We live in a world of constant change
Constant, almost unpredictable changes for Satan and Bosola
Eve and Duchess as instigators of change
The desire for preservation and constancy
In DoM, there is a desire to preserve, rather than change. In PL, change is inevitable and foreseeable. Both Milton and Webster criticise the rigidity of fixed societal, political and religious standards, exposing the innate human need for adaptation and flexibility
Eve dares to challenge God's authority, sparking consequences she knew of, but could not comprehend: the fall, and along with it, mortality
Milton in the Aeropagitica said he cannot praise “a cloister’d virtue that never sallies out and seeks it adversary” – at the time people believed trying to test yourself was sinful bc god will test u when he wants. In this moment, he uses ‘she/her’ pronouns while in the rest of the speech he uses male pronouns.
Prosecuting Eve, “There is no mystery” that Eve has committed “Murder”. “Each element of folly, malice, and corruption enters so unobtrusively, so naturally that it is hard to realise we have been watching the genesis of murder” – C.S. Lewis, 1942
“Eve fell through Pride”, her hamartia, “the reader is involved in the same illusion as Eve herself” – C.S. Lewis, 1942
In direct response to Lewis’ attack, a more sympathetic response, “it is not as if she knew what death exactly was”, we must consider “those other impulses – of love, heroism, self-sacrifice that she shows in so many a later passage” – A.J.A Waldock
The Duchess also challenges the order of the Jacobean society in which she lives. The real-life consequences of this were seen in the true story of Giovanna D'Aragona
Whether the spirit of greatness or of woman reign most in her, I know not, but it shows a fearful madness." – Cariola
Satan experiences an exreme fall from the high ranks of Heaven, being one of God's favourite angels, totally reduced in his power. Ultimately, Satan is catapulted into change, then embracing of it, only to be ridiculed and taunted with the very transformation -- from angel to serpent -- by God
“To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell: better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven”
“All is not lost: th’ unconquerable will…and courage never to submit or yield - and what is else not to be overcome?” – Satan, Book 1
In book 2, Satan opens the debate in Pandemonium by claiming that the fallen angels (devils) might rise up stronger in another battle if they work together, showing the hope and determination of a conventional greek hero
In book 9, Satan Satan ‘fearless returned’ to Eden. He undergoes the physical change of transforming into a snake, ‘Mere serpent’. His disguise - the serpent was the shyest beast, so one that might provoke least suspicion -- is similar to Bosola's use of a cynical disguise. Bosola comes to the Duchess as an ‘old man’ when he is preparing to kill her
In Book 1, he expects applause, but instead is humiliated and degraded: ‘Their universal shout and high applause/To fill his ear when contrary he hears/On all sides from innumerable tongues/A dismal universal hiss. Ironically, God has manipulated Satan's desire for change by humiliating him.
Bosola is a fan of change because he is constantly disserviced by the corrupt state of the world he lives in. He is also, perhaps, the character that undergoes the most change in the play: he is perhaps morally reborn by the end of the play
Bosola is embittered by his inability to rise any further through the ranks. He is a ‘malcontent’, who is commentator, perpetrator and victim simultaneously, in terms of the corrupt court of the Aragon brothers.
‘I have heard/He’s very valiant. This foul melancholy/Will poison all his goodness.’ Suggests Bosola was once brave (possibly a solider, based on Bosola’s own imagery of soldiers), and has been corrupted by his resentment at his treatment and lack of social mobility. He has undergone a change before the play even begins
“Bosola’s moral being has not entirely been twisted by circumstances…but his malice can be savage” – Renee Weis
"O, this gloomy world! In what a shadow, or deep pit of darkness doth womanish and fearful, mankind live!” Though he himself was directly responsible for much of their misfortune, he has taken the Dcuhess’s side as one worthy of "good" so happily that he faces his own death without care. He exhibits no hope about what is to come, nor any hope about the world he is leaving behind. Throughout the play, Ferdinand and the Cardinal have, through Bosola, acted to bring hell to Earth for the Duchess, but the consequences spill over onto themselves
“The Duchess’s wooing of Antonio is profound and convincing precisely because it is not “chaste”, as she herself points out” “The Duchess is a woman of sexual energy and vulnerability” – Luckyj
Jacobean stereotype of the Lusty Widow – a literary construct, often seen in comedy to undermine female power of women who had status and money, this is how Cardinal and Ferdinand paint her – as immoral and out of control, to control her.
In PL, God, in His desperation to constrain Adam and Eve and preserve a hierarchy, is deemed a "tyrant". The obedient Adam similarly condemns Eve for going against God's divine orders.
Danielson solves the problem of evil by claiming that "God...does everything he can for the sake of humankind short of violating their free will". Under this assumption, all the change that occurs is due to humans, rather than him.
In PL, God, in His desperation to constrain Adam and Eve and preserve a hierarchy, is deemed a "tyrant". The obedient Adam similarly condemns Eve for going against God's divine orders.
Milton wrote during the wake of the civil war -- after the restoration, a renewal of the societal structures of the divine right of kings that England had been so desperate to overthrow. A confirmation that change was not occuring.
Adam reacts to change angrily. He criticises and insults Eve, "Out of my sight, thou serpent!" He calls her "false and hateful!" She is "a rib crooked by nature, bent as now appears". Despite this, Adam cannot escape punishment and change
The Duchess's brothers are obsessed with the conservation of hierarchy, oppression of women, and authority of the court.
Leech reads DoM as a "cauionary tale against marrying an inferior"
Ferdinand undermines the Duchess's power as a widow. They are most luxurious will wed twice". She is suggestedly of a lower rank because she shows too much appetite: she fits the archetype of a "lusty widow". Ferdinand claims to be protecting her from gossip, but this infers that he is aware of the corruption of the court
“As if the playwrights intuitively felt the storm clouds of the English civil war approaching” – John Perry, 1997
“Monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth” – James I, 1609