Comment on the role and character of Bosola.
After the
Duchess, the only character that holds us in Webster’s tragic play “The Duchess
of Malfi” is Bosola. If the Duchess is the Central Character in interest and significance
in the Play, Bosola’s character comes next only to her. He is the most
entangled and intricate character in the play .The character which we find in
him combines both enigma and mystery which he remains not only to the readers
but even to himself. In the play as a complex and complicated Character, he
joins in himself three roles together- a malcontent mediator, a villainous tool
and an avenger, all in one.
His
role as a malcontent meditator :-------- Once
Bosola was devoted scholar trying to outshine others in learning. Delio knew
him once as “a fantastical Scholar.” But he was then, ambitious and aspired to
attain the high rank and position which did not bear fruit because circumstances
did not favour him. Later, he came in contact with Cardinal who employed him to
Commit a murder for which he was sent to the galleys, I.e. war ships for seven
years where he was made to work as a Slave and Suffered there terribly, but the
reward which was his due was not given to him. This suffering, ingratitude and
disillusionment have made him a melancholy malcontent, cynic and bitter
satirist. There was good in him but the good has been worn away gradually by
the circumstances of his life. Consequently he is dissatisfied with himself and
the world around him and begins to hurl satirical comments on man and his life
are scattered all over the play with full of gloomy and pessimistic note, such
as: “O, this gloomy world:
In what a shadow, or deep pit of darkness,
doth womanish and fearful
mankind live.” 