr—dies with dignity, remembered heroically, vindicated posthumously. Blanche is erased—labeled insane, disbelieved, instantly forgotten. Webster allows tragic dignity and cultural immortality; Williams shows complete social erasure without vindication or memory.
Catharsis vs. anti-catharsis
Webster provides revenge tragedy’s emotional purging—villains punished, moral order restored, audiences grieve but satisfied. Williams denies catharsis—Stanley unpunished, no moral closure, audiences disturbed without emotional release. Tragic satisfaction vs. modernist refusal of consolation.
Meaning vs. meaninglessness
The Duchess’s death has meaning—vindicates her autonomy, condemns tyranny, creates cultural memory. Blanche’s removal is meaningless—teaches nothing, changes nothing, forgotten immediately. Transcendent tragic meaning vs. immanent modern meaninglessness.
Spectacular vs. bureaucratic violence
The Duchess’s execution is visible spectacle audiences witness and condemn. Blanche’s institutionalization is bureaucratic procedure appearing medical/necessary rather than violent. Shift from spectacular sovereign power (visible, condemnable) to disciplinary power (invisible, normalized). Modern violence doesn’t look like violence, making it harder to resist or condemn.
Critical Interpretations
Tragic Theory: Classical vs. Modern
Aristotelian tragedy (classical model) requires catharsis—emotional purging through pity and terror, moral lessons learned, order restored. Webster follows this: the Duchess’s suffering creates pity/terror, Act 5 restores moral order through villains’ deaths, audiences leave emotionally purged and morally instructed. Modern tragic theory (Raymond Williams, Arthur Miller) argues contemporary tragedy must acknowledge changed conditions: no transcendent meaning, no cosmic justice, ordinary people (not nobles) suffer, social systems (not individual choices) cause tragedy. Williams’s Streetcar exemplifies modern tragedy: Blanche isn’t noble but ordinary; her suffering has no cosmic meaning; social/economic structures trap her; ending offers no catharsis or moral restoration. Critical debate centers on whether modern tragedy can exist without transcendence or whether removing divine order makes tragedy impossible, leaving only pathetic suffering. Streetcar tests this: is Blanche’s story tragedy or just depressing realism? Williams argues modern tragedy requires facing meaninglessness honestly rather than imposing false consoling narratives.
Feminist Death Studies
Feminist scholars analyzing death in literature (Elisabeth Bronfen, Regina Barreca) note women’s deaths are often aestheticized, eroticized, or used to teach moral lessons benefiting men. Both plays can be read through this lens. The Duchess’s beautiful dignified death serves pedagogical purpose—teaching audiences about virtue, faith, resistance—but her death also eliminates threatening autonomous woman, restoring male control (Delio and Antonio’s son will rule). Is her martyrdom empowering or another way patriarchy neutralizes women’s autonomy—allowing them heroic death but not life? Blanche’s removal is less aestheticized (no beautiful death scene) but equally eliminates autonomous woman who challenged male authority. Feminist readings note both playwrights are men writing women’s deaths for audiences’ consumption—does this inevitably objectify and exploit female suffering? Yet both also create enormous sympathy for protagonists and critique patriarchy viscously. Feminist critics remain divided on whether these depictions of women’s destruction expose or reproduce patriarchal violence.
Religious vs. Secular Worldviews
The plays reflect fundamentally different worldviews about death’s meaning. Webster’s Christian framework assumes: soul survives body, afterlife exists, divine justice operates eventually, suffering is temporary trial before eternal reward. This makes the Duchess’s death meaningful transcendently—she suffers on earth but wins heaven. Webster comforts audiences: death isn’t final; virtue is ultimately rewarded. Williams’s secular/existential framework assumes: no afterlife, no divine justice, no cosmic meaning, death is absolute ending. This makes Blanche’s removal tragically meaningless—no afterlife consolation, no eventual justice, just waste. Williams refuses comfort: suffering may be simply suffering without redemption or purpose. Literary critics debate whether Webster’s religious consolation is profound (offering spiritual hope) or ideological (mystifying injustice by promising posthumous reward that never comes), and whether Williams’s secular despair is honest (facing reality without illusions) or nihilistic (denying possibility of meaning or resistance). The contrast illuminates how worldview shapes death’s interpretation: religious sees transcendent meaning; secular sees immanent meaninglessness.
Key Quotations to Memorise
The Duchess of Malfi
“I am Duchess of Malfi still”
The Duchess, Act 4, Scene 2
The Duchess’s most famous line, spoken facing execution. “Still” emphasizes continuity—her identity persists despite torture and impending death. She’s “Duchess” (title/status) but also “of Malfi” (place/family) and most importantly “still” (unchanging through suffering). Asserts selfhood that violence cannot erase. Death will destroy her body but not her identity. Exemplifies ars moriendi—dying with dignity and unshaken identity.
“Pull, and pull strongly, for your able strength / Must pull down heaven upon me”
The Duchess, Act 4, Scene 2
Transforms execution into ascension. “Pull down heaven” = paradox where physical downward force (strangulation) becomes spiritual upward movement (rising to God). She choreographs her death, instructing executioners, maintaining agency. Even as victim, directs action. Christian theology: death is transition to heaven, not ending.
“Who would be afraid on’t, / Knowing to meet such excellent company / In th’other world?”
The Duchess, Act 4, Scene 2
Reframes death as reunion rather than ending. “Excellent company” = loved ones and saints in heaven. “Other world” = Christian afterlife. Death becomes positive transition, not feared ending. This confidence in afterlife makes dying easier—not absolute loss but entering better existence. Webster provides Christian consolation: earthly suffering is temporary; heavenly reward is eternal.
“Integrity of life is fame’s best friend, / Which nobly, beyond death, shall crown the end”
Delio, Act 5, Scene 5
Conventional moral couplet—virtue ensures good reputation posthumously. “Integrity of life” = virtuous living; “fame’s best friend” = creates lasting legacy. “Beyond death” = reputation survives body’s death. “Crown the end” = ultimate vindication and honor. Delio promises the Duchess will be remembered truthfully as virtuous, ensuring her death has meaning.
A Streetcar Named Desire
“Flores para los muertos”
Mexican Woman, Scene 9
“Flowers for the dead”—Spanish phrase bringing death explicitly into play. Vendor selling funeral flowers appears when Blanche confronts past/guilt. Blanche reacts with terror: “I know! Death! ... The opposite is desire.” Death as omnipresent force she’s been fleeing through desire/sexuality. Foreshadows her approaching social death (institutionalization). Williams uses Mexican woman as folkloric death figure—memento mori reminding Blanche mortality is inescapable.
“The searchlight which had been turned on the world was turned off again and never for one moment since has there been any light that’s stronger than this—kitchen—candle”
Blanche, Scene 6
Describes Allan’s death’s effect: “searchlight turned off” = loss of joy, meaning, hope, clarity. World became dark; she’s lived in dimness ever since. “Kitchen candle” = weak flickering light, barely illuminating, constantly threatened by darkness. Death destroyed her capacity for happiness or clear vision. Williams shows how death doesn’t end with dying person—it permanently damages survivors, creating living death of diminished existence.
“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers”
Blanche, Scene 11
Final line—devastatingly ambiguous. “Whoever you are” = doesn’t know Doctor (taking her to asylum) but trusts graciously. “Always depended on strangers” = acknowledges lifelong vulnerability and dependence. No family support, only unknown others’ unreliable goodwill. Yet last “stranger” was Stanley who raped her—dependence on strangers created vulnerability leading to destruction. Williams refuses to clarify whether this is dignity (grace under pressure) or complete delusion.
“This game is seven-card stud”
Stanley, Scene 11 (final line)
Play ends with Stanley dealing cards—poker game that opened play closes it, creating circular structure. “Seven-card stud” = just next game, business as usual. Life continues without Blanche as if she never existed. Anti-climactic, flat, emotionally unsatisfying. Williams deliberately denies catharsis: no moral closure, no punishment for Stanley, no acknowledgment of injustice.
“Don’t ever believe it. Life has got to go on”
Eunice to Stella, Scene 11
Pragmatic counsel to deny rape. “Don’t ever believe it” = choose convenient lie over inconvenient truth. “Life has got to go on” = survival requires denial—Stella cannot believe Blanche and continue living with Stanley, so must disbelieve. This pragmatism enables Blanche’s removal: if she’s insane (disbelieved), institutionalization is justified. Williams exposes how patriarchy persists through women’s complicity—not malicious but pragmatic, forced by lack of alternatives.