SND And DOM - Madness Flashcards
(39 cards)
Blanche Dubois and Duke Ferdinand - similarities
- ferdinand starts descent into madness due to failure of controlling duchess
- his lycanthropy stems from animalistic urge to control
- Blanche’s madness stems from unstable mental state as her manipulative hold on Mitch and Stella deteriorates plus Stella choosing Stanley over her
- Stanley is an avatar of DIONYSUS - god of madness and desire
- he acts as catalyst for b’s insanity
Blanche Dubois and Duke Ferdinand - differences
- B’s manipulative tendencies stem from her desire to SURVIVE.
- Williams shows DARWINIAN outlook through B’s questionable means of survival.
- unlike Stanley who is born to thrive in cut throat society of post war America, b cannot
- b is her own source of dependency as all men she encountered fail to offer her stability
Ferdinand survives off of malice and terror
- controls those around him to reinforce superiority
- he is in his element - can kill as he wishes
B metaphorically wishes to do the same but only in the name of survival whilst F does it out of jealousy and MASOCHISM
Callaghan on the twins
‘Webster gives two ‘twin’ shows of madness, the Duchess’s and Ferdinand’s, and directs two opposing responses, one charitable, one mocking’
Ferdinand’s lycanthropy as POSTHUMANISM
“I’ll go hunt the badger by owl-light:
‘Tis a deed of darkness”
Cartesian dynamic of plays metaphysics complicates his lycanthropy as presenting good or evil
Dualistic conflict is a matter of mind and body - inability to function cohesively
Represents unity between soul and body
- exterior form mirrors internal soul
Penelope Meyers Usher
“Appear to be human on the surface, but when they pull back their skin (…) they prove to be more animal than human”
Time in both plays
Time passes regularly at first half of both plays
Dramatically quickly in second half
- children, years and months pass
Reflect how madness distorts time
“I have this night digged up a mandrake”
Mandrakes were thought to drive the listener mad with their cry.
Ferdinand associates Duchess’ marriage with madness.
Digged - dental, gutteral, animalistic
“There’s a mad lawyer, ad a secular priest, a doctor that hath forfeited his wits by jealousy”
Ferdinand uses law for his own ends and sexual jealousy drives him mad
Cardinal is corrupt and hypocritical religious figure
Masque of madmen represent the brothers
“Givs’t my little boy // some syrup for his cold, and let the girl // say her prayers ere she sleep”
Act 4 scene 2
Insane??
Or staging a performance
young vic production of blanche lying to mitch about drinking
Blanche resorts to fantasy and illusion from the very start of the play, lying about her drinking problems and her age and creating scenes of a French bistro on her date with Mitch.
The audience arguably see this as amusing at the beginning – indeed, the audience of the 2014 Young Vic production laughed at Gillian Anderson’s performance of looking for the bottle of liquor – her childish “Oh I spy, I spy” is desperate but ridiculous - in front of Stella after we had seen her drinking some just before.
Compare to point about Blanche’s desire for illusion in young vic with DoM
Ferdinand’s similar desire for illusion is shown when he commands his courtiers to laugh when he laughs: “take fire when I give fire”.
Like Blanche, this is greeted with audience laughter in 2014 SAM WANAMAKER PLAYHOUSE PRODUCTION
This desire for illusion is similar to Blanche also in being a desire for control – yet while Blanche seeks to control herself and others’ perceptions of her (“I’ve got to get a hold of myself”), Ferdinand seeks to control the very society he lives in. He is able to do so because the Italian court is corrupt.
Ferdinand as soon as he discovers Duchess’s disobedience
says he has “rigged up a mandrake “, a plant thought at the time to INDUCE MADNESS,
he tells his brother “I am grown mad with’t”
what moment marks the moment where Ferdinand’s ability to fantasise becomes his downfall
ACT 2.5 when he imagines shockingly violent punishments for the Duchess and tells the Cardinal that his “imagination will carry me to see her in the shameful act of sin” “with some strong-thighed bargeman”
the specificity of this image demonstrating the extent of Ferdinand’s delusions
Some critics argue that images like this prove Ferdinand has an incestuous desire for his sister, as expressed by Simon Russell Beale who played Ferdinand himself; one could argue that his delusion that his sister might love him back, and the destruction of this delusion by her remarriage, is what triggers his madness.
How does B’s madness differ to F’s
her delusions are destructive to her even without being destroyed themselves
I would say she isn’t triggered into madness but slips into it
- The ‘blue piano’ music which we initially think is NON-DIEGETIC
- the varsouviana which is an echo of her late husband’s death is revealed to be diegetic when in scene 9 she says
““You’ve stopped that polka tune that I had caught in my head” and later “That – music again…” Williams reveals to us that the music we have been hearing is in Blanche’s head and has been heard by her throughout, putting us in Blanche’s shoes and perhaps making us as deluded as her
What does music represent
representation of the sick society that has caused Blanche’s delusions and also that have encouraged Ferdinand’s
varsouviana tied to allan who died by society
Philip collins
“Blanche is anyone who has ever suffered unjustly from a world suddenly gone wrong”
MEANWHILE
ferdinand is someone who suffers from a world suddenly gone wrong, but in the eyes of the audience, his madness feels like a deserved punishment, not only for his fratricide, but also for his incestuous desires for his sister
we judge him, but feel sympathy for blanche
the madmen’s ditty
exemplify the Jacobean view of madness as something entertaining, a battle between man and Satan for a soul.
their use of sexual innuendo, and their dance, forming a grotesque anti-masque, is disturbing, yes, but also entertaining.
figures of the madmen comment on the political situation of the 1610s, as examples of lawyers, gentlemen ushers, and astrologers, all of whom Webster mocks satirically through their explanations of their madness.
madmen scene in sam wanamaker 2014
madmen were made political again, with the wearing of Trump and Kim Jong Un masks indicating a madness inherent to tyranny and dictatorship.
The madmen’s speeches were also updated, with the actors saying intensely misogynistic lines in contemporary English.
The director of this production echoed Webster in showing the political society outside the play itself to be mad.
final scenes in both
Her final scene is heartbreaking for the audience, as she calls for Shep Huntleigh, who we know is not coming to rescue her. In contrast, we find Ferdinand’s lycanthropy amusing when he talks nonsensically about driving “snails to Moscow” and tries comedically to “throttle” his shadow.
doctors in both
The doctor in The Duchess of Malfi is equally comedic, and the deadpan line of “Doctor, he did not fear you thoroughly” is particularly funny after the Doctor’s assurances that with “urinals” and “a frisk”, he can cure Ferdinand’s madness. The doctor in Streetcar is a far more serious figure, an interesting mixture of comforting and threatening, again showing a difference in how madness is perceived by the authors, audience, and characters. Whilst Webster seems to mock the medical profession, Williams shows a fear around this institution. Blanche’s madness is not entertaining, perhaps because of Williams’ own experience with mental illness in his sister Rose.
doctor in 2023 frecknell production of streetcar
the doctor was played by the actor who had, for the rest of the play, sat above the stage and played the drums each time Blanche felt disturbed. In this way, the doctor himself became a symbol of Blanche’s madness and haunting memories; this physical symbol made Blanche’s delusions seem less illusory and linked her madness more to the society around her.
At the end of the play, the doctor then led Blanche off the stage and out of the theatre itself, a directorial choice suggesting perhaps that the very form of theatre is unhealthy for Blanche and that to leave the stage of New Orleans and of being watched is respite for her.
Frecknell on Blanche’s madness
I do, though, agree with Frecknell that Blanche’s position as a traumatised Southern Belle in the rough society of New Orleans contributes to her madness; I just feel she does not escape in time for there to be any hope of respite. Like Ferdinand, her downfall is clear; both create illusions to cope with the society in which they live, which become delusions as they encounter attacks against these illusions by that same society, which cannot but end in madness.
how do both critique the societies they live in through madness
Whilst The Duchess of Malfi was written about an Italian story from over a century before, the political speeches of the madmen show clearly that Webster is intending to satirise and criticise the Jacobean morals of his own time. It is laughter that he uses most clearly to do so. Williams, meanwhile, evokes pathos for his characters. Though Blanche’s illusions are initially comedic, the audience quickly find her suffering increasingly disturbing and sympathetic. The pinnacle of this is her assault by Stanley, and the manner in which this is dealt with by the New Orleans society.
endings in both
The last line of the play from Steve, “This game is seven-card stud”, indicates clearly the life is carrying on as normal and that all the characters in this play simply move on from Blanche’s madness. With this final line, Williams indicates that it is the society in which Blanche lives which has caused her madness and cast her out as punishment. At the end of Malfi, meanwhile, Delio (similar to Steve in that he is close friends with a male protagonist, yet far more moral) attempts to resolve society amidst the dead bodies of almost every major character in the play. Ferdinand’s body is a reminder that, like Blanche, he is destroyed by his madness, but there is more hope in Malfi that things may change in society, and therefore for vulnerable characters like Blanche and Ferdinand, than in the bleak cyclical ending of Streetcar.
