FEMALE FETISHISED DEATHS IN JACOBEAN TRAGEDY

I explore the violent deaths of Jacobean heroines on stage, looking at their fetishised dead bodies as a register of male repressed fear of women’s physicality that is perceived essentially as the equation between womb and tomb. I argue that this fetishisation is a hegemonic effort to combat this fear through the consigning of the heroines’ bodies to utter destruction. However, there is a residue left from the dialectic of death and desire that runs through Jacobean tragedy and sexualises the political issue of tyranny. The heroines’ violent deaths, while not expressing heroic transcendence, mark the ultimate self-destructiveness of patriarchal politics.