202140579aws2021

[202140579aws2021]

The Tragedy of Mariam by Elizabeth Cary on female eloquence/silence

“I am a student of the University of Hull blogging as part of my assessment for the module All the World’s a Stage. All views expressed here are my own and do not represent the university”. 

Gina-Madeleine Moellenhoff 202140579

Elizabeth Cary is the first Englishwoman to write a tragedy in English, namely the Tragedy of Mariam – The Fair Queen of Jewry. The play, which is a so-called “closet play”, was published in 1613 and belongs to the Senecan subgenre of the revenge tragedy. Although the play was intended as a closet play, it can certainly be seen on stage. This alone shows a modification of the original intention. Mariam, Salome and Graphina can appear as potent performers; especially in the person of Salome, there is the possibility of portraying her as particularly eye-catching through certain costumes. Graphina's quiet role can also be given a deeper meaning through stage directions and costumes.

The drama can be read as an expression of its author’s own life and struggles. We know this because of a biography by one of Cary’s four daughters. Cary is a female writer and creates multiple female characters (including protagonists) for a – possibly – female readership. This femininity is very striking and cannot be overlooked in the play. The Tragedy of Mariam has to be analysed from a feminist point of view, which is what this essay aims at under the title of eloquence and silence regarding women.

The Tragedy of Mariam offers a unique female perspective upon the role of authority within the state and marriage. For Cary as a woman of the aristocracy, this is a brave and dangerous move. She tries to show the women’s attempts to construct their relations to the social center, to their husbands, without losing their voices. This is a very narrow path but one that Cary treads successfully. She does this by giving the women different voices and attitudes, which differ from each other to a great extent. Salome for example is a woman who was enabled to claim an independent speaking position by her upbringing but is then marginalised by her husband Constabarus. The argument between the two of them in Act 1, Scene 6, is a good example for this argument. In this scene, Constabarus enters and confronts Salome for her unfaithfulness, and she declares that she will seek a divorce from her husband, an option only available to men at the time. Constabarus tells her, “Oh Salome, how much you wrong your name, // Your Race, your country, and hour husband most” (1.6.1-2) as well as “Didst thou but know the worth of honest fame, // how much a vertuous woman is esteem’d, […] And seeke to be both chast and chastly deem’d” (1.6.17-20) and “I feare me much you will too late repent, // That you have ever liv’d so void of awe” (1.6.81-2).

Women in The Tragedy of Mariam also repeatedly speak against each other in the very act of asserting their defiance of patriarchal authority. Their performative skills are often condemned as evil by men in positions of power. Overall, Cary examines both the successes and failures of female speech. She elaborates on the personal feelings of her characters, especially on Mariam. Therefore, she is shifting the focus from the evil king to the wronged queen. She decided to let the play start with a woman’s soliloquy, which is again a bold and unique move by Cary. The soliloquy itself is highly suggestive of the possibilities of the text.

The mothers in The Tragedy of Mariam are represented at length as speaking subjects rather than muted witnesses to male sexual potency. They take up a special position in the play, because they claim maternity as a condition for speech; they have fulfilled their feminine and conjugal duty and given birth to an heir. Their speeches cannot undermine the centrality of the ruler, but they can be seen to redraw the boundaries of domestic authority. In doing so, they enter dangerous territory, because the roles between men and women are very precisely divided at the time. Using speech, they try to make their own positions clear. Also by speaking with voices whose passion and eloquence serve to decenter standard early modern notions of fatherly authority, they manage to find speaking positions apart from renaissance masculine conceptions of their roles. The mothers’ voices balance the voices of those female characters whose speech is directed primarily - and erotically – toward the men. This refers above all to Salome and Graphina, who will be discussed later on.

Starting with Mariam, the eponym of the play, we see that her first appearance is a public speech, which contains great danger for as woman at the time. She is speaking freely, and thus bypassing her husband, who is entitled to freedom of expression, which can end badly. This unfortunately proves true in Mariam’s case later on. Mariam’s opening soliloquy allows the reader to appreciate her inner conflict and desires to be both a woman and an opposer of tyranny. Her first lines of this first soliloquy evoke the powers of speech and their consequences, which were often denied women by contemporary conduct traits: “How of have I with public voice run on // To censure Rome’s last hero for deceit: // Because he wept when Pompey's life was gone, // Yet when he lived, he thought his name too great. // But now I do recant, and, Roman lord, // Excuse too rash a judgment in a woman: // My sex pleads pardon, pardon then afford, // Mistaking is with us but too too common” (1.1.1-8). She apologises directly with her first words for speaking loudly as a woman and includes that women should not do this, and if they do, that they make frequent and many mistakes. Here you can see Mariam's attitude well: She knows about her status as a woman, but does not want to completely correspond to it or submit to it. With this she also states that every single element of female speech is problematic.

This is one of the most important passages of the play; it is not only important what Mariam says, but mainly how she presents herself through it and what power such an opening soliloquy gives her. Mariam is also a good example when it comes to silencing: She is accused of being a traitor and beheaded for her domestic counsel. She did not directly go too far with her speeches, but her previous behaviour influenced Herod in such a way that he was (for the time being) convinced of her guilt. She was not the silent wife desired in the Renaissance. At the end of the play, there can be no doubt as to where our sympathies lie. Being speaking and performing agents, Mariam ans also Salome both reveal a remarkable awareness of the possibilities afforded to women by different tactics of self-representation. Mariam herself is fully aware of the power of her obvious sex appeal to maintain domestic harmony. An apparent example for this can be found in act 3, scene 3: “I know I could enchain him with a smile // And lead him captive with a single word. // I scorn my look should ever man beguile, // Or other speech, than meaning to afford” (3.3.45-8).

Since Salome is, just as Mariam, a speaking and performing agent in the play, she can be considered as one of the liveliest characters. This is mainly because she stands out so much as a woman in her role. She is given a convincing and impassioned plea for the right of women to divorce their husbands, as can be seen in the following quote: “My will shall be to me instead of law” (1.5.80). Divorce is reserved for men at the time and Salome takes abig risk with wanting it. She does not adhere to the prevailing roles between man and woman but speaks like a man and demands those very rights, even if she is not entitled to them. She cannot (and does not want to) understand why it should not be her right as a woman to get a divorce – but Cary gives Salome a voice that probably spoke from the heart of many women at the time.

Salome changes her personae and modifies her behaviour to conform to whatever paradigm will get her what she wants, hence she appears as an apparent political, sexual, and social foil to Mariam. This makes the play even more layered because Cary manages to give different women unusual voices, all of which are more than the standard at the time. While Salome decides to profit from her skills, Graphina uses her silence to position herseld in relation to the male characters in the play.

Graphina represents the Renaissance ideals of feminine behaviour: chaste, silent, obedient. She therefore mingles into insignificance. However, she uses her silence as a weapon and is prepared to break her silence if it can be advantage to her, as we can see in act 2, scene 1: “If I be silent, ‘tis no more but fear // That I should say too little when I speak, // but since you will my imperfections bear, // in spite of doubt I will my silence break” (2.1.49-53).