Critics have long been puzzled by the inner contradictions of major characters in John Webster’s tragedies.
Topic
Why modern critics misread the contradictions in John Webster's tragic characters, and what reading them properly requires.
Framework
Highlight Noteworthy. The author flags a long-standing critical confusion and argues that modern critics are misapplying a framework — the morality-play model — that doesn't actually fit Webster.
Main Point
Modern critics misread the inner contradictions in Webster's characters because they apply the morality-play framework that fits other Elizabethan dramatists; Webster, more influenced by Italian drama, builds his tragedies on conflicting value systems and the duality of human nature, so his characters can't be analyzed with simple good/evil categories.
P1: The puzzle
Webster's characters (the Duchess, Bosola) seem inconsistent — both "good" and "bad." Critics treat this as eccentric, but Aristotle implied such contradictions are essential to the tragic personality.
P2: Why critics misread Webster
Modern criticism has been so influenced by the morality play (with its allegorical good vs. evil characters) that it applies that framework to all Elizabethan drama. But Webster wasn't shaped by the morality play to the same degree — he was more influenced by morally complicated Italian drama. So his characters can't be evaluated with simple good/evil formulas. Critics then attribute Webster's inconsistencies to his artistic incompetence. Properly understood, the ambiguity in Webster's tragic vision lies in the duality of human nature: he sets up conflicting value systems, presents characters we judge negatively but instinctively approve of, and produces a tragic, irreconcilable conflict that is ours as well as the characters'.