The Revenge Motive in ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore: a play for the Phoenix Theatre

Abstract

These lines in which Giovanni blames the frustration of his hopes upon his sister’s infirmity of purpose, are a statement of one polarity of meaning in ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore; the other is implied in his final appearance brandishing on his dagger the heart which he has torn from her body. His defence of his incestuous love for Annabella, his resolute pursuit of action which he knows undermines the system of ethics on which the society of which he is a part is based, is undertaken not without anguished self-searching. He knows, and Anabella knows when she yields to him, that they bring upon themselves the combined forces of religion, family and society, compulsions before which they are guilty and which will ultimately destroy them. But they also know that for them their love is the only reality; ethically they admit that they are wrong, inwardly they know that they are fulfilling the destiny their natures have shaped for them — it is their ‘fate’.

I hold fate Clasped in my fist, and could command the course Of time’s eternal motion, hadst thou been One thought more constant than an ebbing sea.