Lesson 8 THE WHITE DEVIL The Author With Webster and other Jacobean playwrights, the problem was

to assert their individuality in an ambience totally dominated by the incomparable Shakespeare and to a certain extent by a few university wits. So much so, even biographical details are sketchy and incomplete. In Websters case, even the date of his birth is no more than a conjecture. He should have been born sometime in the 1570s and might have survived till 1624 Not much of his early life is known except the he began his career as a clerk before joiing Merchant Taylors company for whom he wrote tragedies. Scoffed at by several reveiwes, he still managed to win appreciation from discerning critics.

In the beginning, Webster, collaborated with others, particularly Dekker in the production of plays Caesars Fall and The Two Harpeis are instance in point Lady jae. In the writing of which Webster had a part, has a cluster of fellow contributors. His appreiceship over, Webster set out on his own and between 1610 and 1618, he produced the White Devil and The Duchers of Malfi, the two works on which his reputation tests.

The Content Franciso Medists, Duke of Florence, sends word to count Lodovico that he had been banished. Lodovico accused of intrigue and murder does not consider himself sinless but wonders why others of his ilk arenot punished, even though their misdemeanors are more worthy of reprimand. The Duke of Brachiano, for instance, has been trying to seduce Vittoria Corombona, the young wife of elderly Camillo. Vittorias blood brother Flaminco, an unscruptlous opportunist, assist the lecherous duke in his schemes. She should be given unfettered freedom to keep her chaste. Camillic agrees. With nothing to deter her pusuit of clandestile amour. Vittoria gets intimate with Brachiano. On one occasion, she even makes the suggestion that her paramour should put both his wife, Isabella and Camilo out of the way to
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facilitate unhindered fulfillment of their passion. Vittorias mother overhearing this denocuces her daughter as well as her lover. She also announces the arrival of Isabella in Rome.

Isbellas brother Franciso and Cardinal Monticelso try to dissuade Brachiano from his craving for Vittoria. Brachiano refuses to obglie. Even when his son Giovanni pleads with him, the man is adamant. Even a one to one face off with Isabella fails to dissuade Brachiano who even banishes his wife from his bed, To ease the situation and to prevent a bloody conflict. Isabells declares that she had, of her own olition. snapped off marital ties with her husband. For all her pains, she is denounced as a jealous, suspicious wife who had made a mountain of a molehill.

Francisco and Monticelso order Camillo and Marclio. Vinorrar brother to be in joint charge of an operation against the banished Lodovico and his hand of pirates. Monticelso allays Camillos fears of Vittoria being unfaithful during he lusbands absence. He offers to keep an eye on her. The real intention is to give Vittoria. unresttnincd access to Brachiano so that lie might land in a scandal from which he could never extricate himself.

Brachiano has plans of his own. He hires Fiamir o to murder Cainillo and pays Julio. a physician to bring about the death of Isabella. She is made to kiss the portrait of her husband after it had been smeared with a coat of poison. Like the perfectionist he is, Brachiano with the help of a magician is able to watch his nefarious plans carried out by hirelings.

Vittoria is brought to trial before a jury of ambassadors n Rome. Monticenso presides over the court. Victtoria, accused o murdering her husband, pleads innocence. However Brachianos testimony goes against her interests, He admits to have spent the night of the murder at Vittorias place. Circumstantial evidence and her own image as a woman of easy virtue result in her being sentenced lo confinement in a home for reformed prostitutes.
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Giovanni comes with news of his mothers unnatural death, Suspicion immediately turns on Brachiano but Francisco and his brother could not agree on the means of revenge. 1sahella host appears before Francisco who promptly deises a trick. He writes a easrionatc letter. professing love for Vittoria and directs his servant to deliver it, making sare it would fall into the hands of Brachiano or his men. Brachiano accuses Vittoria of infidelity but the lady protests her innocence. in the end. there is a reconciliation and Brachiano. more infatuated than even before, offers to get Vittoria released and then marry her. Franciscos wish is that Brachiano, should marry a prostitute and disgrace himself. His lust for revenge not et abated. Francisco orders Lodovico, now a pardoned prodigal to murder Brachiano.

Monticelso, now elected Pope excommunicates Brachiano and his bride. He forbids the murder of Brachiano and warns Lodovico of his displeasure, Francisco outwits his brother by sending the hired killer a thousand crowns in his brothers name. Lodovico is conirneed that the sanctimonious Pope had been putting on airs.

Francisco, anxious to watch Brachiano die, disguises himself as a moor and proceeds to Padua accompanied by Lodovico and Gaspero both passing off as knights of Malta. The unsuspecting Brachiano receives them cordially, ignorant of what lay in store for him.

Before the plot could be executed another murder takes place. Flamineo kills his brother Marcello in a fit of jealousy. Both had made advances to zarche, Vittorias Moorish maid. Brachiano sits in judgement over his son and, even as he holds court, Lodovico empties a phial of poison over his head. Brachiano becomes raving mad. Lodovico, and Gaspero enter his bed chamber dressed as capuetins. There they reveal their real identities before strangling him to death.

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Flamineo insists that his sister should compensate him for his Loyalty. Vittoria rebuffs him. Incensed Flamineo produces two pistols saying that the game was up and both of them should die. He had promised Broachino as much. Vittoria suggests that Flamineo should die first but, as he had already removed the bullets she is thwarted in her attempt to shoot Flamineo dead. Before Flamineo could react, Lodovico and Gaspero rush in and kill Vittoria, Flamined and the Moorish maid. Gavianno who reaches the place with a group of ambassadors finds the murderers standing over the corpses. Lodovico confesses his crime and says that Francisco had set him up to it. Gavionni swears vengeancee.

From the beginning till the very end, the sequence of events are laced by revenge.Not one of the characters is free of malice or subterfuge. Vittoria, the central character is no paragon and so are the rest of the characters schemers, plotters and evil men. So, the stagelittered with corpses at curtain fall is an appropriate ending.

The White Devil as a Revenge Play. Seneca is said to have been the one who defined the parameters of a Revenge Play. In a Revenge Play, revenge is the chief motivator. Men, thirsting for vengeance, often perpetrate the most heinous crimes imaginable. And revenge leaves matters as they had been before. There is no real fulfilment in revenge. However, as a motivator of human exertions, revenge has few equals.

Kyd in Spanish Tragedy and Shakespeare in Hamlet have handled the revenge motif with considerable skill. However, the revenge pattern suits an Italian background perfectly. And Webster, bearing this in mind. has given his play an Italian backdrop. which is one of the contributory factors to the success of the play.

There are certain common features in all revenue plays. the characters are drawn mostly from the patrician segment. None of them is a paragon. On the
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contrary everyone of them is unscrupulous, opportunistic and quite capable of subterfuge. Morality is always at a discount. Unbridled violence, artistically contrived murders. sorcery, unabashed self interest, the necromantic inputs and an abundant averment of chance and the supernatural are features of a Revenge Tragedy. it is just as well that no one conceives of a Revenge Comedy for revenge always ends in tragedy, revenge itself is the tragedy of the human spirit. A revenge play depicts courtly intrigue and immorality in high places. The central character, Vittoria is the wife of an elderly courtier who suspects her constancy every minute of his life. In other words, he knows he is too old (and feeble) for his youthful wife and therefore it was natural for her to seek fulfillment in younger, more virile company. He is typical of Italian aristocracy who marry women half their age just to show off and then spend a lifetime spying on them. Vittorias brother Flamineo is prepared to play the pimp for Brachiano even though the target of clandestine amour in Vittorja her5 elf Flanineos own sister. Such decadence, so common in patrician society fits the revenge play requirements perfectly. Brachiano thinks nothing of courting some one elses wife or of betraying his own marriage vows. Immorality was the middle name of most Italian aristocrats who feature in revenge plays. The manner in which he plans and executes his murder plan is typical of courtly intrigue, a feature of all revenge plays. Duke Francisco and his brother a cardinal who subsequently becomes pope are two sides of a decadent coin. The former, a duke of the realm is more interested in Brachianos reputation than in helping a wronged sister. Instead of trying to end Brachianos affair with Vittoria, he wants to ensure its sublimation so that he could show Brachiano up as a lecher and philanderer. How he plans Brachiar.os murder is typical of the obsession with revenge that characterised Italian aristocracy. Brachiano himself sets new standards in villainy. As in all revenge plays, the protagonist gets rid of all impediments by hook or crook. An accidental fall from a horse for old Camillo and a portrait smeared with poison for Isabella are typical of the Revenge play methodology.

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Among the woman characters. Vittoria, the anti-heroine fits the revenge pattern perfectly. Preferring a younger paramour to an enfeebled spouse, she persuades her lover to get rid of both impediments, his wife and her husband and the besoytled Duke obliges.

The Trial Scene in The White Devil The Trial Scene in Websters White Devil is the standout show piece of the entire play. It rivals The Inquisition in G.B Shaws St. Joan in the manner it exposes the unacceptable, though conventional banality of the offender casting the first stone. it is not possible to identify sinless people so that they could be trusted to sit in judement over others. With ambassadors as jurors arid observers it is more of an inquisition, rather than a trial, presided over Monticelso. a cardinal, soon to he elected Pope. As the Cardinal had already prejudged the case and had made un his mind as to the nature of the punishment, the proceedings are no better than a farce in which fairness and equity have no place.

This Trial Scene is significant for a variety of reasons. It is an occasion for Webster to display his extraordinary genius as a dramatist and master of diction. It plays a vital role in the evolution of Vittorias character, It shows up the other characters for what they are. Timeserves, opportunists and men of straw. It is also indicative of sacerdotal vanity and clerical perfidy. This scene brings to light the extent of Italys moral decadence and an abysmal fall in juridical proprieties.

A lawyer engaged by the court to prosecute her, begins the proceedings with vituperative references to Vittoria character. it l unrestrained abuse and

condemnation which discredits the lawyer completely. Vittorsa matches him throughout. in a battle of vits in which she comes off best. She makes no bones of her utter contempt for the cardinal and others, who, like those who arraigned the woman before Christ. were all sinners themselves.

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After a brief exchange between Vittoria and the prosecutor. the Cardinal takes over. Even he launches a diatribe against the womans character instead of pinning her down to specifics. With great relish, incongruously out of place in a celibate, he makes a catalogue of whores of various hues, a prelude that ends with his assessment of Vittoria the whore. Vittoria puts the Cardinal on a spot. repeatedly reminding him that accusations are not proof. In a telling rejoinder she says that tile Cardinal was spitting against the wind.

When the Cardinal confronts her with what he thinks is clinching evidence, her tryst with Brachiano on the night of the murder of Camello and Isabella, Brachiano interjects with a confession that he was with Vittoria that night. Before the court could infer the obvious, the Duke claims that he Lal only gone there to comfort Vitforia after the death of her husband, needed advice on what should be done about the estates. When the Cardinal reads out a love letter, presumably authored by the Duke, Vittoria challenges him to prove that it confirmed the charge of adultery. She declares openly that she was a fun loving woman with a taste for fine clothes and rich food. If a young woman is occasionaly tempted, it cannot be assumed that she has succumbed to it. Brachiano makes no secret of his contempt for the Cardinal and the rest of the company of sanctimonious hypocrites He ticks them off with the most violent invectives ever hurled against clergymen.

Vittoria is finally consigned to a home for reform d prostitutes. Vittoria who had from the very beginning challenged the moral authority of the Cardinal and others to sit in judgement over her, declares that, with her arrival, that very house of shame would be transformed into a holy place, far far worthy of reverence than the Popes palace.

All in all, the Trial Scene is the one in which all loose ends are tied up. All characters achieve a fulness and form, scarcely noticeable elsewhere in the play. It is also a satire on human fallibiliby, human wickedness and human injustice. It is a comment on the most despicable form of male chauvenism, its gender bias, and pretensicns. its dramatic significance is truly great.
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Websters Portraiture of Vittorias Character To speak of some one as The White Devil is suggestive of several things. It is rare for a fair skinned person to be devilish, particularly a woman of European stock. So, when one renegade is identified they damn her as a devil. Websters play is named after the heroine Vittoria, condemned by her peers as the white devil. From the evidence of the text, it is evident that Webster does not share this view.

Vittoria is depicted as a young ambitious, resoirceful woman who loves the good things of life. Unfortunately for her, Camillo, her husband isnt one of those good things. He is old and enfeebled and most certainly not the answer to a maidens prayer. In a marriage of convenience, Vittoria loses out on the most essential part of marriage, sexual gratification. In a mans world there is instantaneous justification of male indiscretions on the ground of female frigidity At the same time, a woman is expected to stifle her desires and be constant to an impotent husband. The same was expected of Vittoria. The process is set in motion not by Vittoria snaring her paramour but by her own brother pimping shamelessly for Brachiano who is hell bent on seducing some one elses wife.Viuorias indiscretion should be viewed from this prelude. A faithless husband seeks a lectherous liaison with another mans wife and the.omans own brother. shamelessly, plays the go between. The setting is complete as Carnillo, the possessive imbecile spends a life time suspecting his wife. When Brachiano, the philandering nobleman enters her life, Vittoria is on the horns of a dilemma. It cannot he that she had a sentimental sense of loyalty to a possessive husband. A he had never been a husband if the real sense, the marriage vows tended to lose their validity. Suppressed emotions and unfulfilled desires could play havoc with a womans mental balance in the choice between the right and the wrong, particularly if the s right had nothing to offer except frustration and loneliness. So, Vittoria becomes Brachianos other woman and shares half the blame. That is the ay Webster perceives her fall.
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Having taken the first step, Vittoria decides to go the full distance. Webster does not seek to justify her infidelity. However, by juxtaposing Brachianos betrayal of his wifes confidence and Vittori& unfaithfulness, he tempers judgement with fairness. Like most women in her position. Vittoria wants the decks cleared as early as possible. Legitimate or not, a relationship will endure only when all encumbrances are removed. So, she asks Brachiano to get rid of both impediments, a wife, his and a husband, hers. Brachiano acts upon the suggestion with great alacrity as if he had only been waiting for her to mention it.

Vittoria, accused of instigating and abetting the crime puts up a brave defence at the trial. Her demeanour at the trial shows her as a woman of great learning, argumentative skill, admirable wit and gift of repartee. In a manner that would have drawn praise from an avid feminist, she blasts to smithereens all those chaivinistic claims of male supremacy. She admits her failing but considers herself far superior to the men who presumed to sit in judgement over her. She doesnt spare even the presumptuous Cardinal. She claims herself to be a diamond and that the Cardinal and his cohorts were using glass hammers against her. She declares that with her arrival, the home for reformed prostitutes would assume a heavenly aspect when she moved in. Webster portrays her as an imperfect woman but also as one more sinned against than sinning, particularly in the trial scene.

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