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Simile
Explanation and Analysis—Chained Bullets:
In Act 4, Scene 2, after the Duchess has been killed, Bosola and Ferdinand are left facing off. Bosola realizes that he is in danger, and uses a simile to characterize Ferdinand and his brother and how dangerous their behavior is.
Bosola intends to drive Ferdinand away and save himself from the same grisly death he has just witnessed—as both the Duchess and her maid Cariola have just been strangled. He asks Ferdinand for his compensation, and when Ferdinand responds negatively, he says:
Your brother and yourself are worthy men;
You have a pair of hearts are hollow graves,
Rotten and rotting others; and your vengeance,
Like two chained bullets, still goes arm in arm.
Bosola’s simile is about the extent of the brothers’ power: Ferdinand and his brother the Cardinal wield immense influence in the world of the court, and Bosola is just one man chained to service in the hopes of material advancement. Now that he has seen the brothers commit serious atrocities, Bosola is ready to make his judgment, and it is a severe one. First, he uses a metaphor to call Ferdinand’s heart a rotten grave, implying that his heart is dead and that he cannot feel. Then, his simile expands the image and gives it greater gravity. He describes how the vengeance of the two brothers is felt twofold by its victims. He compares them to two cannonballs tied together, implying that they are doubly powerful because they act together. Bosola intends to berate Ferdinand and escape from feeling the lash of his vengeance, but the way he describes the brothers in this scene is scathing, and it thus follows that Ferdinand would wish, as he does in this scene, that he never had to lay eyes on Bosola again.
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