Women Beware Women and a Triumph of the Drama(tist)(Kansai English Studies)

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  • Women Beware Women and a Triumph of the Drama(tist)

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Thomas Middleton's Women Beware Women has often been discussed in terms of the inset masque in the last act. Yet what critics have tended to ignore is the relevance of the divine morality expressed in the masque to the fact that the characters punished in the masque are metaphorical and literal "actors." Also ignored has been the point that the masque and the retribution in it possibly reflect the occupational circumstances under which the dramatist wrote the play. This paper combines the play's morality as represented by the final masque with the histrionic attributes of characters to assert the role of self-advocacy on the part of the theater and the dramatist. In Women Beware Women, theatricality such as role-playing is often linked with viciousness, immorality or malevolence. This figurative abuse of theatricality substantiates itself in the masque where characters actually kill each other. The dissenting voice of the Duke when he notices the discrepancy of the plot of the masque and the actual proceedings can also be interpreted as a protest against players who ignore the original play scripted by the dramatists. In addition, when vicious characters are justly punished in the form of the miniature theater of an inset play, the theater itself by analogy als assumes a moralistic character. The exploited theatricality of Women Beware Women in this way attains the theatrical integrity of justice and judgment. Women Beware Women, although in a grotesque picture of a corrupted society, shrewdly stages a triumph of the drama(tist).

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