A Woman Killed With Kindness

The climax of Charles, Susan, and Francis’s plot is controversial, reflecting the play’s broader depiction of Marriage and Gender Roles in a Patriarchal Society. Charles says he loves his sister but intends to “sell” her to Francis for sexual use. Susan responds, “But here’s a knife, / To save mine honor, shall slice out my life” (194), choosing suicide before losing her honor, which even rape would have been perceived as tarnishing at the time. Charles approves of Susan’s commitment to her chastity, and the tone of his offer makes it clear that he would think less of Francis for accepting: “[T]ake her to thee; if thou hast the heart / To seize her as a rape, or lustful prey” (196). Nevertheless, even Susan frames the episode as a testament to Charles’s stringent sense of honor (that is, his commitment to “repaying” his debt) rather than as an unreasonable demand; she remarks that she “would condemn him” were it not for the fact that she “know[s] / These arguments come from an honoured mind” (194). Moreover, when Francis offers instead to marry Susan, both men greet the proposal as a happy resolution to the conflict, and even Susan accepts her “fate,” saying she will “learn to love, where [she] till now did hate” (196). What is at stake is therefore not Susan’s happiness or consent—she does not have a choice in either case—but whether her relationship with Francis is socially sanctioned. 

The subplot thus reveals the extent to which women’s bodies were collateral to a patriarchal code of morality, though whether it endorses or satirizes this state of affairs is somewhat ambiguous; details such as Charles’s awareness of Susan’s intended suicide (which would render his settlement of the debt void) suggest that he may not be quite as honorable as the other characters say. The resolution of the other storyline is similarly ambiguous in its depiction of women’s status, while also raising questions about The Limitations of Forgiveness Following Betrayal and Social Judgment, Legal Consequences, and Moral Regulation. The characters unanimously deem Frankford correct in his decision to banish Anne precisely because of how torturous she finds the experience. For instance, Francis, Anne’s brother, commends Frankford’s actions even as he forgives her, saying that it was only Frankford’s restrained punishment that caused Anne to repent. This is contradicted, however, by the fact that Anne showed remorse throughout her relationship with Wendoll and immediately after Frankford’s discovery of the affair. In other words, Frankford’s actions seem more about punishing Anne than “reforming” her. 

Other details of the final scene suggest a similarly nuanced reading. For example, Frankford frames his forgiveness as coinciding with a “new marriage.” After Anne’s death, Frankford therefore exclaims, “New-married, and new-widowed.—O! she’s dead, / And a cold grave must be her nuptial bed” (206). This can be read as hypocritical: Frankford does not forgive the same wife who was unfaithful, but this new woman who proved herself through death by suicide. The message that Frankford plans to write on her gravestone is equally ambiguous: “Here lies she whom her husband’s kindness killed” (207). In context, the message brands Anne, even in death, with the crime of her infidelity. At the same time, the language frames Anne’s death as a kind of murder that Frankford is responsible for. If it is murder, however, it is socially sanctioned; as Francis remarks, “Death to such deeds of shame is the due meed” (203).

When Francis says this, he is speaking of both Anne and Wendoll, but the latter notably escapes any punishment for his crimes, further exposing the double standard surrounding sexual mores. Unlike Anne, Wendoll can leave town, and he plans to, saying: 

I must now go wander, like a Cain,

In foreign countries and remoted climes,

Where the report of my ingratitude

Cannot be heard (202). 

As a man, Wendoll can simply leave Yorkshire, or even England, and be treated with dignity and respect. What’s more, he plans to eventually return and “in court be raised” (202), implying a political career in his future. In this context, the comparison of himself to Cain, who was banished forever for murdering his brother, is highly ironic: It reveals Wendoll’s villainy, painting him as a betrayer both of family and friends, but unlike Cain, Wendoll will suffer no lasting repercussions for his misdeeds.