Imprisonment, Entrapment and Confinement
Domestic space becomes carceral space: both playwrights transform homes into prisons, exposing how patriarchy and capitalism confine women through architecture, economics, and institutions.
Overview
Both playwrights transform domestic spaces into sites of imprisonment, yet the dynamics of confinement reflect their historical moments' distinct power structures and mechanisms of control. Webster's Italian palace enables constant surveillance and progressive spatial restriction: the Duchess's bedchamber—traditionally private female space—is invaded by Ferdinand who commands "Die, then, quickly!" in Act 3, Scene 2, while Bosola spies as Ferdinand's intelligencer, discovering her pregnancy and reporting her secret marriage. Her progressive confinement from palace freedom to chamber imprisonment in Act 4, kept in literal darkness ("And let her have lights enough" is Ferdinand's ironic command—she's denied light), visualizes patriarchal power contracting around her body until her execution transforms the chamber into her tomb. Webster uses spatial restriction dramatically—darkness achieved through candlelight control creates sensory deprivation torture, while props (coffin, dead man's hand, waxwork figures) make psychological imprisonment physical. Williams's cramped two-room New Orleans apartment, specified in opening stage directions as having "transparent walls" during scenes, forces Blanche into constant proximity with Stanley and makes privacy impossible—she must bathe and change clothes while others occupy adjacent space, creating exposure and vulnerability. The transparent walls visualize psychological transparency—Blanche has no privacy, faces constant exposure, cannot hide physically or psychologically.
This contrast reflects Foucault's distinction between sovereign power (early modern) and disciplinary power (modern): Webster's Duke actively confines through guards and commands—spectacular, visible exercise of authority; Williams's capitalism confines "naturally" through economic structures—poverty makes alternatives unaffordable, trapping Blanche in Stanley's apartment because she has nowhere else to go. The Duchess is literally imprisoned (Ferdinand orders it, Bosola executes it), while Blanche is structurally imprisoned (economic dependence, lack of options, social isolation create inescapable situation). Both plays expose domestic space under patriarchy as fundamentally unsafe—palaces and apartments become prisons for women, not sanctuaries. Yet Webster's confinement is visible and condemnable as violence (audiences see guards, shackles, executions), while Williams's is normalized and harder to name as violence (it's just ordinary housing, economic necessity, family dynamics). The shift from spectacular to subtle imprisonment reflects modernity's more insidious forms of patriarchal control: cages don't need bars when poverty and dependence construct invisible walls.
Key Similarity
Both heroines move from relative freedom to total confinement. The Duchess goes from palace freedom to chamber imprisonment to execution; Blanche from teaching job/Belle Reve to Kowalski apartment to psychiatric institution. Confinement intensifies until elimination.
Key Difference
Webster stages spectacular sovereign power—Ferdinand commands imprisonment through guards and force (visible, condemnable). Williams shows disciplinary power—capitalism and poverty trap Blanche structurally (invisible, normalized as necessity rather than violence).
Historical Context
Jacobean England
Palaces as Sites of Surveillance
Early modern courts were densely populated with servants, courtiers, spies, and attendants—privacy was nearly impossible for royalty and nobility. Bedchambers weren't private retreats but political spaces where business occurred. Kings and nobles employed intelligencers (spies) to monitor rivals, family members, and subjects. The Duchess's palace replicates this—Bosola is Ferdinand's spy, watching her constantly. Architectural surveillance was literal: secret passages, hidden doors, listening posts allowed monitoring.
Women's Confinement and Chaperonage
Aristocratic women, especially unmarried women and widows, were expected to remain confined to domestic spaces and travel with chaperones. Their movements were restricted to protect reputation and virtue—unsupervised women were suspected of sexual impropriety. The Duchess's freedom to woo and marry Antonio privately is radical transgression. Her brothers' fury stems partly from her unsupervised sexuality—they couldn't control what they couldn't see.
Imprisonment and Tower Confinement
Aristocrats imprisoned rivals and family members in towers or remote castles—sometimes for years or life. Tower of London held political prisoners; noblewomen were confined in country estates. Imprisonment was sovereign prerogative—kings and nobles could order confinement without trial. The Duchess's brother commands her imprisonment, and she has no legal recourse. This is absolute power operating through spatial control.
Darkness and Sensory Deprivation
Early modern torture included sensory deprivation—keeping prisoners in darkness, silence, or isolation to break them psychologically. Webster stages this: the Duchess is kept in darkness, subjected to madmen's noise (auditory assault), shown false images (waxworks creating epistemological confusion). These techniques were documented torture methods designed to destroy sanity and will.
1940s America
Post-War Housing Shortage
After World War II, housing shortage forced families into cramped quarters—multiple people sharing small apartments was common, especially for working-class families. The two-room apartment reflects realistic living conditions for Stanley and Stella's economic level. This economic constraint creates structural confinement—Blanche can't afford her own space, so must share theirs, creating forced proximity and conflict.
Women's Economic Dependence
1940s women had limited economic opportunities—teaching was one of few respectable middle-class female professions, but it paid poorly. When Blanche loses her teaching position due to scandal, she has no income and no savings. Without financial independence, women depended on male or female relatives for housing and support. This economic dependence created structural confinement: Blanche stays with Stanley/Stella not by choice but necessity.
Southern Gothic Claustrophobia
Southern Gothic literature (Faulkner, O'Connor, McCullers) emphasized oppressive heat, cramped spaces, decaying mansions, and psychological entrapment reflecting the South's social stagnation. Williams uses these conventions: oppressive New Orleans heat, cramped apartment, decaying Belle Reve (lost), and characters trapped by past and place. The South itself becomes prison—Blanche can't escape Southern belle identity even when she flees Laurel.
Psychiatric Institutions as Confinement
By the 1940s, mental hospitals were often indistinguishable from prisons—patients confined indefinitely, sometimes for life, with minimal rights or oversight. Commitment could be initiated by family members or doctors without patient consent, and women were disproportionately institutionalized for social nonconformity. Blanche's removal represents ultimate confinement—indefinitely imprisoned through medical authority.
The Duchess of Malfi
Analysis of imprisonment and confinement in Webster's play
The Palace as Panopticon (Throughout Acts 1-3)
The Duchess's palace operates as surveillance apparatus where she's constantly watched. Bosola, hired by Ferdinand as intelligencer, spies on her—observing her behavior, listening to conversations, reporting everything. The Duchess knows she's being watched ("The birds that live i'th' field / On the wild benefit of nature live / Happier than we, for they may choose their mates / And carol their sweet pleasures to the wood") but cannot identify her watcher or escape surveillance. This anticipates Foucault's concept of panopticon: architectural design where prisoners are always visible to guards but can't see guards, producing self-regulation through internalized surveillance. The Duchess tries to conduct secret marriage privately, but pregnancy (visible evidence) exposes her. Webster shows spatial power: controlling space (who enters, who watches) controls bodies within it. The palace isn't sanctuary but trap—beautiful, luxurious prison where every room contains potential spy.
Progressive Confinement: Palace to Chamber to Darkness (Acts 3-4)
Webster stages the Duchess's confinement as progressive spatial restriction. Act 1-3: She moves relatively freely within palace, though surveilled. Act 3, Scene 2: Ferdinand invades her bedchamber (private space violated). Act 4: She's explicitly imprisoned in her chamber, kept in darkness, denied movement. Bosola announces: "I am come to make thy tomb"—the chamber becomes grave before death. This spatial progression visualizes power's operation: first surveillance, then invasion, then explicit imprisonment. Each stage removes more agency—from watched-but-mobile to invaded-but-still-at-home to imprisoned-awaiting-execution. The final restriction is death itself—body eliminated entirely. Webster makes confinement theatrical spectacle, using stage space (characters moving through doorways, darkness created through lighting) to show power literally closing in.
Psychological Imprisonment: Madmen, Waxworks, Dead Hand (Act 4, Scenes 1-2)
Ferdinand doesn't just confine the Duchess physically but psychologically. Act 4, Scene 1: He presents waxwork figures of Antonio and her children, making her believe they're dead. The dead man's hand he gives her in darkness (she thinks it's Antonio's) creates epistemological crisis—she can't trust her senses or knowledge. The eight madmen sent to "howl" around her create auditory assault and represent external madness (literal madmen) threatening to produce internal madness (break her sanity). These elaborate cruelties construct psychological prison more effective than physical chains—she's trapped in uncertainty, grief, and horror. Webster shows torture operating through perception and cognition: controlling what someone sees/hears/knows controls their mind. The Duchess resists (remains rational) but the attempt itself demonstrates psychological imprisonment's power.
Execution as Ultimate Confinement (Act 4, Scene 2)
The execution scene stages death as final imprisonment. Executioners enter disguised as tomb-makers, emphasizing that the chamber has become her grave. They strangle her—physical force restricting breathing, literal closing of airways representing metaphorical closure of life and freedom. Her body is then laid out as if for burial. Death is total confinement: no movement, no agency, no resistance possible. Yet Webster complicates this: the Duchess "revives" briefly after strangulation (either she wasn't fully dead, or supernatural intervention), speaks final words, then dies permanently. This strange resurrection suggests spirit cannot be fully confined—she maintains agency even at death's threshold. Her famous line "I am Duchess of Malfi still" asserts identity that imprisonment and death cannot erase. Webster presents death as physical confinement but spiritual liberation: her body is trapped/killed, but her selfhood persists in cultural memory.
A Streetcar Named Desire
Analysis of imprisonment and confinement in Williams's play
The Two-Room Apartment as Physical Trap
Williams specifies in opening stage directions that the apartment has "two rooms" separated by curtain, with "transparent walls" during outdoor scenes so audiences see inside and outside simultaneously. This cramped space forces Blanche into constant proximity with Stanley and Stella—no private refuge exists. She must bathe while they're in next room; must sleep in main room where poker games occur; cannot escape their arguments or sexuality. The transparent walls visualize her exposure: she has no privacy, cannot hide from observation or judgment. The cramped apartment is realistic working-class housing but also metaphorical—economic poverty produces physical poverty produces psychological poverty (no space to be alone, to think, to escape). Stanley controls the space—it's his apartment, Blanche is guest/intruder—giving him authority over who enters, who stays, what happens within it.
Economic Confinement: "I have nowhere to go" (Throughout)
Blanche stays with Stanley and Stella not from desire but necessity. She's lost Belle Reve (homeless), lost teaching job (unemployed), has no money (impoverished). She tells Stella: "I have nowhere to go." This economic fact creates structural confinement more effective than chains—she's trapped by capitalism, not guards. Williams shows modern power operating through economic dependency: you're not locked in, but poverty eliminates alternatives, producing same outcome as imprisonment. Blanche's attempts to escape (seeking Mitch as marriage prospect, fantasizing about Shep Huntleigh as rescuer) all fail, reinforcing her confinement. The tragedy is she recognizes her entrapment ("caught in a trap") but cannot escape it. Economic structures function as invisible prison walls.
Temporal Confinement: The Long Summer (May-September)
Williams structures the play across summer months (May through September), creating temporal claustrophobia. The heat is oppressive and constant—characters are always sweating, uncomfortable, irritable. This extended duration shows confinement as slow suffocation: Blanche doesn't snap immediately but deteriorates gradually over months of forced proximity, mounting tensions, accumulating humiliations. The blue piano plays constantly throughout—repetitive music emphasizing monotonous passage of time without escape or change. Each scene adds pressure: Scene 1 she arrives; Scene 6 she tells Allan story; Scene 9 Mitch rejects her; Scene 10 Stanley rapes her; Scene 11 she's removed. The temporal structure creates inexorable momentum—she's trapped not just spatially but temporally, unable to speed up, slow down, or escape time's progression toward catastrophe.
Psychological Confinement: Past Intrudes into Present
Blanche is psychologically trapped by past: Allan's suicide haunts her (Varsouviana returns whenever she's stressed), sexual history pursues her (Stanley investigates and exposes it), Belle Reve's loss defines her (she's "homeless" literally and existentially). She tells Mitch: "I don't want realism. I want magic!"—attempting to escape psychological confinement through fantasy. But reality intrudes constantly: harsh light she covers with paper lantern, Stanley's investigations revealing truth, Mitch's interrogation forcing confession. Williams shows how trauma creates psychological prison—memories intrude uncontrollably (PTSD), past constrains present possibilities (reputation determines opportunities), escape through fantasy fails (reality reasserts itself). The Varsouviana that only Blanche hears literalizes internal confinement: she's trapped in her own head with inescapable trauma.
Institutionalization: Final Confinement (Scene 11)
Blanche's removal to psychiatric institution represents ultimate confinement—she'll be indefinitely imprisoned in mental hospital with no release date. The Doctor and Matron arrive to collect her, and despite her resistance, she's taken away. The Matron's flat statement "These fingernails have to be trimmed" indicates she attempted physical resistance (scratching), which will be eliminated—her body will be managed and controlled. Unlike the Duchess's visible execution, Blanche's removal is bureaucratic and medical—she's not killed but indefinitely confined in institution that claims therapeutic purpose. Williams exposes psychiatric institutionalization as modern imprisonment: more humane in appearance (no torture, no execution) but potentially permanent (no fixed sentence, release at doctors' discretion). The poker game continuing after she's gone—"This game is seven-card stud"—shows life goes on without her, emphasizing her complete erasure. She's been removed from society as thoroughly as if executed, but invisibly, medically, permanently.
Comparative Analysis
Similarities
Domestic Space as Prison
Both plays expose home/palace as prison for women, not sanctuary. The Duchess's palace and Blanche's temporary home become sites of surveillance, invasion, and control where women have no safety or privacy.
Progressive Intensification
Both heroines experience increasing confinement. The Duchess: palace freedom to chamber imprisonment to darkness to execution. Blanche: Belle Reve (impoverished but autonomous) to Kowalski apartment (dependent) to psychiatric institution (indefinite). Confinement intensifies until complete elimination.
Male Control of Space
Both plays show men controlling domestic spaces and using that control to dominate women. Ferdinand commands the Duchess's imprisonment; Stanley owns the apartment and can evict Blanche. Male property ownership or authority creates architectural power over women's bodies.
Surveillance Preceding Confinement
Both women are watched before being confined. Bosola spies on the Duchess; Stanley investigates Blanche. Surveillance discovers secrets (pregnancy; sexual history) that justify subsequent confinement/removal. Knowledge production through surveillance enables disciplinary action.
Differences
Spectacular vs. Structural Confinement
The Duchess is literally imprisoned—Ferdinand orders guards, she's locked in, physically restrained. This is visible sovereign power. Blanche is structurally confined—poverty and dependence trap her without literal chains. This is invisible disciplinary power operating through economic and social structures.
Visible vs. Invisible Walls
Webster stages physical barriers—doors locked, guards posted, the Duchess cannot leave. Audiences see imprisonment. Williams stages structural barriers—Blanche "cannot" leave because she has nowhere to go, but no physical barrier prevents departure. Economic constraint is less visible than architectural constraint.
Death vs. Institutionalization
The Duchess's confinement ends in execution—total, permanent, visible. Blanche's ends in indefinite institutionalization—potentially lifelong but presented as medical care, not punishment. Modern power doesn't need to kill; it manages and contains through institutions claiming therapeutic purpose.
Temporal Pace
The Duchess's confinement is relatively sudden—arrested in Act 3, imprisoned in Act 4, executed in Act 4 Scene 2. Compressed timeframe creates dramatic intensity. Blanche's confinement is gradual—months of accumulating constraints, slow suffocation. Extended timeframe creates psychological realism of breakdown under sustained pressure.
Critical Interpretations
Foucauldian / Power Theory Readings
Foucault's Discipline and Punish distinguishes sovereign power (spectacular, visible, operating through physical force) from disciplinary power (subtle, invisible, operating through surveillance and normalization). The Duchess represents sovereign power: Ferdinand literally commands "imprison her," uses guards and violence, makes confinement visible spectacle. Blanche represents disciplinary power: economic structures trap her "naturally" without visible force, psychiatric institutions claim therapeutic legitimacy while confining indefinitely, surveillance (Stanley's investigation) produces knowledge used to discipline (institutionalize). Foucault argues modern power is more effective precisely because it's invisible—we don't see chains, so we don't recognize control. Williams dramatizes this: Blanche's confinement looks like ordinary economic necessity and medical treatment, not violence, making it harder to resist or condemn. Both plays expose how power operates spatially—controlling movement, space, visibility controls people.
Feminist / Spatial Theory Readings
Feminist geographers and theorists (Doreen Massey, bell hooks) argue space is gendered—patriarchy confines women to domestic/private sphere while men occupy public sphere. Both plays dramatize this: the Duchess is confined to palace (domestic space under male authority); Blanche to apartment (domestic space owned by Stanley). Women's movement is restricted while men move freely (Ferdinand travels, Stanley works outside). Feminist readings emphasize domestic space under patriarchy is never safe sanctuary for women—it's site of male surveillance, invasion, and violence. "Home" for women can be prison. The Duchess's bedchamber (most private feminine space) is invaded by Ferdinand; Blanche's bathing (most vulnerable moment) happens while Stanley is home. Privacy is impossible. Feminist critics note both heroines attempt to create autonomous space (the Duchess marries secretly, Blanche constructs fantasies) but patriarchy penetrates all spaces, eliminating female autonomy through architectural and economic control.
Gothic / Claustrophobia Readings
Both plays use Gothic conventions of confinement creating psychological horror. Webster employs castle/palace as Gothic space: dark chambers, hidden passages, torture, madness—traditional Gothic elements. The Duchess imprisoned in darkness with madmen and waxwork corpses is quintessentially Gothic. Williams uses Southern Gothic: decaying mansions (Belle Reve lost), oppressive heat, sexual secrets, madness, and confined spaces producing claustrophobia. The cramped apartment and Blanche's psychological entrapment by past create Gothic atmosphere. Gothic critics emphasize how confined space externalizes internal psychological states—the Duchess's physical imprisonment represents patriarchal control of female sexuality; Blanche's cramped apartment represents her trapped psychology (can't escape past, can't imagine future). Both use architectural confinement to visualize psychological confinement: buildings become minds, rooms become consciousness, walls become psychological barriers that can't be crossed.
Key Quotations to Memorize
The Duchess of Malfi
"I am come to make thy tomb"
Bosola disguised, Act 4, Scene 2
Bosola announces the Duchess's living burial—her chamber becomes grave before death. "Thy tomb" = second-person possessive makes it personal and inevitable. The chamber where she lived (domestic space) transforms into place of death (carceral space), showing how domestic becomes prison under patriarchy. Literal confinement precedes death—she's architecturally entombed before bodily death.
"And let her have lights enough"
Ferdinand, Act 3, Scene 2
Ironic command—Ferdinand keeps the Duchess in darkness as torture. "Lights enough" suggests illumination, but he denies light as sensory deprivation technique. Light = knowledge, visibility, agency; darkness = ignorance, invisibility, powerlessness. Controlling light/darkness controls perception and experience. Shows power operating through environmental manipulation: confining someone in darkness is psychological torture that breaks will.
"Who would be afraid on't, / Knowing to meet such excellent company / In th'other world?"
The Duchess, Act 4, Scene 2
The Duchess reframes death as liberation from earthly imprisonment. Death means joining loved ones and escaping her brothers' control. "Excellent company" = heavenly fellowship vs. earthly isolation. Christian afterlife becomes freedom contrasted with earthly confinement. She transforms execution into escape, maintaining psychological agency despite physical imprisonment.
"We are only like dead walls, or vaulted graves, / That, ruined, yields no echo"
Bosola, Act 5, Scene 5
After the Duchess's death, meaning collapses. "Dead walls" = architectural imagery of enclosure without life. "Vaulted graves" = burial chambers, confinement continuing after death. "No echo" = no response, no communication—total isolation. Bosola articulates post-catastrophe emptiness: the world becomes architectural ruins—enclosing structures without human meaning. Confinement becomes universal, existential—everyone trapped in meaningless world.
A Streetcar Named Desire
"Caught in a trap"
Blanche, Scene 10
Blanche explicitly names her situation—"caught in a trap" acknowledges structural confinement. "Trap" = device that captures and holds, impossible to escape without external help. She recognizes she's been ensnared (economically, socially, psychologically) but recognition doesn't enable escape. Williams makes confinement conscious for character even though she's powerless against it. This self-awareness creates tragic pathos—she knows she's trapped but cannot free herself.
"The apartment is small and has transparent walls"
Stage direction, Opening
Williams specifies architectural confinement from the start. "Small" = cramped, claustrophobic, insufficient space. "Transparent walls" = no privacy—inside visible from outside, occupants visible to neighbors and audiences. This theatrically clever device shows simultaneity (indoor/outdoor action visible together) while symbolizing exposure: Blanche has no place to hide, no privacy, constant surveillance. Transparent walls = see-through barriers that confine but also reveal, creating vulnerability.
"I have nowhere to go"
Blanche, implied throughout
Blanche never explicitly says this single sentence, but it's implicit throughout—she stays with Stanley/Stella because homelessness and unemployment leave no alternatives. Economic constraint creates structural confinement more effective than literal imprisonment: she's not locked in (could physically leave) but poverty eliminates alternatives, producing same result. Williams shows capitalism as architectural: it builds invisible walls (economic necessity) that confine as effectively as visible walls.
"These fingernails have to be trimmed"
Matron, Scene 11
The Matron announces Blanche's resistance (scratching) will be eliminated through cutting nails. "Have to be trimmed" = bureaucratic passive voice suggests neutral necessity, masking coercion. Her body becomes object to be managed and controlled—she has no say over what happens to it. Represents institutional confinement: Blanche will be indefinitely imprisoned in psychiatric facility where her body, behavior, and resistance will be medically "managed" without her consent. Modern imprisonment as care.
"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. Life continues without Blanche as if she never existed—she's been removed (confined in institution), and her absence creates no disruption. "Seven-card stud" = just next game, business as usual. Shows how successfully Blanche has been erased through confinement: total elimination from society without anyone noticing or caring. Confinement achieves same goal as execution (permanent removal) but invisibly.