The Duchess of Malfi: Metaphors 7 key examples

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.

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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.

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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?

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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

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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

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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?

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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!

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