ABSTRACT

Feminist critique has questioned the ethics of sexual and cultural difference as presented in woman's position. In the long Western logocentric tradition, there indeed reflects not only patriarchal structure of value which tends to marginalize and to silence women but also the fact that woman has obviously taken social constraints more seriously. Expecially in the Renaissance, woman has been reduced to the state of a material thing. Under the conditions of constrained unequal dialogue, the suppressed interlocutor's freedom is denied. Only the development of her own identity can help woman put in place new values corresponding to her capacities.

Female identity is related to value system; value system, however, is humanly devised and any person may become a victim when power and value are based on unequal exchange. In Renaissance literature, women seem to be more constricted, more invisible and silent; it is more difficult for them to construct their self-identity. Usually the female bondage seems to be inseparable from marriage. When women are involved with marriage, they will inevitably confront the rigidity and injustice of social order which makes women unfairly the subject of man's tyranny. This paper investigates the process of searching for identity in Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, although the payment for search is death itself.