Unit 4: Historical Context of Performance
Tis Pity She’s a Whore Context Review
In this assignment I am going to explore the context of the play Tis Pity She’s a Whore. It is a tragedy written by John Ford. The play itself is about incestuous love between a brother and a sister. The play ends in disaster when both of them end up dead. It was set in Parma Italy and it has four main themes marriage love justice and religion which I will also mention how each of these where in the 1600’s. Also I will be talking about how the set, costume and some scenes were different in the modern version. In the 1600’s the Catholic Church had a huge impact on society. They looked after the sick and helped the poor. I feel that this refers back to Tis Pity She’s a Whore because the pope regarded Annabella and Giovanni’s relationship as ‘sick’ and tried to help them which actually ended up not helping them at all. Also in the play it shows that the Catholic Church was involved because there was an altar and a cross on the stage at all times. The Catholic Church built its power over centuries. They told people you can only get into heaven via the church. So this gave the priest a lot of power over the local people. Like Giovanni and Annabella. He had power over Annabella because he used his power to make her think the only way to get into heaven was to right her wrongs by getting married to Saranzo. The only reason that she done this was because the public seen their priest as a ‘passport’ to heaven, this is because the people in the 1600’s had been taught this since birth. In these times people gave the church money to ensure that they would go to heaven which is why the Catholic Church was so rich. Which also links to the play because once Giovanni and Annabella had died the pope took all the family’s money as a punishment for them sinning. This is another way that the church was rich at this time. After the 1600’s the Catholic Church was the main cause for most of the battles and wars. The reason for this is because everyone rebelled against the church because they didn’t respect their views. The Catholic Church was presented in the play through use of two different characters. These were how ever played by the same person and I thought that they did that to show how the church is one even though there are a few different people involved in the church. In the play there was the pope who came on at the end came for the banquet and he had the final line “tis pity she’s a whore” and this I feel was to show that if you are going to commit sin it will always end up wrong. This is why I think John Ford gave the final line to the pope.
The main aspect of the play was incest. In the 1600’s it was illegal to be incest like it is today but the punishment for it was death. Here is an example of what punishments were given to people that committed incest: “in 1605, Dýrfinna Halldórsdóttir was condemned to death for incest with her sister's husband, but was not to be executed until the child was seven years old. If the child died before that time, however, she was to be taken and drowned.” This shows how serious incest was in the 1600’s. In the play even though incest was illegal Annabella was not put to death by the priest or the law she was put to death by her lover Giovanni. He did this because he did not want anyone else to love her, once he had died. (He thought that the priest would kill him for his sin) this also brings in the theme of love into the play. Giovanni loved Annabella and when he seen that she was marring Saranzo he couldn’t take it and then he turned insane which is why at the end of the play he took Annabella’s heart out of her chest. I also think that the heart was a symbol to show that Giovanni wanted to be the last to have her heart and that if he couldn’t have her no one could which is why he killed her. Since the marriage of Saranzo and Annabella was an arranged marriage it also links in with the theme of marriage