Themes in ’TIS PITY SHE’S A WHORE
’TIS A HEART, MY LORDS...
"The theme of incest in John Ford's play 'Tis Pity She's a Whore may be considered to pertain to a perspective at the same time anthropological and psycho-analytical. Ford analyses the Renaissance community through the discourses of its three classes: the priest, the warrior, and the merchant. The true function of these discourses is in fact to express - and repress - the reality of Desire, of which incest represents the most drastic manifestation, which means that Nature always lurks beneath Culture. Desire, according to Ford, inevitably leads to death: this is shown in the play by the codes of heart and blood, which operate at two levels, one cultural (as symbols) and one natural (as real things). In Ford's view, Nature, through Desire and death, ultimately wins; Culture, at the end of the play, has been defeated." (Denis Gauer)
The theatrical climax of the play is reached in the unforgettable final scene when Giovanni comes on stage with Annabella's heart skewered on his dagger's blade. This scene is one of potentially awesome power; the first time I heard of this play was on a TV programme in which Jonathan Price was discussing a production of it he had been in, in which this scene had triggered a moment of telepathic communion between the audience, cast, and even those like Price who happened to be offstage and not even paying close attention; he said that the hairs suddenly stood up on the back of his neck and he knew instantly without being told that something extraordinary was taking place right there on the stage. The actor playing Giovanni had tranced out completely. Our own Tim Hudson was one of the Banditti or Hired Men in a successful RSC production of 'Tis Pity at Stratford a few years ago, and says that members of their audience fainted. At Chelsea we had members of the audience weeping, and one or two had to leave the auditorium to vomit!
It is perhaps worth pointing out that this scene is the culmination of a series of otherwise figurative references to hearts ripped from bosoms. In I:ii, Giovanni gives Annabella his dagger and tells her, 'And here's my breast, strike home. / Rip up my bosom, there thou shalt behold / A heart in which is writ the truth I speak.' In III.ii Soranzo attempts to convince Annabella of his sincerity, only to have her mock him: 'Did you but see my heart, then would you swear -' 'That you were dead.' Later he turns the tables: in IV.iii, desperate to learn the identity of Annabella's lover, he storms, 'Not know it, strumpet? I'll rip up thy heart, / And find it there.'
Attentive viewers of the Shock Tactics production will see another heart-ripping reference enacted during Bergetto's mime of uncle-murder during III.i!
INCEST
Brother-sister incest seems to be a particularly sensitive subject. There is a definite edge of uneasiness with the subject-matter of this play which audiences do not seem to feel in the case of, say, Oedipus. Research tends to suggest however that anxious parents have little reason to fear; when boys and girls are brought up together, they generally have no sexual interest in each other. This was found to be a definite problem for the founders of the Israeli kibbutzim, who intended that their communities should so far as possible be enclosed; the fact that the youngsters shared so much intimate space with each other throughout their childhood and adolescence meant that they formed very few romantic attachments within the kibbutz.
On the other hand, it is well established that there is a high risk of incestuous affection when brothers and sisters brought up separately are reunited, possibly not even aware that they are related. Sexual attraction tends to mate like with like, and brother - sister pairs are evidently more likely to have common traits which will tend to make them attracted to one another.
Recent research on DNA from Egyptian royal mummies has shown that there was much in-breeding among the Pharaohs. This can be no surprise; so much was assumed by Sigmund Freud when he wrote in 1939, "Why should incest with a daughter or sister be such a specially serious crime - so much worse than any other sexual intercourse? It was taken as a matter of course that a Pharaoh should take his sister as his first and principal wife.... We are compelled to a realisation that incest between a brother and a sister was a privilege which was withheld from common mortals and reserved to kings as representatives of the gods." Evidently the Pharaohs held the mistaken view that by propagating within the family, they were maintaining the strength and purity of their blood line.
Ford's scenario for the incest between Giovanni and Annabella is entirely convincing. Though we are not given a detailed family history, enough clues are given to suggest a family that has suffered tragedy and separation. The mother is dead. In II:v Giovanni tells the Friar, 'Then you will know what pity 'twere we two / Should have been sundered from each other's arms'; and in V:vi he tells his father, 'Nine moons have had their changes / Since I first throughly viewed and truly loved / Your daughter and my sister.'
(JMS)
I
am grateful to Adrian Fox for permission to publish here
the following notes.
Some have suggested that Ford was inspired to write the
play by the case of Sir Giles Allington who married the
daughter of his half sister and was tried and severely
punished for it in 1631. But this is to overlook the fact
that there are many other plays dealing with the theme of
incest, including the Italian 'Venganza de Tamar' and the
French 'Histoires Tragiques'. In fact in many ways it is
more of a revenge tragedy than merely about incest. In some
ways there are close similarities with 'Romeo and Juliet':
the ill-matched lovers opposing social conventions and
family ties; the old crone of a nurse; the murderous and
bloody denouement.
Some have suggested Ford chose incest as a theme in order
to tempt the palate of a jaded audience suffering from two
centuries of theatrical sensationalism. But this is not a
sufficient explanation. Incest - as Shelley claimed - is a
very poetic circumstance. It may be an excess of love or
hate. It is a defiance of everything for the sake of
another. In short it is a theme with great dramatic
potential. Additionally, Ford had been interested in the
brother and sister relationship in many of his plays. It
seems natural therefore that he should examine it in its
most extreme form in 'Tis Pity.
Ford's treatment of the subject does indeed have less of
the shocked horror and revulsion accorded to it in earlier
tragedies. The relationship is treated to a degree as one
with a spiritual as well as a physical side. Annabella
describes Giovanni in terms of 'a blessed shape ....of some
celestial creature' and Giovanni at times sees his sister
in the same way. But although the motives which inspire the
incestuous love are not entirely unworthy, they are not
enough to justify it. The tragedy of the two lovers is that
they love deeply and are ideally suited to each other.
There is however a barrier between them which makes a
permanent love impossible. And the play never suggests that
the barrier should be removed.
DECADENCE
Ford is one of the last of the English writers of tragedy
until very recent years but the disturbing and even
repellent natures of his themes has laid him open to
charges of decadence or sensationalism. But to counter this
we should note the weighted simplicity of his verse and the
psychological complexity of his dramatic vision.
There is a strange combination of eloquence with the notion
of silence as an ideal. Some critics have felt that the
poetry of the more impassioned passages is too seductive
casting a soft and soothing light over what is really a
distasteful subject. Some 20th century critics have taken
this to extremes accusing Ford of being a deliberate
perverter of morality and a worshipper of the supreme value
of love which deserves to triumph over convention. But this
would be to mistake Giovanni's attitudes for those of Ford.
We must judge the play as a whole, not just the views of a
single character. Modern critics have recognised that Ford
is a more balanced and orthodox moralist: neither a devotee
of a 'religion of love' nor a stern moralist. The play is
far more complex than that, and we must not oversimplify
it.
Ford is not one of the 'decadents'. Despite the traditional
argument that the excesses of the Elizabethan theatre had
created audiences demanding still stronger stimuli by the
1630s, and although Caroline dramatists turned more and
more to daring immoral and unnatural themes, this would be
to grossly oversimplify Ford's intentions. Giovanni's gory
appearance is of course meant to shock the audience but not
as an end in itself. The scene has a symbolic purpose. The
heart on the dagger is both a literal and symbolic metaphor
from the cliched heart pierced by the lover's arrow - with
its phallic associations - to the religious image of the
heart pierced by the swords of sorrow. In moral terms we
are presented with an image of lust and its consequences.
The shocking scene also serves to demonstrate Giovanni's
psychotic individualism and his isolation from the
apparently sociable feasters.
Ford does not use the sensational elements in the play as
ends in themselves but to emphasise his thematic concerns.
The bloody events are images which serve to underscore
moral corruption and deceit.
SYMPATHY
Ford does show a degree of sympathy with his characters,
especially in the authority of utterance that he gives his
lovers. But this is never to suggest that he condones their
actions. Despite the complex interweaving of plots it is a
firmly composed play with minor action properly
subordinated to the major. We do find it hard to identify
with Giovanni's views, as they are extreme. None of his
supposedly philosophic justifications for his incest stand
up to proper examination. First he believes in a kind of
neoplatonic worship of beauty which confers virtue on to
their relationship. Second he claims that 'nearness in
blood' means a greater closeness in affection: surely
something that should apply in all cases of incest. Thirdly
he believes he is merely a victim of fate and cannot escape
it. But by the end of the play he seems to believe that he
is in control of fate himself holding the 'twists of life'
in his own hands.
Similarly it is hard to fully identify with Annabella who
shows a degree of fickleness we would not expect in a
'heroine'. She is easily taken in by Giovanni's lie that
the church has approved their incest. She shows an early
repentance when warned of the horrors of hell fire by the
Friar, but subsequently relapses despite having married
Soranzo. Finally she repents sincerely but not until it is
too late and disaster threatens. Annabella's redeeming
feature is her self-sacrificing love for her brother.
Finally what makes it appear that Ford is sympathising with
his main protagonists is the immoral and corrupt nature of
all the other characters in the play. The lovers are
surrounded by adulterers, hypocrites, murderers. It is
against this background of a corrupt society that the
lovers appear less horrifying than they really are. But
Ford's message at the end is clear: the wages of sin are
death.
HEART ON THE DAGGER
The most striking incident in the play is Giovanni's
arrival with the heart of Annabella on his dagger. This has
been viewed as sensationalism but it is also a piece of
obscure yet powerful symbolism. It represents the triumph
of love on the one hand or a tragic waste and destruction
on the other. It is certainly symbolic rather than
realistic and it may stand for the play as a whole.
Ford portrays events which could easily be regarded as
crude and sensational but in his hands they take on
difficult and disturbing meanings which are not easily
defined. The Renaissance belief in the capacity of images
to seize and possess the mind is reflected throughout Tudor
and Stuart drama. Memory, they believed, was especially
responsive to striking or active images of a violent
nature. To this belief was added the conviction that the
density of compacted meaning in symbolic images, emblems
and devices endowed them with a persuasive potency beyond
the reach of mere words.
Ford liked to build his plays towards such climaxes as in
the final banquet scene when Giovanni enters. It does in
fact mark the climax of Ford's obsessive heart and banquet
imagery. The act perhaps symbolises Giovanni's diseased
inner condition. Perhaps it is the ultimate depravity of a
man approaching madness. Perhaps it is a quasi-Freudian
symbol defining the murder as a sadistic sexual act. We may
also see it as an emblem of the hidden corruption beneath
the surface of Parmesan social order: the perfect final
visual image for what has been going on secretly in their
midst. Alternatively it is a piece of self conscious
symbolism contrived by Giovanni himself. It is his last
grotesque attempt to unlock the truth: to carve a martyr's
heart out of a sinner. Giovanni sees himself as a glorious
executioner offering the heart as a token of 'justice'. The
heart is a symbol of love and religious suffering.
JUSTICE
Closely linked with the theme of revenge is the theme of
justice. The others see Hippolita's death as divine
punishment ('Wonderful justice') and at the end of the play
Donado regards the events as a 'Strange miracle of
justice'. In the opening scene the Friar had already warned
Giovanni that 'Heaven is just' and death would be the
inevitable retribution for his sin. In Act V scene 1
Annabella admits that the Friar's warnings were right and
that only the evil-minded refuse to acknowledge the justice
of divine providence: 'They who sleep in lethargies of lust
hug their confusion making Heaven unjust.'
Human administration of justice is not so infallible as is
strikingly shown by the Cardinal's blatant disregard of it.
He allows the murderous Grimaldi to escape scot-free. This
brings the comment from Florio that 'Justice has fled to
Heaven and comes no nearer'. But Florio retains his faith
that justice will eventually be done: 'Great men may do
their wills ; we must obey; but Heaven will judge them
for't another day.' Similarly - when it comes to earthly
justice - the Cardinal has little to offer at the end of
the play. He confiscates the property of the dead Florio
and Soranzo for the church. He also allows Vasques - who
has been responsible for more of the bloodshed than most of
the other characters put together - to escape with mere
banishment. Yet the ignorant - one might almost say
innocent - Putana is condemned to be burned to death.
Hardly a 'strange miracle of justice'. Ford is clearly
implying that justice can only be found in Heaven. Like
Richardetto he clearly believes that 'all human courses are
uneven; no life is blessed except the way to Heaven'.
SYMBOLISM
Many words and ideas recur in 'Tis Pity and a
number of these are used symbolically or metaphorically.
The concept of death recurs in Ford's work and repeatedly
in the mediaeval guise of a spearman whose dart 'hits home
in the heart'. Ford also dwells on a vision of a stream of
blood and water spurting from the body of Christ. In
passages that clearly anticipate the highly charged scene
of Annabella's repentance he uses terms such as: 'This
paper double-lined with tears and blood' (Act V Scene 1).
The image of banquet and feasting also recurs in Ford's
work. This has associations with the cup of poison in
'Tis Pity. This links to the metaphorical chalice
of suffering which Christ prays to escape. In the tragedy
the cup is a physical object which forms a means of revenge
inspired by erotic grief and rage. Death figures
significantly with eight victims (including the unborn
baby). Most of these death scenes are remarkable for their
gruesome physicality or emotional suffering.
The language of 'Tis Pity is dominated by two key
terms: blood and heart which occur some 34 and 42 times in
the play - not counting other associations like
'bloodless'. The words 'death' and 'die' also echo
throughout the play and 'confusion' is also repeated
several times. Stock images such as death as a spearman or
a death sleep figure recur as well as the conventional
image of the coldness of death. Fire and heat imagery is
frequent, as in Hippolita and Bergetto's deaths from
poison, but also in references to 'the hot pleurisie of
lust'.
LANGUAGE
The verse is of great importance in any Ford play to offset
the violent action both on and off stage. Despite the
disturbing themes - madness, incest, impotence, jealousy -
there is still quality both in the ideas and in the nature
of the language itself. There is a heavy weight on its
stresses and a consequent slowness. But there is also
imagery of a conventional sort. Examine especially
Giovanni's speech when he enters with Annabella's heart on
the dagger: 'The glory of my deed darken'd the mid-day sun'
etc. This whole speech is remarkable for the density of its
images.
The idea of Ford as a lurid writer is seriously undermined
when we come to recognise that no-one in his time was more
discreet in their use of language. It was this restraint
along with the marked beat of his lines which made possible
a revival of tragedy despite the powerful influence of
Fletcher that had taken drama in a non-tragic direction.
Ford is noted not just for the construction and plotting of
his plays (note the complexity of his sub plots in 'Tis
Pity) but also for the 'sculptured stillness' of his
language. It is simple and direct, and even in the fevered
action of 'Tis Pity Annabella, near to death,
comes close to the plain eloquence of characters in far
less disturbing scenes: see especially Annabella's speech
that starts 'Brother, dear brother, know what I have
been... and know that now there's but a dining time...'
etc. It is worth studying the play therefore not just in
terms of themes and imagery, but also the language itself:
its metre, stresses and beats.
Adrian Fox
THE STORY with PRODUCTION PHOTOS
THE CHARACTERS
FORD'S WORLD
THE COMPANY