In Act 1, Scene 3, the Duchess confesses her love to Antonio using a metaphor that helps humanize her. She and Antonio have been dancing around their feelings, but the Duchess understands that her higher class and the power she has over Antonio might prevent him from reciprocating his feelings. One of her goals with her confession is therefore to communicate her humanity: she wants him to feel that he’s able to love her without being intimidated by her former husband and the power she holds as a member of an aristocratic family. In order to best communicate this, she uses a metaphor to describe how she is feeling:
Make not your heart so dead a piece of flesh
To fear more than to love me. Sir, be confident.
What is’t distracts you? This is flesh and blood, sir
'Tis not the figure, cut in alabaster
Kneels at my husband’s tomb.
In this passage, the Duchess compares herself to a statue made out of alabaster and situated at the foot of her dead husband's tomb. Unlike the statue, she is alive. She can move from her husband’s grave, and she actively wants pleasure and love. Her assertion of her fallibility as a human helps Antonio see her as an equal. She therefore uses this metaphor to convince Antonio that he can pursue her without fearing her status. If she can remind him that she’s a human, then they can come together as equals and potential lovers, casting aside the Duchess’s reputation and status.
In Act 1, Scene 1, the Cardinal and Ferdinand corner the Duchess and attempt to pressure her to never marry again. In his speech, the Cardinal uses descriptive a metaphor to make marriage seem unappealing, destructive, or frightening. His metaphor characterizes the experience of marriage in a negative light, as he attempts to manipulate the Duchess into staying single. His insistence that she remain a widowed virgin drives the play’s plot, and it is therefore introduced as his motivation within the play’s first scene. To that end, he metaphorically compares marriage to painful, torturous experiences, saying:
The marriage night
Is the entrance into some prison.
Using this metaphor, the Cardinal manages to make marriage unappealing; he compares the act of sex between married people to prison. The metaphor helps him imply that the Duchess will be trapped if she surrenders herself sexually, even to her husband. Like an imprisoned person, she would be bound to her vow and forced to stay in a union even after attempting escape. However, the Cardinal’s metaphor also reveals important tenets of his philosophy regarding sex and marriage. His attempts to prevent the Duchess from having sex are informed by his fear of her being tainted by her exposure to others. Therefore, his use of metaphor betrays his own attitude about sex as much as it condemns hers.
In Act 3, Scene 2, Bosola discovers the Duchess’s secret relationship with Antonio and uses a metaphor to express his surprise. Because the Duchess has been forbidden to remarry or have children, Bosola’s discovery will put her in danger. However, Bosola’s reaction is one of surprise, and not for the reason the audience might anticipate. When the Duchess reveals that she married Antonio, Bosola comments on the Duchess’s decision to start a family with someone who wasn’t as wealthy as she is. The audience understands that Bosola’s surprise is marked by his own lower-class upbringing. The Duchess has defied his expectations, and it follows that his reaction would be marked by this surprise. He says:
Do I not dream? Can this ambitious age
Have so much goodness in’t as to prefer
A man merely for worth, without these shadows
Of wealth and painted honors? Possible?
Bosola’s metaphor equates the virtues of wealth and honor with shadows. He admires the Duchess for seeing them for what they are, and for deciding to end up with Antonio for reasons that are more substantive. By making honor and wealth lack depth and substance, Bosola is able to convey his approval of the Duchess’s decision without stating it directly. The expression of his wonderment is deepened by his use of metaphor. The audience can contextualize his behavior because they understand what motivates him. His lower-class upbringing is influencing his judgment of the Duchess in this scene, and he is overtaken by his surprise. He subtly commends her for her ability to perceive the meaninglessness of whether someone was born wealthy.
In Act 3, Scene 5, the Duchess and Antonio say a tearful goodbye. They are being separated because Ferdinand wants Antonio dead. As she says farewell to her husband, the Duchess uses a dark metaphor to communicate how little she’d like to be parted. Her spirits have been broken by the torment that her brothers have subjected her to. Therefore, her relationship with Antonio has lost its initial jubilation. She feels overcome by the darkness of their fate. Her concern over her husband’s life and fate has taken the passion from her relationship. Instead, she feels only sorrow. She says:
Your kiss is colder
Than I have seen a holy anchorite
Give to a dead man’s skull
The Duchess tells her husband that he has given her a "cold" kiss like one a religious recluse would give a dead person. She feels that the impending violence has made it so that she and Antonio are already dead. There is no passion in their relationship, only fear of their looming death. Therefore, she invokes a religious deathly kiss to lament the loss of passion in their relationship. This image also begins to foreshadow the darkness of the rest of the play. Both the Duchess and Antonio’s lives will be taken in the next two acts, so this kiss of death is not only a reflection of their fear but a preview of their dark fate. The sadness of the Duchess’s metaphor is therefore indicative of the play’s thematic turn toward the violent and morbid.
In Act 4, Scene 1, the Duchess is imprisoned and her spirits are low. In a distraught conversation with Bosola, she uses a metaphor to vent her frustration at her situation. She has been subjected to imprisonment and deception, and her brothers are hunting her husband. She lives in constant fear and has lost all agency over her life. The force of the Duchess’s anger and humiliation can be felt in the way that she communicates during the last few scenes of her life. Her metaphor in this scene is a way to describe her lack of control and the resulting despair. She says:
Who must dispatch me?
I account this world a tedious theater,
For I do play a part in’t 'gainst my will
In her metaphor, the Duchess compares the world to a play. She is a player, or an actor, who hasn’t been given the choice of role or character. This metaphor combines a sense of the artificiality of the Duchess’s painful reality with her sense of being trapped. Like an actor, she is forced to carry out a script, follow the plot designated to her, but she is an unwilling player. The Duchess uses this metaphor to express how powerless and helpless she feels. Others have dictated the role that she must carry out, even though she has had no say in the matter. The Duchess’s despair is so palpable in these scenes that Bosola eventually refuses to remain her brothers’ accomplice. His conscience is partially activated by the Duchess’s ability to express the pain that she’s feeling. She does so most effectively when she uses figurative language to describe her frustration.
In Act 5, Scene 2, the Cardinal confesses the recent murder of his sister to his lover, Julia. He uses a metaphor to bind her to secrecy, tempering her emotional response. His violent and corrupt behavior is an important part of his character at this point in the play, and he is sharing details of his misdeeds with his lover out of an impulse to shock her. His tumultuous relationship with Julia is reflective of the chaos in other areas in his life. However, the truth of his behavior can’t be shared, and he compels her to stay silent about what he’s done. He says:
How now! How settles this?
Think you your bosom
Will be a grave dark and obscure enough
For such a secret?
The Cardinal uses a metaphor that compares his lover’s bosom to a grave. He wonders whether she is able to keep his secret by asking whether her bosom is deep and dark enough to hold it. He compares Julia’s body to a burial ground, thereby making it seem as though she is a repository for his bad deeds. He comes to Julia to escape his actions, and the way that he characterizes her as a grave clarifies the nature of their relationship. The metaphor that he uses for Julia’s bosom also characterizes his misogyny and how it forms his view of women’s bodies. It makes it clear that Julia’s service to him is through her ability to keep his secrets, though the violent nature of his most recent misdeeds will cause new tension in their relationship.
In Act 5, Scene 5, during the play’s final bloodbath, Bosola is accidentally stabbed, at which point he gives his dying speech about the nature of the world. Bosola’s final sentences are rife with metaphors that communicate the depth of violence in his life and his resulting pessimism. The play’s mood has grown increasingly morbid and sad, as most of the characters have been killed. Bosola’s ultimate dramatic speech gives the audience a chance to reflect on the scores of death they’ve just witnessed. He uses a metaphor about darkness to call the audience’s attention to the nature of his world, saying:
Oh, this gloomy world!
In what a shadow, or deep pit of darkness,
Doth womanish and fearful mankind live!
Bosola’s final metaphor characterizes the world as a "pit of darkness." He uses imagery of darkness and shadows to bring meaning to the violent undoing of his world. Bosola believes that people are impacted by having to live in a "deep pit of darkness"—imagery that is reminiscent of hell itself. By giving this audience a metaphor to reckon with the pain and suffering of his life, Bosola facilitates their reflection. His pessimism is reflected in the content of the metaphor itself, and when he dies, the audience comes to understand how his proximity to violence and corruption destroyed his belief in humanity. The intensity of this revelation is contained within the darkness of Bosola’s final words, and the audience interprets them with the significance of Bosola’s death, which follows this speech.
