Hi Sarah,

I agree that it’s worth taking a look at the Duchess through the lens of Qulligan’s argument about agency, since she doesn’t explicitly reference Webster’s play in her article. I personally found fault with Qulligan’s logic that incest can act as a catalyst for agency in women; if anything, it would seem to reinforce a woman’s – particularly a noblewoman’s – inability to escape the obligations of class, i.e. maintaining her family’s bloodlines. Many women were expected or even forced to marry first and second cousins to keep blood blue, so it would seem that incest in this context only bolsters elitist patriarchal authority structures.

In the Duchess’ case, I saw her declaration of “I am the Duchess of Malfi still” as a last-gasp attempt to convince herself that her rank would save her from such tyranny and suffering, rather than a reassertion of agency. Her mind has been irrevocably fractured by her brothers’ psychological torture at this point, so she lacks the strength to take control of her own life again. Her initial attempt to resist patriarchal authority through her marriage to Antonio was what sparked her brothers’ wrath, and their actions stripped her of whatever other agency she might have had.