Space, Violence, and Bodies in Middleton and Cary

Abstract

This article analyzes staging space in Thomas Middleton's Women Beware Women and Elizabeth Cary's The Tragedy of Mariam. In both plays, violence against women takes place hidden from the audience; Middleton obscures what may well be a rape, and Cary describes the execution of the title character. This hidden violence mirrors a psychological space in which sinister intent and sexual desire are unknowable to audience and characters alike. Neither drama answers this aporia, suggesting that the larger genre of revenge tragedy cannot express the vexed connections between desire and violence.