Tis Pity She's A Whore Character Analysis

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Love is a complex emotion which often has positive connotations associated with it. On the other hand, incest is looked down upon in a Western society, coupled with impurity and feelings of disgust. Tis Pity She’s a Whore displays how the pursuit of love can often lead people to blindly follow their own selfish motives. Ford is able to distort the idea of love by presenting the protagonist’s incestuous love as being inherently selfish as the characters are motivated by the idea of lust, money and power. The creation of a tainted idea of love through a flawed argument is key when exploring the presentation of love in the play. The concept of love is presented as being flawed through an incestuous relationship, as well as marriage; the plot…show more content…
It is apparent that no married couples within the play are in love with each other, but rather married in order to obtain wealth and power. Although stating that he “would not have her marry wealth, but love”, Florio tries to persuade Annabella to choose Soranzo as her suitor due to his fortunate and wealthy background in order to place their family in a higher social position. Ironically, the couple who seem to share an element of romantic love is Giovanni and Annabella, who are unable to marry one another as it is seen as morally wrong within their society at the time. Nevertheless, once Annabella becomes pregnant with Giovanni’s child she has no other choice but to marry Soranzo; she believes that she may be able to force herself to love Soranzo, rather than willingly. The idea of Annabella forcing herself to love an individual displays readers with the corrupt nature of love as it should come naturally; this reveals the true motivation for her love, being to repent for her sins and marry into a wealthy family. Conversely, Soranzo loves Annabella in order to avoid loss of face and increase in…show more content…
Giovanni tends to merge the idea of knowledge and lust within the play; the word “know” serves merely in order to reinforce the suggestion of lust. To a certain extent, it can be argued that Giovanni attempts to use both love and fate as an excuse for their incestuous relationship and his feelings of lust so as to present a rational argument. Giovanni says, “’tis not, I know, my lust, but ‘tis my fate that leads me on.” By saying this, he is stating that although fate leads him towards the attraction to his sister, he still had some control over the situation his actions, yet uses this as a reason to consummate their relationship. Cederbaum states that “blood replaced with connotations of unleashed sexual desire” throughout the play, which can be presented through the “immoral sexual acts of the female protagonists.” By doing this, Ford is able to express their lustful relationship rather than presenting it as a romantic one. Furthermore, the word blood is used throughout the play to explain the passion between Giovanni and Annabella bringing them closer together and using a pure thing to give reasoning for an unnatural and impure thing, such as incest. Richardetto then goes on to say to Florio that “her sickness is a fullness of her blood” rather than
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