On the first glance the plot of Ford's play depicts total moral decay with debauchery and carnal desires being the ultimate aim of life. Murder, promiscuity, hypocrisy, and revelling at banquettes are the setting for the corrupted society of Parma, with Giovanni and Annabella's incestuous relationship leading the prime of the total immoral self indulgence. On the other hand, however, would Ford simply write a bloody tale of debased humanity without hinting to us at something deeper? Is the incest truly the lowest and most abominable act here? On the background of all the misdoing that takes place in this supposedly ordered and lawful world, Giovanni and Annabella's relationship is portrayed as the only way out of a social trap in which true passionate love finds no place to exist.
Bulman says that in the treacherous environment of perfidiousness "the love of Giovanni and Annabella stands as something finer, nobler, and more passionate than anything those around them are capable of" (353). In this context incest, as depicted in 'Tis Pity, is more of a challenge to the over-righteous hypocritical moral order, rather than its direct reflection. It becomes the new morality in an attempt to distance oneself and one's desires from the world of oppression and chicanery.
Because incest is set in a world where everyone creates their own rules as to what is right or wrong, Ford does not provide one moral standard, nor does he offer one solution to the dilemma of passion versus custom. While incestuous relationship is definitely wrong according to the standards set by the society (both now and then), we are made to judge Annabella and Giovanni's love on the background of other 'righteous' relationships, which nevertheless prove to be depraved and bring more harm than good. Hippolita and Richardettos's marriage falls apart when Hippolita, seduced by Soranzo, plots on killing her husband. Even Annabella and Soranzo's legal relationship ends in death. Apart from all the evil happening within legal bonds, there is a whole array of mischief being done outside of them - Soranzo's wooing of Hippolita being only the peak of the mountain. When we consider that his wows were made only to lure her, then the affectionate romance of the siblings seems quite pure. All the tension that we as readers have to struggle with, results out of the fact that "the moral norms exist outside the stage world, in the minds of the spectators who can never fully accept the lovers but certainly find no point of emotional reference in the society that produced them" (Champion 78). We contempt and at the same time sympathise with the lovers, knowing that they are the only possible match to one another, while everything and everyone seems to act against them. The boarder between the stage and real life blurs as the play balances between two extreme moral points of view. This play with the spectators is a deliberate attempt on placing one's own opinions and judgements on a swing of ambivalence. It is evident from the beginning of the play when Giovanni and Bonaventura present their stands on the matter, not to mention that both are inconsistent. The ambivalence of judgement persist throughout the entire play where we get acquainted with Putana's opinion or Vasques' wrongdoing in the name of loyalty. And we are faced with double, or perhaps even triple moral standards at the end when, after acceding to sympathy for the lovers, we witness one of them killing the other. This is at least confusing to the reader, who tried to work out the motives of conduct throughout the play. Sensabaugh deftly summarises this moral polarization in his John Ford Revisited essay: "What haunted Ford [...] was the discontinuity of human experience" and "no universal, divine order was reflected in nature or in civil custom and use" (215). In other words, whatever is imposed on an individual is never fit for him and will always produce a side effect, which - whether harmful to others or not - will be scorned, criticised and condemned. Sensabaugh's words abut Ford's work carry another very important meaning, i.e. that the "discontinuity of human experience" cannot and should not be confronted with the artificial rules made by the corrupted state and its members, or hypocritical clergy. It means that the way humans chose to act depends on their experience of the surrounding environment, and because that is not constant but unknown and continuously changing, any deeds resulting from its inconsistency cannot be judged according to a set of fixed rules.
In this abstruseness Giovanni is forced to create his own set of rules. He has a need to have a moral order, a system of values and, paradoxically, what is condemned and illegal becomes the only way (or so he sees it) to free himself and his passions from the oppression of society. Traditional religious conventions are no longer valid to him, he interprets them in a completely new and nonsensical way to suit his own purpose. And so his atheism becomes his new religion and source of muddled and twisted doctrines, an escape way from "religion-masked sorceries" (Ford, 5.3. 29). The same twisted reasoning applies to the love vows that Giovanni and Annabella swear to each other: "love me, or kill me" (1.2. 246, 249). Where love no longer exists, death becomes the only solution. This may be seen as a rather non-constructive approach. Yet, in a precarious world of constant plotting and revenge, death becomes the liberation which Giovanni could not achieve through any of the traditional ways of conduct. Nevertheless, he still longs for that traditionalism and his illegitimate marriage with Annabella is the prove of it. In fact, as we learn from Boehrer's essay Nice Philosophy, this marriage was legal: "Pope Alexander III wrote to the Bishop of Norwich that if a man and woman "received each other by mutual consent [...] albeit there was no ceremony" the marriage was nonetheless in place" (368). Giovanni thus not only tries to validate his desire in a legal way, but also fits them suitable for the world of law and religion that surrounds him.
Giovanni considers himself a rebellious advocate of a right cause. When we contrast this with a view that Bonaventura holds, namely of an imprudent heretic, it appears that any opinion about Giovanni is purely a matter of emphasis for both views represent double moral standards and both are ambivalent. Giovanni fights against the laws but at the same time he struggles to legalize his actions, to give them meaning not outside the moral order, but to accommodate them within it. Bonaventura on the other hand, condemns Giovanni's incest but at the same time advises him to go and see a prostitute instead: "Look around the world, And thou shalt see a thousand faces shine More glorious than this idol thou ador'st: Leave her, and take thy choice" (1.1. 59-63). Friar's hypocrisy is striking. He twists the rules - similarly to Giovanni - to fit them to support his own cause - i.e. to drive Giovanni away from the incest. On the other hand, Bonaventura offers him something in exchange, knowing perhaps that otherwise he will not succeed for Giovanni's desires are too wild and uncontrollable. This in turn, leads to a consideration of his motives - the Friar seems to know that the only way to prevent moral decay is to fight its own weapon. This total moral deterioration sheds a very unfavourable light on the whole Parma and its citizens. Giovanni's tactics are similarly dubious and ambivalent in intentions. His mention to Annabella of the church's blessing is obviously his own interpretation of the canonical laws to suit his own needs. He explains his love to Annabella as natural and therefore authorised. Nevertheless, this attempt to seek a higher power's consent reflects his longing for order. In the world of Parma there are not too many rules as might seem, but as a matter of fact it is too disorganised and chaotic to provide any one moral standard.
Boehrer in Nice Philosophy interestingly discusses how love replaced God for Giovanni. The holy law was absolute and taken for granted. It was assumed it reflects and considers all natural laws, including human needs. When this assumption turns out to be wrong, Giovanni alters the meaning of the scripture in order to deal with it. By defying the incest taboo he defies all laws imposed on humans in general, proving they do not match the actual course of life. Boehrer says: "this tactic results in the replacement of the Christian God, the scriptural prohibiter of incest, by [...] the rule of nature itself" (363). It is nature, or natural reason, that he loves his sister and despite the fact it alienates him from the rest of the world, Giovanni assumes this is the only and right way to act, for what is natural should be included in the law. His opposition to the rest of the society ultimately leads to death of all the immediate and more distant participants of this incestuous relationship. Though death and love may not seem to go very well together in creating a new moral order, this inconsistency is resolved very early in the play where death is depicted as the only solution for the lack of love: "to Giovanni's mind love and death are already blossom and fruit of the same tree" (363). Annabella indirectly aids her brother in this twisted logic of the substitution of values by deifying Giovanni in her speech, calling him a "celestial creature" of "blessed shape" (1.2. 131-32). Nature becomes the only undisrupted order that there is in Giovanni and Annabella's reach. Everything that happens naturally is right simply because it is a result of the power of nature. Therefore, he and Annabella become the deities of this very close to religion philosophy. Giovanni with his natural love is the only one to dictate the laws, and the one whose conduct shall not be condemned but praised: "Giovanni's new theology makes self-conscious claims to natural authority", with Annabella being his faithful reflection (364).
I would like to now focus more closely on Annabella: her part in the incest, her relation to Giovanni and her role in creating the new moral order. Annabella is caught between two role models: as a perfect woman she cannot escape the expectations the society holds regarding her fulfilling the men's idealised picture. It is a catch-22 situation where Giovanni sees her as a perfect lover, wife and sister. He expects her to carry the duties of each of them, and as a result, she can be none of them. Nor can she be a dutiful daughter to Florio because of her love choice. Annabella can not be Giovanni's lover because she is his sister, and she cannot be his sister because, in turn, she is his wife. She cannot really be his wife because the marriage cannot be practically legalised and so on the vicious circle continues. She is the embodiment of his fantasies and her inability to fulfil all the attached expectations ultimately leads to death as Giovanni decides she must die to remain faithful to his exaggerated ideals. All she can fully become is her brother's reflection, in which he can admire himself without the fear of invading his own identity. She serves as his mirror that reflects his - often only imaginary - virtues, she is a physical object to be looked at and admired. She is not even an object of her own. She presents no value to her brother unless she is a part of himself. And so through incest, Giovanni "attempts to achieve a union with himself by 'annihilating the otherness - the autonomy' of his sister" (Finke, 368). Whatever role does Annabella serve, it is always defined in relation to a male for as an individual and as a female her identity almost does not exist - she is the big unknown. Similarly, Putana is also a mystery in the play. Aside from being Annabella's governess, her past experiences and the knowledge she derives from them are a mystery. This strengthens the general female portrait of being the unknown, balancing on the border of being no one or having their identity defined in terms of their relationship to men. That Giovanni's desire is egoistic and that Annabella is there only to gratify his needs and megalomaniac desires, is reflected in how he relates to their mother. Annabella swears to "our mother", whereas Giovanni says "my mother" (1.2. 244, 249). Clearly, he doesn't recognise her sister's heritage as equal, even if it's only subconscious, it is evident in his speech.
Women are portrayed as incapable of influencing their destiny for one reason that they are often forced into silence. Annabella cannot reveal the name of her baby's father and she can only speak about her love through symbols i.e. when she is referring to the wedding ring she gave away. Putana is literally gagged on the stage. Annabella is a still nature, an object - unchangeable and therefore unable to influence the course of actions, with a possibility of bringing harm to a male identity. This portrayal of the women is to secure male fears of being dominated by female desire. Women must be beautiful and action-less, which clearly becomes evident when they are being murdered, and hence never again able of posing any threat to a man's ego. Giovanni thus eliminates threat to his masculinity in two ways. Firstly, admiring himself in Annabella's reflection, and secondly by preventing any possible changes by killing her. Finke says that Annabella "like a mirror, can only be a physical, and hence non-threatening, reflection" and that Giovanni "neutralizes any threat of change [...] by verbally scattering her body into signs, which seem changeless because they are lifeless" (368). Annabella's role in the incest is therefore a very dubious one. On one hand, she is only an object to be bought and played with by men. On the other hand, the very fact Giovanni secures himself from the possible harm she and her passions might have, proves that Annabella is not only a poor unaware girl who is manipulated into a sinful relationship, but a fully conscious of her actions and their results grown-up woman. This ambivalence, and the difficulty in judgement it poses, is central to the play and requires the reader to re-examine their beliefs and standards by both condemning her and sympathising with her. And again, the final opinion - just like in the case of Giovanni - is a matter of emphasis because Annabella can only be "the silent image of what others - onstage and in the audience - paint her to be: angel and whore. goddess and monster" (367).
Because Annabella is depicted as a recipient of Giovanni's love rather than his partner on an equal conditions, we can see that women are denied their own desire. While the Friar advises Giovanni to see a prostitute, any outlet for female desires is not in question. Hippolita, whose experience is known to the prospective lovers, is considered dangerous and therefore scorned and rebuked by her very lover: "Learn to repent and die; for by my honour I hate thee and thy lust; you have been too foul" (TP 2.2, 98-99). Putana is punished for her carnal knowledge and for passing it on Annabella. Cardinal's final words, which are also the title of the play, reflect the patriarchal attitudes of the church and society. Since the phrase opens and ends the play it serves as lock, impossible to brake through no mater how many taboos will be broken and no matter how many lives it will cost. The backwardness and stubbornness of Parmian society, cannot be sorted out without women being free to act against it. This role is denied to them, which in turn leads to even greater hypocrisy and corruption. Mintz argues that "patriarchal law authorizes the very behaviour it is deployed to forestall" and that "women, as autonomous and desiring beings, are the potential agents of social change" (275). To Annabella, incest creates an opportunity for a relationship in which she is equal to her lover. Firstly, because he is her brother and secondly because they both share the same secret. From this position Annabella does not have to pretend sexual prudence, but can free her desires. Such freedom in self-expression would not be possible in a conventional marriage, where she would only be a possession of her master. In this way, Annabella creates her own new social and moral order, exposing the ubiquitous hypocrisy. If the role she plays was not thwarted by male's fears and desires, her significance to reconstituting general morality would have had much greater impact on the entire society.
Annabella's desire, "an erotic desire that is also always a desire for equality" can only find its way in what is unfit for the general customs (Mintz, 280). Her part in the incest is a denial to a female oppression. She can break the taboo of woman's sexuality and express her feelings. She does not have to ask for permission, she is free do act as she wills. Once the taboo is broken and the secret of her adventures revealed, there's nothing else to be feared of and Annabella is openly mocking her new husband with apparent impunity. She is finally equal to a man, her master. She is in the power of abusing him through humiliation. And despite the fact that she is finally punished, at the moment of acting she has no fear. In my opinion, this is the moment, though a very brief one, when gender equality is most evident. For partnership can not be placed in the patriarchal world of female submission, verbal revenge is the last resort to fight with it. Incest is a way out of the entrapment and a means of defining one's own identity. By rejecting the existing norms one can reach a state that provides him with a substitute of all the things that those norms deny. Hence incest, as Mintz says, "symbolizes a desire for sameness, for a parity of friendship and love unattainable in culturally sanctioned forms of exchange that circumscribe the family in order to consolidate its identity" (281). Annabella finally succumbs to the patriarchal rule, but that is only to demonstrate that the world of Parma is over-regulated, rather than lacking order. As opposed to a world in which female desires can materialize, in this over-structured social model "fatherly law [...] is the cause, not the cure, of incest" (290).
The audience sympathizes with the incestuous couple, rather than discredits it right away. The way incest is contrasted with other relationships exposes the vices of society and reveals deep and true feelings that the couple have for each other. There is not any other relationship in the play where love exists. And despite that incest is wrong and forbidden, the characters obscure this fact by the way they express their feelings. Giovanni and Annabella's talks are full of warmth and tenderness. Their words are chosen with such a precision that the argumentation is almost impossible to discard: "The more I strive, I love; the more I love, The less I hope: I see my ruin, certain" (TP 1.2, 135-6). There is nothing I can think of to refute Giovanni's statements. We pity him because his love is too strong to get over and too dangerous to pursue.
Incest is a place for exploration of how far the social norms can be bent. After getting familiar with Parmian society and all their wrongdoing there seems not much left in the array of mischief and debauchery. Incest in this case is not ill motivated. Instead, it is incited by passion and true love, by desire to express one's feelings in a partnership of equality and respect. For the lovers it is a way to learn to love, to explore their ideas about faith and finally, to create a new own moral order on the border of what is allowed and what is natural. The violated taboo reveals to the siblings what is denied in the world of imposed rules and social norms. It serves as a kind of catharsis - because in the incest the external world does not matter. Unlike in a conventional marriage, where traditional customs are preserved, in incest there's hardly anywhere further to go. Hence one can feel really free. No matter what happens outside their world and their relationship, the characters can always remain themselves. If the society is ignorant to the crimes happening in their vicinity, there is indeed nothing to consider before committing a crime such as incest. The church officials surely are not the ones to look up to, with the Cardinal being probably the most mendacious character in the play and the Friar who would rather not know what is happening: "No more! I may not hear it" (TP 1.1, 12). In the world of ignorance, incest results from the struggle to find truth and Annabella and Giovanni seem to be the only suitable partners for each other although their relationship burdens the society which created it. It is possible to say that incest plays a didactic role, to warn against demons inside society and inside an individual, and what happens when those demons are let out in the over-presence of artificial laws. 'Tis Pity is a play about "various threats to civilised society both within themselves and within their culture" (Mintz, 271).
I have been trying to show how through an incestuous relationship Ford's main characters create their own world with its own morals and laws. It was not an attempt to justify incest, which is wrong. Both characters fully realise this fact, yet they struggle within their moral constructs to overcome it, in order to find freedom. Readers also struggle to sympathise with the characters, balancing on their own moral borders. It is then quite obvious that Ford tried to expose something more than just ubiquitous moral decay. The play shows how too much structure and rules, as well as female oppression can lead to disorder and hypocrisy rather than be the means to prevent them. The final result of this disorder is murder, of which incest was the immediate cause. And so the mindless machine rolls on, back to the roots of the incest - which is the oppressing and disordered society that hinders one's personal and emotional fulfilment. The incest therefore is not merely a debased carnal whim in Ford's play, but serves to expose that the whole "civilised society is not civilised enough" (Mintz, 290).
Works Cited:
Boehrer, Bruce. "Nice Philosophy: 'Tis Pity She's a Whore and the Two Books of God." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 24, No. 2, Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama. Spring, 1984: 355-371.
Bulman, James. "Caroline Drama." English Renaissance Drama. Ed. Braunmuller, A. R; Hattaway, Michael. 2003: 344-7.
Champion, Larry S. "Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore and the Jacobean Tragic Perspective." PMLA, Vol. 90, No. 1. Jan., 1975: 78-87.
Finke, Laurie A. "Painting Women: Images of Femininity in Jacobean Tragedy." Theatre Journal, Vol. 36, No. 3, Renaissance Re-Visions. Oct., 1984: 357-370.
Ford, John. 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. New York: Oxford UP, 1995.
Mintz, Susannah B. "The Power of "Parity" in Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore." Journal of English and Germanic Philology, vol. 102, no. 2. Apr 2003: 269-91.
Sensabaugh, George F. "John Ford Revisited." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 4, No. 2, Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama. Spring, 1964: 195-216
Because incest is set in a world where everyone creates their own rules as to what is right or wrong, Ford does not provide one moral standard, nor does he offer one solution to the dilemma of passion versus custom. While incestuous relationship is definitely wrong according to the standards set by the society (both now and then), we are made to judge Annabella and Giovanni's love on the background of other 'righteous' relationships, which nevertheless prove to be depraved and bring more harm than good. Hippolita and Richardettos's marriage falls apart when Hippolita, seduced by Soranzo, plots on killing her husband. Even Annabella and Soranzo's legal relationship ends in death. Apart from all the evil happening within legal bonds, there is a whole array of mischief being done outside of them - Soranzo's wooing of Hippolita being only the peak of the mountain. When we consider that his wows were made only to lure her, then the affectionate romance of the siblings seems quite pure. All the tension that we as readers have to struggle with, results out of the fact that "the moral norms exist outside the stage world, in the minds of the spectators who can never fully accept the lovers but certainly find no point of emotional reference in the society that produced them" (Champion 78). We contempt and at the same time sympathise with the lovers, knowing that they are the only possible match to one another, while everything and everyone seems to act against them. The boarder between the stage and real life blurs as the play balances between two extreme moral points of view. This play with the spectators is a deliberate attempt on placing one's own opinions and judgements on a swing of ambivalence. It is evident from the beginning of the play when Giovanni and Bonaventura present their stands on the matter, not to mention that both are inconsistent. The ambivalence of judgement persist throughout the entire play where we get acquainted with Putana's opinion or Vasques' wrongdoing in the name of loyalty. And we are faced with double, or perhaps even triple moral standards at the end when, after acceding to sympathy for the lovers, we witness one of them killing the other. This is at least confusing to the reader, who tried to work out the motives of conduct throughout the play. Sensabaugh deftly summarises this moral polarization in his John Ford Revisited essay: "What haunted Ford [...] was the discontinuity of human experience" and "no universal, divine order was reflected in nature or in civil custom and use" (215). In other words, whatever is imposed on an individual is never fit for him and will always produce a side effect, which - whether harmful to others or not - will be scorned, criticised and condemned. Sensabaugh's words abut Ford's work carry another very important meaning, i.e. that the "discontinuity of human experience" cannot and should not be confronted with the artificial rules made by the corrupted state and its members, or hypocritical clergy. It means that the way humans chose to act depends on their experience of the surrounding environment, and because that is not constant but unknown and continuously changing, any deeds resulting from its inconsistency cannot be judged according to a set of fixed rules.
In this abstruseness Giovanni is forced to create his own set of rules. He has a need to have a moral order, a system of values and, paradoxically, what is condemned and illegal becomes the only way (or so he sees it) to free himself and his passions from the oppression of society. Traditional religious conventions are no longer valid to him, he interprets them in a completely new and nonsensical way to suit his own purpose. And so his atheism becomes his new religion and source of muddled and twisted doctrines, an escape way from "religion-masked sorceries" (Ford, 5.3. 29). The same twisted reasoning applies to the love vows that Giovanni and Annabella swear to each other: "love me, or kill me" (1.2. 246, 249). Where love no longer exists, death becomes the only solution. This may be seen as a rather non-constructive approach. Yet, in a precarious world of constant plotting and revenge, death becomes the liberation which Giovanni could not achieve through any of the traditional ways of conduct. Nevertheless, he still longs for that traditionalism and his illegitimate marriage with Annabella is the prove of it. In fact, as we learn from Boehrer's essay Nice Philosophy, this marriage was legal: "Pope Alexander III wrote to the Bishop of Norwich that if a man and woman "received each other by mutual consent [...] albeit there was no ceremony" the marriage was nonetheless in place" (368). Giovanni thus not only tries to validate his desire in a legal way, but also fits them suitable for the world of law and religion that surrounds him.
Giovanni considers himself a rebellious advocate of a right cause. When we contrast this with a view that Bonaventura holds, namely of an imprudent heretic, it appears that any opinion about Giovanni is purely a matter of emphasis for both views represent double moral standards and both are ambivalent. Giovanni fights against the laws but at the same time he struggles to legalize his actions, to give them meaning not outside the moral order, but to accommodate them within it. Bonaventura on the other hand, condemns Giovanni's incest but at the same time advises him to go and see a prostitute instead: "Look around the world, And thou shalt see a thousand faces shine More glorious than this idol thou ador'st: Leave her, and take thy choice" (1.1. 59-63). Friar's hypocrisy is striking. He twists the rules - similarly to Giovanni - to fit them to support his own cause - i.e. to drive Giovanni away from the incest. On the other hand, Bonaventura offers him something in exchange, knowing perhaps that otherwise he will not succeed for Giovanni's desires are too wild and uncontrollable. This in turn, leads to a consideration of his motives - the Friar seems to know that the only way to prevent moral decay is to fight its own weapon. This total moral deterioration sheds a very unfavourable light on the whole Parma and its citizens. Giovanni's tactics are similarly dubious and ambivalent in intentions. His mention to Annabella of the church's blessing is obviously his own interpretation of the canonical laws to suit his own needs. He explains his love to Annabella as natural and therefore authorised. Nevertheless, this attempt to seek a higher power's consent reflects his longing for order. In the world of Parma there are not too many rules as might seem, but as a matter of fact it is too disorganised and chaotic to provide any one moral standard.
Boehrer in Nice Philosophy interestingly discusses how love replaced God for Giovanni. The holy law was absolute and taken for granted. It was assumed it reflects and considers all natural laws, including human needs. When this assumption turns out to be wrong, Giovanni alters the meaning of the scripture in order to deal with it. By defying the incest taboo he defies all laws imposed on humans in general, proving they do not match the actual course of life. Boehrer says: "this tactic results in the replacement of the Christian God, the scriptural prohibiter of incest, by [...] the rule of nature itself" (363). It is nature, or natural reason, that he loves his sister and despite the fact it alienates him from the rest of the world, Giovanni assumes this is the only and right way to act, for what is natural should be included in the law. His opposition to the rest of the society ultimately leads to death of all the immediate and more distant participants of this incestuous relationship. Though death and love may not seem to go very well together in creating a new moral order, this inconsistency is resolved very early in the play where death is depicted as the only solution for the lack of love: "to Giovanni's mind love and death are already blossom and fruit of the same tree" (363). Annabella indirectly aids her brother in this twisted logic of the substitution of values by deifying Giovanni in her speech, calling him a "celestial creature" of "blessed shape" (1.2. 131-32). Nature becomes the only undisrupted order that there is in Giovanni and Annabella's reach. Everything that happens naturally is right simply because it is a result of the power of nature. Therefore, he and Annabella become the deities of this very close to religion philosophy. Giovanni with his natural love is the only one to dictate the laws, and the one whose conduct shall not be condemned but praised: "Giovanni's new theology makes self-conscious claims to natural authority", with Annabella being his faithful reflection (364).
I would like to now focus more closely on Annabella: her part in the incest, her relation to Giovanni and her role in creating the new moral order. Annabella is caught between two role models: as a perfect woman she cannot escape the expectations the society holds regarding her fulfilling the men's idealised picture. It is a catch-22 situation where Giovanni sees her as a perfect lover, wife and sister. He expects her to carry the duties of each of them, and as a result, she can be none of them. Nor can she be a dutiful daughter to Florio because of her love choice. Annabella can not be Giovanni's lover because she is his sister, and she cannot be his sister because, in turn, she is his wife. She cannot really be his wife because the marriage cannot be practically legalised and so on the vicious circle continues. She is the embodiment of his fantasies and her inability to fulfil all the attached expectations ultimately leads to death as Giovanni decides she must die to remain faithful to his exaggerated ideals. All she can fully become is her brother's reflection, in which he can admire himself without the fear of invading his own identity. She serves as his mirror that reflects his - often only imaginary - virtues, she is a physical object to be looked at and admired. She is not even an object of her own. She presents no value to her brother unless she is a part of himself. And so through incest, Giovanni "attempts to achieve a union with himself by 'annihilating the otherness - the autonomy' of his sister" (Finke, 368). Whatever role does Annabella serve, it is always defined in relation to a male for as an individual and as a female her identity almost does not exist - she is the big unknown. Similarly, Putana is also a mystery in the play. Aside from being Annabella's governess, her past experiences and the knowledge she derives from them are a mystery. This strengthens the general female portrait of being the unknown, balancing on the border of being no one or having their identity defined in terms of their relationship to men. That Giovanni's desire is egoistic and that Annabella is there only to gratify his needs and megalomaniac desires, is reflected in how he relates to their mother. Annabella swears to "our mother", whereas Giovanni says "my mother" (1.2. 244, 249). Clearly, he doesn't recognise her sister's heritage as equal, even if it's only subconscious, it is evident in his speech.
Women are portrayed as incapable of influencing their destiny for one reason that they are often forced into silence. Annabella cannot reveal the name of her baby's father and she can only speak about her love through symbols i.e. when she is referring to the wedding ring she gave away. Putana is literally gagged on the stage. Annabella is a still nature, an object - unchangeable and therefore unable to influence the course of actions, with a possibility of bringing harm to a male identity. This portrayal of the women is to secure male fears of being dominated by female desire. Women must be beautiful and action-less, which clearly becomes evident when they are being murdered, and hence never again able of posing any threat to a man's ego. Giovanni thus eliminates threat to his masculinity in two ways. Firstly, admiring himself in Annabella's reflection, and secondly by preventing any possible changes by killing her. Finke says that Annabella "like a mirror, can only be a physical, and hence non-threatening, reflection" and that Giovanni "neutralizes any threat of change [...] by verbally scattering her body into signs, which seem changeless because they are lifeless" (368). Annabella's role in the incest is therefore a very dubious one. On one hand, she is only an object to be bought and played with by men. On the other hand, the very fact Giovanni secures himself from the possible harm she and her passions might have, proves that Annabella is not only a poor unaware girl who is manipulated into a sinful relationship, but a fully conscious of her actions and their results grown-up woman. This ambivalence, and the difficulty in judgement it poses, is central to the play and requires the reader to re-examine their beliefs and standards by both condemning her and sympathising with her. And again, the final opinion - just like in the case of Giovanni - is a matter of emphasis because Annabella can only be "the silent image of what others - onstage and in the audience - paint her to be: angel and whore. goddess and monster" (367).
Because Annabella is depicted as a recipient of Giovanni's love rather than his partner on an equal conditions, we can see that women are denied their own desire. While the Friar advises Giovanni to see a prostitute, any outlet for female desires is not in question. Hippolita, whose experience is known to the prospective lovers, is considered dangerous and therefore scorned and rebuked by her very lover: "Learn to repent and die; for by my honour I hate thee and thy lust; you have been too foul" (TP 2.2, 98-99). Putana is punished for her carnal knowledge and for passing it on Annabella. Cardinal's final words, which are also the title of the play, reflect the patriarchal attitudes of the church and society. Since the phrase opens and ends the play it serves as lock, impossible to brake through no mater how many taboos will be broken and no matter how many lives it will cost. The backwardness and stubbornness of Parmian society, cannot be sorted out without women being free to act against it. This role is denied to them, which in turn leads to even greater hypocrisy and corruption. Mintz argues that "patriarchal law authorizes the very behaviour it is deployed to forestall" and that "women, as autonomous and desiring beings, are the potential agents of social change" (275). To Annabella, incest creates an opportunity for a relationship in which she is equal to her lover. Firstly, because he is her brother and secondly because they both share the same secret. From this position Annabella does not have to pretend sexual prudence, but can free her desires. Such freedom in self-expression would not be possible in a conventional marriage, where she would only be a possession of her master. In this way, Annabella creates her own new social and moral order, exposing the ubiquitous hypocrisy. If the role she plays was not thwarted by male's fears and desires, her significance to reconstituting general morality would have had much greater impact on the entire society.
Annabella's desire, "an erotic desire that is also always a desire for equality" can only find its way in what is unfit for the general customs (Mintz, 280). Her part in the incest is a denial to a female oppression. She can break the taboo of woman's sexuality and express her feelings. She does not have to ask for permission, she is free do act as she wills. Once the taboo is broken and the secret of her adventures revealed, there's nothing else to be feared of and Annabella is openly mocking her new husband with apparent impunity. She is finally equal to a man, her master. She is in the power of abusing him through humiliation. And despite the fact that she is finally punished, at the moment of acting she has no fear. In my opinion, this is the moment, though a very brief one, when gender equality is most evident. For partnership can not be placed in the patriarchal world of female submission, verbal revenge is the last resort to fight with it. Incest is a way out of the entrapment and a means of defining one's own identity. By rejecting the existing norms one can reach a state that provides him with a substitute of all the things that those norms deny. Hence incest, as Mintz says, "symbolizes a desire for sameness, for a parity of friendship and love unattainable in culturally sanctioned forms of exchange that circumscribe the family in order to consolidate its identity" (281). Annabella finally succumbs to the patriarchal rule, but that is only to demonstrate that the world of Parma is over-regulated, rather than lacking order. As opposed to a world in which female desires can materialize, in this over-structured social model "fatherly law [...] is the cause, not the cure, of incest" (290).
The audience sympathizes with the incestuous couple, rather than discredits it right away. The way incest is contrasted with other relationships exposes the vices of society and reveals deep and true feelings that the couple have for each other. There is not any other relationship in the play where love exists. And despite that incest is wrong and forbidden, the characters obscure this fact by the way they express their feelings. Giovanni and Annabella's talks are full of warmth and tenderness. Their words are chosen with such a precision that the argumentation is almost impossible to discard: "The more I strive, I love; the more I love, The less I hope: I see my ruin, certain" (TP 1.2, 135-6). There is nothing I can think of to refute Giovanni's statements. We pity him because his love is too strong to get over and too dangerous to pursue.
Incest is a place for exploration of how far the social norms can be bent. After getting familiar with Parmian society and all their wrongdoing there seems not much left in the array of mischief and debauchery. Incest in this case is not ill motivated. Instead, it is incited by passion and true love, by desire to express one's feelings in a partnership of equality and respect. For the lovers it is a way to learn to love, to explore their ideas about faith and finally, to create a new own moral order on the border of what is allowed and what is natural. The violated taboo reveals to the siblings what is denied in the world of imposed rules and social norms. It serves as a kind of catharsis - because in the incest the external world does not matter. Unlike in a conventional marriage, where traditional customs are preserved, in incest there's hardly anywhere further to go. Hence one can feel really free. No matter what happens outside their world and their relationship, the characters can always remain themselves. If the society is ignorant to the crimes happening in their vicinity, there is indeed nothing to consider before committing a crime such as incest. The church officials surely are not the ones to look up to, with the Cardinal being probably the most mendacious character in the play and the Friar who would rather not know what is happening: "No more! I may not hear it" (TP 1.1, 12). In the world of ignorance, incest results from the struggle to find truth and Annabella and Giovanni seem to be the only suitable partners for each other although their relationship burdens the society which created it. It is possible to say that incest plays a didactic role, to warn against demons inside society and inside an individual, and what happens when those demons are let out in the over-presence of artificial laws. 'Tis Pity is a play about "various threats to civilised society both within themselves and within their culture" (Mintz, 271).
I have been trying to show how through an incestuous relationship Ford's main characters create their own world with its own morals and laws. It was not an attempt to justify incest, which is wrong. Both characters fully realise this fact, yet they struggle within their moral constructs to overcome it, in order to find freedom. Readers also struggle to sympathise with the characters, balancing on their own moral borders. It is then quite obvious that Ford tried to expose something more than just ubiquitous moral decay. The play shows how too much structure and rules, as well as female oppression can lead to disorder and hypocrisy rather than be the means to prevent them. The final result of this disorder is murder, of which incest was the immediate cause. And so the mindless machine rolls on, back to the roots of the incest - which is the oppressing and disordered society that hinders one's personal and emotional fulfilment. The incest therefore is not merely a debased carnal whim in Ford's play, but serves to expose that the whole "civilised society is not civilised enough" (Mintz, 290).
Works Cited:
Boehrer, Bruce. "Nice Philosophy: 'Tis Pity She's a Whore and the Two Books of God." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 24, No. 2, Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama. Spring, 1984: 355-371.
Bulman, James. "Caroline Drama." English Renaissance Drama. Ed. Braunmuller, A. R; Hattaway, Michael. 2003: 344-7.
Champion, Larry S. "Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore and the Jacobean Tragic Perspective." PMLA, Vol. 90, No. 1. Jan., 1975: 78-87.
Finke, Laurie A. "Painting Women: Images of Femininity in Jacobean Tragedy." Theatre Journal, Vol. 36, No. 3, Renaissance Re-Visions. Oct., 1984: 357-370.
Ford, John. 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. New York: Oxford UP, 1995.
Mintz, Susannah B. "The Power of "Parity" in Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore." Journal of English and Germanic Philology, vol. 102, no. 2. Apr 2003: 269-91.
Sensabaugh, George F. "John Ford Revisited." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 4, No. 2, Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama. Spring, 1964: 195-216