Answer TWO of the following:
Q1: Though The Revenger’s Tragedy is a revenge
tragedy (like Titus, Hamlet, etc.) that deals with the serious
consequences of revenge, most of the characters have allegorical names: Vindice
(Revenge), Spurio (Spurious/Fake), Gratiana (Favor), Supervacuo
(Superfluous/Irrelevant), etc. How does this affect how you read the play? If
characters wear their intentions on their sleeve, how seriously can we take
them? Does this make the play more comic (even if darkly comic)? Or does it
suggest a religious allegory more in the line of Dr. Faustus?
Q2: As we saw in the clip from The Godfather, the act
of revenge morally compromises those who seek it, forcing them to make a ‘deal
with the devil’ which ends in blood. In the first two acts, how is Vindice
slowly (or quckly?) compromising his morals to pursue his revenge? Why does he
feel his vengeance is worth any price, even that of his soul (or other’s)?
Q3: Middleton is known for his cynicism and biting wit,
which like Shakespeare is full of puns and double meanings (perhaps why they
worked together on at least two plays). Discuss a short passage that highlights
his language, and how this language characterizes the character(s) who speak
it. You might also consider how he uses verse and/or prose in your passage.
Q4: In Vindice’s speech to his mother in Act Two, Scene One,
he describes his sister as real estate: “I would raise my state upon her
breast/And call her eyes my tenants; I would count/My yearly maintenance upon
he cheeks,/Take coach upon her lip, and all her parts/should keep men after men
and I would rise/In pleasure upon pleasure” (97). Other men in the play also use
terms of buildings/architecture to describe women. Why do you think this is?
How might this metaphor allow us to see the position of women in Jacobean
society (under James I, Elizabeth ’s
successor)? Despite being more represented on stage, what did their characters
and roles seem to entail?
Elyse Marquardt
ReplyDeleteQ1) Middleton’s use of names is interesting. He gives his characters obvious names that portray their personalities as adjectives, rather than as people. This makes the characters seem less like actual humans with flaws, desires, and goals, and more like allegorical examples that the audience is meant to see and learn from, either positively or negatively. I would say that the use of thinly veiled adjectives as character names makes the play very allegorical, more than anything else. It draws out the aspects of life that Middleton wants his audience to focus on. It emphasizes the nastiness of humanity and makes for an over-the-top storyline that exactly suits the genre of revenge tragedy.
Q2) Vindice is a sad character caught in the midst of other sad characters. In order for him to keep his head above water, he must surpass the extremes which his so-called friends and family have committed. He dedicates himself to this feat and is willing to pay any price to accomplish it. It doesn’t take him long to decide that anything is worth the vengeance for which he is so desirous, even if that means that everybody he ever claimed to care about is brutally hurt in the process.
Elyse Marquardt
Q1 and Q4: I agree with Elyse. Middleton's characters seem to stand for their name rather than the other way around. By making them less human in this way, Middleton is staying congruent with a theme that seems to show up throughout the play, that is, we often see people as less than human or fail to see their full humanity. We see this happen with the female characters in the play. They are reduced to property or inanimate objects and not allowed to embrace their autonomy or humanity.
ReplyDeleteThis takes place is Vindici's speech to his mother. If you reduce someone to being less than human, it is easier to use them for your own means. By making his sister a piece of property, it seems easier for him to use her as one would a business endeavor. Maybe Middleton is showing us that society often strips people of their humanity in order to promote certain ideas or traditions that benefit those in power.
Q1: I think the decision to names the characters after their personalities is an unobtrusive way to add a touch of humor to the play. It just feels difficult to take a name like “Spurio the Spurious” seriously. This would be the equivalent of giving a character a comical title such as “Robert the Robber”, or “Mason the Mason”. *da dum-tiss* This is not to say that the names are supposed to be hilarious, rather just something to create a smirk. The unusual names could also be a way of keeping track of the numerous characters. However, if this was Middleton’s intention, it isn’t working too well. I do not think that the names of the characters display their intentions in an overly obvious way; it is easy to look past the meaning and just read “Spurio” objectively.
ReplyDeleteQ4: The comparison of women to architecture and real estate shows us that women were more similar to property, than people. It de-personifies the woman so that she seems more like “means to an end”. I think the fact that Vindice carries his lover’s skull around is quite interesting. First, the fact that the deceased woman is now represented only by a disembodied skull seems to objectify her by actually turning her into an object that can be carried around. However, the act of carrying the skull with him (and talking to it) seems to represent a deeper connection between the two, compared to the standard view of women for the time. Vindice’s relationship to his lover’s skull seems like an oxymoron.
1.) In my own personal preference, I think it makes the play less serious. There are all of these plots within plots within plots that I can't keep up with, and the fact that the names are so ridiculous and hard to remember, it just made me feel like the play shouldn't be taken as seriously. I do think, however, that that's what Middleton was intending to do to the audience. It makes it sort of a dark comedy, in a way that we know what their names mean, and we there for know their intentions.
ReplyDelete2.) The scene that stuck out to me most was probably the when the Duchess was trying to distract and complete the Duke's sentencing of her son. A scene like this one is supposed to be serious. She's pleading for her son's life and son's sentencing, but she's doing so in a "wifey" way - by distracting her husband with sex and speaking immediately after him, like she's finishing his sentences. It's more comical than desperate.
Q1: Middleton's ability to dehumanize his characters through their names allows readers to stay detached from them. It is for this reason that we don't have a hero, or root for a specific character. While perhaps also giving us an insight into flaws of these characteristics. This also allows us to see this play as more of a comedic or satirical play rather than fact or completely serious. It is also fascinating that each character is not only given a humorous name, but that they are not supposed to be remembered, further dehumanizing them to the readers. Even as we attempted to discuss the play in class it was difficult to remember who did what or what that characters name was, and I think that that too is intentional, and simply adds to the irony and satire of the play.
ReplyDeleteQ4: While there were many advances for minorities, Middleton shows the comedic issues surrounding characters comparing women to property. It is easy to say that the standards for women throughout this play are very different than the standards we have today, but rather than justifying these issues I think Middleton is poking fun at them and showing the injustices and the irony behind this act.
Q1: I think the allegorical names of the characters do make me read the play differently. For example, all throughout Act 1 scene 2, Spurio is letting the audience know that he really wants Junior to die, but he doesn't let the rest of the family (the duchess especially) know how he feels. I think that is really fake. Because Spurio holds true to his name right off the back, I am looking forward to some of the names foreshadowing the events in the play.
ReplyDeleteQ4: Women are just property at this time. It is absolutely amazing that they are gaining ground and being represented on the stage, but the women at this time were little better than slaves. They had no stake in any business, money or land. They were completely dependent on men to provide for them. Some men were honorable in their relationships with women, but others, as Junior makes very clear, simply saw women as an object to satisfy their lust.
Q1: Before we know much of anything about the characters, we are given an idea of their personalities, as well as a topical debriefing of what we are to expect from them, simply because of the allegorical names they are given. That being said, those names really limit them as characters, and compromises their potential for depth. It’s hard for me to take them seriously when their names tell me what to think of them. It very well could make it more comical, purely for the fact that when one of the characters does or says something that coincides with their allegorical name, everyone in the audience could say “oh, that’s just like him. He would say/ do that. I mean, that’s even his name.”
ReplyDeleteQ4: Before I saw what Karina said, the part that really stuck out to me was what was said about men “using terms of buildings/architecture to describe women” this is solely because women were thought of as buildings/ architecture (or property). Women were things to be owned, bought, and sold as if they were inanimate objects without feelings. Their roles entailed that they were nothing more than women in real life, not even in a play could they be anything other than property.
Nicholas Johnson
ReplyDeleteQ1/ The revengers tragedy sets itself up to be serious but only to the audience at first. Over the course of the play the actions and the statements of the characters become more insane and comical, though the intent of playwright is hard figure out. The names used in the play add to the comic nature but also makes a point about the caricatures of tragedy characters, the lecherous noble the dishonored man.
Q4/ The idea that Middleton was trying to convey, in my opinion and that questionable at best, is that women of the time were nothing more than property to be used as bargaining tools for power or wealth, in the case of arranged marriages. But more, and Im just assuming, he juxtaposes the wrong of losing a lover, or wife, with the using of other women, and subsequently wronging them, to revenge themselves. It is a joke on the idea of the revengers noblitity when he is willing to destroy his loved ones for the sake of his honor, not really his lover.
Daniel Bonar
ReplyDeleteQ1: The characters names in the play make you constantly aware of their intentions. Perhaps because this is a play rather than a novel this effect take a much larger hold because before every line there is a name to influence the tone or feel of the statements. Like drinking through a candy straw, every line is flavored by the name and therefore the intentions of the character. This makes the play more comic in some areas and more serious in others. If a character like Spurio is expressing love or happiness, we can safely bet he’s wearing a mask, and vise versa.
Q3: in act once scene two, the Duchess is pleading with the court, but in her own convoluted way. She routinely interrupts the Judge to persuade him to be as “slack in tongue as in performance” meaning that that she hopes he will be as limp on her son as his member in in bed. But how would she know this had she not already been disappointed by him before? This leads me to believe that she showed up to the court with no regard for the Judge because she knew she already had him by the proverbial member, and therefore would be able to interrupt him and embarrass him publicly, knowing that if he were not to bend to her will in some regard that he would have much more to lose than his injured pride.