In Thomas Middleton’s play Women Beware Women (c.1623-24), which I wrote about here, women are presented as their own worst enemies. At the centre of the play is the character Livia, who engineers the downfall of two young women, Bianca and Isabella, persuading them to embark on dangerous sexual relationships (Bianca’s adulterous and precipitated by a rape, Isabella’s incestuous) which bring about their downfalls and ultimate demise. In her dying breath Bianca, realising what Livia has done, laments ‘the deadly snares / That women set for women’. Continue reading “Dangerous women”
Tag: Women Beware Women
The Corrupting Effects of Food
In my last post I wrote about apricots in The Duchess of Malfi and how they are used to ascertain the Duchess’s suspected pregnancy. Once the pregnancy – and the Duchess’s marriage to her steward Antonio, her social inferior – are confirmed, the Duchess’s villainous brothers set out to destroy her and her family (see http://frompagetoplate.com/2014/05/25/apricots/)
The idea that food, rather than being a form of celebration or sustenance, can have a more malevolent side to it, is a popular idea in early 17th century Jacobean revenge drama. Continue reading “The Corrupting Effects of Food”