More like Euripides versus his contemporaries, Webster's women have names that are not frailty. In fact, their names are not evil or oblivion. Of course, Shakespeare created stronger women than Ophelia, but when I think of Shakespeare's portrayal of women, I think either of Ophelia, who asks her father what she should think, and Lady Macbeth, who brings on the evil and is too weak to finish even that. Even Juliet is convinced so easily that she seems a woman anachronistically cut out of Hemingway's two-dimensional chick factory. Webster's Duchess is a strong woman with a dignity that Shakespeare's women just don't seem to have. She is true to her husband, but she keeps her dignity, even in the moment of death. Like Medea and Desdemona, the Duchess leaves her family, but unlike the others, the Duchess makes dignified and noble decisions in her attempt to save both her husband and children.
Along with his possible alignment with modern feminist ideals, Webster is also closer to our egalitarian and existential views. The entire play is about the Duchess marrying someone "below" her. The Duchess tells Ferdinand she has "not gone about this to create/ Any new world or custom" (III.ii.111-112). Still, this is a new world or custom where a woman can choose and woo someone born "meaner" than she. Bosola realizes how the world and custom for her have changed, and to gain her confidence, as he does so well, he rhetorically asks the Duchess if she would "[r]ather to examine men's pedigrees than virtues?" (III.ii.265). Later, in earnest, the Duchess says, "Say he was born mean, / Man is most happy when [hi]s own actions / Be arguments and examples of his virtue" (III.v.117-119). Finally, Sartre and Albee may agree with Antonio, who says, "Heaven fashion[e]d us of nothing; and we strive / To bring ourselves to nothing" (III.v.78-79). In a sense, our equality comes from the fact that we are truly born equally without purpose, and if we could avoid Ferdinand's pride and choler or Julia's lechery, we may be able to live in this world, happy, free, and without purpose or stature.
