From Murdered to Murderous

RSC's Arden of Faversham, Alice and Mosby

     It's interesting to move from a series of murdered mothers to murderous wives. In terms of The Duchess of Malfi, it impacted me as a reader that her and all but one of her children were killed unjustly. However, a maternal sympathy plea cannot be placed on Alice. Why is that? Does it impact the reader's reception because she isn't a depraved maternal figure?

     In looking at Alice as a cold blooded murderer, she deserved the execution she received in the end. However, I want to unpack her circumstance a bit further. First and foremost, Alice suffered an arrange marriage to her stepfather's friend. While we don't know underlying situations, it is reasonable to infer that Alice had nothing in common with the man she was betrothed to. Arden was older, of a lower status, and she assuredly had no sense of attraction to him. It would be understandable that a young lady of her situation would be miserable.

     Is Alice that different from the Duchess? The Duchess performs her duty of arranged marriage, and after the Duke has died she goes looking for love where affiliation by class and circumstance once resided. Alice was forced into an arranged marriage, but had found love elsewhere. Much like the Duchess, it would appear that she wanted the freedom of choice and freedom of her life that was unlawfully stripped of her. Both women are of higher circumstance and class than their lovers, but their choice to love men of a lower class than theirs shows an obvious distinction between love and obligation. By choosing men that they genuinely had feelings of love and attraction for both Alice and the Duchess proved that the idea of arranged marriages were no longer suitable for both parties involved.

     However, the Duchess' relationship with Antonio proved fruitful. Mosby and Alice's relationship only breed discontent, malice and death. It would seem more plausible to find sympathy with the Duchess and Antonio because their love, while stemmed from retaliation and rebellion, proved more pure and innocent than that of Mosby and Alice's relationship with one another which seemed to stem from lust. While I attempted to reconcile Alice as a sympathetic character in the play, she herself did strike the last mortal blow onto Arden. At least the Duchess saw her death as a way to be with her beloved and their children once more.