Tag Archives: bosola

During my reading of The Duchess of Malfi, the character of Bosola at times kept reminding me of Mephistopheles from Doctor Faustus. To me they seem to be an extension of the same archetype, not to say they are particularly similar but rather they seem to be part of the same string extending in different directions.

Mephistopheles is the fallen angel who makes the bargain with the Faustus to serve him for 24 years in return for Faustus’s soul. Throughout the play Mephistopheles keeps urging and helping Faustus to damn himself and waste his time, but at the same time he shows striking signs of trying to make Faustus believe in G-d and heaven, as well as showing signs of regret for his fall and banishment from heaven. Mephistopheles says, “I am a servant to great Lucifer/And may not follow thee without his leave. No more than he commands must we perform” (1.3.41-3) and then he follows it up with, “Why this is hell, nor am I am out of it. Think’st thou that I, who saw the face of God/ And tasted the eternal joys of heave, / Am not tormented with ten thousand hells/ In being deprived of the ever lasting bliss?”(1.3.78-82).  He  later repeats his knowledge of hell and thus heaven by saying, “For I am damned and am now in hell” (2.1.138). The quotes show that not only is Mephistopheles bound and subservient to Lucifer (and Faustus, but that’s besides the point) but he shows self-awareness of what he is and what he has lost.

We meet Mephistopheles already damned, and in the middle there are small instances of him trying to (futilely) dissuade Faustus from condemning his soul, thus doing a good deed. However, when that fails, Mephistopheles reverts to his prime directive as a servant of Lucifer, which is pushing Faustus into abandoning G-d and thus gaining Faustus’s soul.

It seems to somewhat mirror Bosola’s path. Just like Mephistopheles made a bad decision that damned him in following Lucifer to turn against G-d and heaven, so has Bosola made a bad decision in killing for the Cardinal (the first time).  We meet Bosola when he is already damned, having effectively sold his soul to the devil (the Cardinal), because as seen as the play unfolds, once fallen into the Cardinal’s clutches there is no escaping.  It is that first deed that leads Bosola to further irretrievably damn himself, as he falls into the life of spying on the Duchess. Bosola makes the comparison to Mephistopheles himself when he says to Ferdinand on his new job, “Why a very quaint invisible devil, in flesh:/An intelligencer” (1.1.261-2).  Just as Bosola is Ferdinand’s and Cardinal’s “creature” (1.1.289), so is Mephistopheles Lucifer’s creature. And as Bosola says, “Sometimes the devil doth preach” (1.1.293), both he and Mephistopheles preach a cautionary tale.

There are other similarities between the two characters like the disguises they take on, Bosola because he can’t bear to appear as himself to the Duchess and Mephistopheles because Faustus commands it and because he needs to disguise his true nature. As Mephistopheles plays a deceptive confidant to Faustus, so is Bosola to the Duchess.

The difference between the two characters emerges in in the closing of Doctor Faustus. Mephistopheles embraces his damned fate and his servitude to Lucifer. Bosola, on the other hand, repents his role in the death of the Duchess (as for the motives, there is a healthy mix of its wrongness and once again being cheated by the Duchess’s brothers).  The Duchess takes on the role of a deity to him. Bosola says, “am angry with myself, now that I wake” (4.2.326-8) and then, “What would I do, were this to do again? / I would not change my peace of conscience / For all the wealth of Europe.  …. Return, fair soul, from darkness, and lead mine/ out of this sensible hell! ” (4.2.340-50)

Like the theme in Doctor Faustus, penitence plays a large part in The Duchess of Malfi and in both cases all the characters fail to achieve it. When Bosola says, “I’ll be my own example” and “O, penitence let me truly taste thy cup that thrown men down only to raise them up” (5.2.366-67), it is his attempt to save himself, to make some sort of amends in saving Antonio. But much like Mephistopheles attempts to stop Faustus from making the bargain had the oppose reaction, so did Bosola’s actions – killing Antonio.  What Bosola says about himself, “That we cannot be suffered to do good when we have a mind to it” (4.2.364), relates to Mephistopheles too. Both these characters are damned because of their initial alliance.

The final difference between them is that Bosola is able to tear the string that ties him to his Lucifer figure , the Cardinal, when he kills him. And though that act is not enough to salvage him, it does at least just make him a damned soul, rather than one of the devils.