The Mother as Bawd in The Revenger's Tragedy and A Mad World, My Masters

Abstract

The Revenger's Tragedy and A Mad World, My Masters reveal how the motif of the mother as bawd taps into early modern anxieties about maternal authority. In Gratiana's attempted prostitution of her virgin daughter, The Revenger's Tragedy plays disturbingly upon the paradox of a woman's inherent moral weakness being scripturally sanctioned to command her children's obedience. The Revenger's Tragedy thus illuminates Mad World's unexpectedly subversive use of the same motif. The commodification of virginity, Mad World implies, has little to do with untrustworthy mothers; rather, it is inextricable from a patriarchal society's definition of chastity as the supreme female virtue.