‘A Reconciliation of Opposites’
(Coleridge) The Craft of John Webster in
The White Devil (1612)
‘Webster would not have us forget that she is the devil of
his play’s title.’ (C. Leech p.44)
‘That she is the white devil of the title has remained an almost
unquestioned assumption.’ (R.W. Dent, p.180)
It is usual for Vittoria to be identified as the White Devil
of the play, but it seems likely that Webster did not intend us to be limited
by literal, specific representations. The title may well have ‘a thematic relevance
far more significant than any reference to a single character’, (Dent p.202/3); in this light, perhaps Webster
refers to the burning desire for independence, which had been such a conundrum
for renaissance thinkers. J.W. Lever’s
assertion may be more likely; that in a play ‘without heroes or heroines…The
White Devil is not Vittoria Corombona- but Renaissance Europe’ (p.4). While a
euphemistic title such as ‘the White Devil’ encourages conjecture, we cannot
help but feel that Webster, by choosing it, is deliberately teasing us.
Having said that, the rights and wrongs of Vittoria’s behaviour
are certainly central to the plot, despite her being offstage for much of the
play. One of Webster’s most pressing challenges was to persuade an audience to overlook
her malevolence and consider siding with her, for at least some of the time. This is tricky as she faces some well-founded
charges. However, while she is typically represented as self-serving, like The
Duchess of Malfi (1613), she too has an enviably proud ‘integrity of life’ (DoM,
5,5,120). By exploring this contradiction,
Webster cleverly offsets any condemnation with some very plausible mitigation; this
resonates particularly for a modern audience.
Dilemmas
‘Vittoria is arraigned by powerful male
interrogators and her right of response is negated by her gender. In this play,
revenge…represents a damage-limitation exercise predicated on the necessity of
containing female sexuality.’ (Waudby, p.2)
We recognise and respond sympathetically to her flagrant
commodification in a patriarchal state, especially when she proves that she is more than capable of
out-thinking her adversaries. Webster
meticulously constructs a series of moral dilemmas to both excite and confuse us.
Vittoria has murder in her heart, but loves truly; she is intelligent in a
society that does not wish her to be so; she marries to enhance the reputation
of a family she comes to despise.
Our fluctuating feelings about Vittoria are shaped by our
response to this duality. She faces a moral-commercial dichotomy, staking the
gaining of social and financial advancement against disgrace and, possibly,
death. As part of this dilemma, Webster
has created her persona carefully; being confident, intelligent and resourceful,
she appears, implicitly, to be frustrated by her well-connected but unexciting
marriage, undertaken altruistically to give her low ranking family some
security. Camillo’s status comes from his family
connection to Monticelso, the future pope, a influential schemer and a man
unlikely to tolerate personal or political slights. Vittoria’s gamble in accepting Brachiano’s advances is therefore
risky, but is perhaps the most telling indicator of her character; Webster
presents her as simply unable to tolerate mediocrity, whatever the risk.
Her opening lines convey her marital frustrations: ‘I did
nothing to displease him, I carved to him at supper time’ (1,2,121). A
double-negative and a dubious joke is how Webster establishes her duplicity. It seems she wants to free herself from a stultifying
marriage. We squirm with embarrassment for her when the coarse Brachiano
clumsily notes the position of her ‘jewel’. Yet while we applaud her desire for
independence, how acceptable is her conspiracy
to have two innocents, her rivals, murdered? Clearly, from now on, we must consider which
of the two Vittorias we are judging; an heroic seeker of self-determination, or
a ‘temptress in a theatre of male desire.’ (Waudby, p.9)
Moral Confusion
Herein lies the beauty of the play, and Webster’s craft. Perhaps Vittoria is as guilty as hell, but the
audience does not want her to be, such is her charisma. Perhaps, if pressed, while we cannot forgive
her shockingly cruel schemes, we are secretly pleased to agree with the
realistic Francisco, who in court is forced to admit that all the evidence
against her is circumstantial. We’re confused. And that is exactly how Webster would have
it.
It is hard to argue that her ‘yew tree dream’ was innocent. Even if she didn’t make it up, relating it so
flirtatiously to the dim Brachiano was inexcusable. So we have a guilty woman. But then Webster surprises us, with Vittoria’s
heartfelt appeal to Cornelia: ‘dearest mother, hear me.’ (1,2,269). We see someone who is concerned at
some level for her mother’s approbation- or lack of it. Then, who could fail to be moved at her
trial, in which an intelligent, independent woman is hung out to dry by a
kangaroo court? As Ralph Berry states, ‘Is not her magnificent performance a
true index to her character?’ (p.91). Webster
convinces us to overlook her flaws as she bravely draws upon every ounce of her
resourcefulness in a desperate bid to survive.
Her defence is a balance of both reason and passion, and we are
willingly fooled by her necessary deception, disguised as candour and openness:
‘Sum up my faults I pray, and you shall find, That beauty and gay clothes, merry heart and a good stomach to a feast are all the poor crimes that you can charge me with…(3,2,215-8)
A little reflection causes us to re-evaluate this speech and
consider the possibility that ‘its audacious proclamation of innocence is one
of the few instances in the trial when we can be sure Vittoria is lying…’
(Dent, p.194). Webster has presented
Vittoria’s admirable strengths as irresistibly attractive. When she does
survive, we are as incensed as she is at the unfair sentence, but also morally confused, as we are glad that a
murderess has escaped.
Potent Imagery
Undoubtedly Webster’s imagery throughout ‘The White Devil’ is
potent in this regard. Vittoria is represented
as an ‘unsavoury vine’, promising much but delivering poison; she is both Eve and
the illicit fruit, a betrayer (‘were there a second paradise to lose’); she is
a ‘dunghill bird’, a ‘wolf’, and a ‘crocodile’.
As Berry says, ‘Examples are manifold’. Yet Berry seems to omit some
powerful evidence. He ignores the
repeated motif of jewellery and how, ultimately, as argued at length by Samuel
Schuman, it provides images which suggest that Vittoria is strong, and bright,
and genuine. After she shrugs off
Brachiano’s smutty innuendo, she claims the jewel motif as her own, in stages,
throughout her trial. For example, when
Flamineo calls Camillo a ‘counterfeit diamond’, the implication is that
Brachiano’s ‘precious stone’ is the real thing.
This gives Vittoria’s ‘jewel’ even greater significance. The English Ambassador’s shrewd comment that she has ‘a brave spirit’
represents further testimony to her credibility. As a result, Monticelso’s claim in the trial
that she cannot be trusted (‘such counterfeit jewels make true ones suspected’
3,2,138/9) is undermined. Webster finally
gives Vittoria the jewel motif as her own when she replies:
‘You are deceiv'd:
For know, that all your strict-combined heads,
Which strike against this mine of diamonds,
Shall prove but glassen hammers: they shall break…’ (3,2,140-3)
Strength of Will
This makes her final, triumphant line of the trial chilling
in its claim. While ‘Vittoria’s subject position and brief moment of agency is
unsustainable not only in terms of her role within the play, but also in
Webster’s own society’, (Waudby, p.11) Webster
undeniably gives her this moment. Her exclamation that ‘through
darkness, diamonds spread their richest light’(3,2,291/2) is an unequivocal
statement of both moral superiority and her determination to achieve a degree
of personal freedom; the imagery leaves little room to doubt her strength of
will. This seems to undermine Berry’s
claim that she is ‘damned’ by Webster’s imagery. In a world of corruption, the purity of her light
is the brightest; her ‘ jewel’ must be then flawless. However, as J.W. Lever asserts ‘…it is the depth of the
surrounding darkness, not the quality of the gems, that chiefly concerns us…’ (ibid.)
An unbending moral position, such as that taken by Ian Jack
(1940) might discount ambiguity and view Webster as having ‘no profound hold on
any system of moral values’, condemning Vittoria, as ‘Webster just makes her
behave as if she were honourable.’
Vittoria the ‘blazing, ominous star,’ (5,6,130) may well be guilty, and she might also be a
White Devil. But we are with her much, if not most, of the way. Webster’s genius is to establish this ‘reconciliation
of opposites’ as wholly believable.
‘There is, as it were, a subordinate side of Vittoria which
is innocent. Actually, she is guilty,
but there is a strong undercurrent of suggestion in the opposite
direction. It never comes to the surface
but it is there. Her character is a reconciliation of opposites.’ (Bradbrook,
1935)
Mike Haldenby teaches
English at Park High School, Harrow.
References
Ralph Berry The Art
of John Webster Oxford University Press (1972)
Fredson Bowers Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy University of
Virginia (1940)
M C Bradbrook Themes
and Conventions of Elizabethan Tragedy Cambridge Press (1935)
Coleridge,
Samuel Taylor Biographia Literaria Ed. J.Shawcross Oxford University Press, (1907)
R.W. Dent The White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona?
Renaissance Drama, Vol. 9 pp. 179-203 University of Chicago Press (1966)
Ian Jack The Case of
John Webster Scrutiny XV1 (1949)
Clifford Leech, John Webster London (1951)
J.W. Lever The Tragedy of State Methuen (1971)
Roma Gill A Reading of The White Devil Essays and Studies
XIX, University of Sheffield (1966)
Samuel Shuman The
Ring and Jewel in Webster’s Tragedies
Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Vol 14, No 2 (Summer 1972)
June Waudby Contextualising
Vittoria: Subjectivity and Censure in The White Devil, University of Hull (June 2010) www.thisroughmagic.org
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