Duchess of Malfi: Justice Theme

In The Duchess of Malfi, justice fails completely as a force for good; instead, it is corrupted into a tool for Ferdinand and the Cardinal. The rules that govern their world are perverse and immoral, so the justice they seek to enact inherently becomes perverse and immoral itself. Delio prepares the audience for this in the first act, when he says of Ferdinand,

Then the law to him
Is like a foul black cobweb to a spider:
He makes it his dwelling, and a prison
To entangle those shall feed him. (1.1.168-71)

The law, which should uphold peace and fairness, is instead a “foul” trap that Ferdinand uses to benefit himself.

Once the Duchess is dead and Ferdinand is overcome with regret, he himself points out how he has misused justice, when he asks, “Did any ceremonial form of law/Doom her to not-being?” (4.2.292-3). Bosola, to assuage his own guilt, has imagined the Duchess's murder as an officially sanctioned act. He describes himself as “the common bellman/That usually is sent to condemned persons” (4.2.164-5), as if she had actually been condemned by a judge or jury. When Ferdinand disabuses this notion by arguing he (Ferdinand) holds no authority with which to condemn the Duchess to death, Bosola says, “The office of justice is perverted quite/When one thief hangs another” (4.2.298-9). Only now, when it corrupted justice is working directly against him, does he realize how perverted their system truly is.