The Religious and Social Injunctions

Soranzo is incensed over Annabella's pillow and "ruined" condition. In this era, drama showed that women were the property of men. Soranzo is irate that his buy of a "most precious ornament" is a jewel that shines with the luster of another human being's lust, (Ford, IV.i.10).

We see the English drama alike portrayed domestic relations as fraught with upheaval and chaos when the women refuses to be the kind of wife she is supposed to be, i.e., stanch to her husband. We are told that Soranzo tolerates too much from Annabella, especially because of her "scurvy looks," and her " chinchy slip-finding," (Ford, I.i.166-69). The role of the wife as one who criticizes her husband and is apostate to him went against allthing imposed by religious and social injunctions of the era. This is why Annabella last learns humility but her efforts to warn Giovanni seal her doom as well as those of her brother's Soranzo's and Florio's.

In A Woman Killed By Kindness, we are again treated to the story of an unhappy nuptials because of a wife's infidelity. Even though men were more than probable as apt to commit adultery as women in the era, these plays show how often it is perceived as only the woman's fault when she transgresses. For, in fact, Heywood never provides us with the reason why Anne superpower have wished to commit adultery. Ironically, though her husband wishes to kill Wendoll when his servant informs him of his wife's infidelity, he pursues another strategy,

he will kill her with kindness, "I'll not martyr thee, / Nor mark thee for a strumpet, but with usage / Of more humility torment thy spirit / And kill thee even with kindness," (Heywood, 13.153-56).

Heywood, T. "A Woman Killed With Kindness." In vanguard Fossen, (Ed.). A Woman Killed By Kindness. London, 1961.

In Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, we see that man is no longer considered the epitome of godliness or God's greatest creation. The encouragement to lead a chaste life copious of humility is absent in Webster's work.

Instead, we see that nearly every sin that man is capable of committing is illustrated by the behaviors of the characters in the play. The horror of Bosola, Ferdinand, and the Cardinal also show that not even the clergy is to a higher place sin and evil. Wrath, murder, lust, greed, gluttony, and other sins are all displayed. We see Ferdinand proceed that women are sluts and love the male member, "And women like that part, which, like the lamprey, / Hath nev'r a bone in't," (Webster, I.ii.255-256). We see that the English Drama evolved to embody numerous of the social and political concerns of our own era, from murder, sexual brutality and wickedness to madness, revenge and betrayal.

We see that in the absence of following both religious or social injunctions, relations between individuals are fraught with envy, hatred, greed, and lust. We see Antonio's envy of the Cardinal when he says, "The dancing in his face is nothing but the engend'ring of toads," (Webster, I.ii.82). We see Bosola wishes he were a leech so he could bleed to remainder those who his avarice makes him despise, "Could I be one of their flatt'ring panders, / I would allude on their ears like a horse-leech, / till I were full, and so drop off," (Webster, I.i.52-54). As
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