"The Duchess of Malfi" written by John Webster is one of the greatest tragedies in the English language, outside Shakespeare. In characterization also "Duchess of Malfi" is an immense advance over other contemporary plays. The Duchess, the central personage, is a stoical figure who bears misfortune with calm resignation and fortitude.
Bosola's character is next only to that of the Duchess in interest and significance. He is one of the most complicated and complex of the male characters of our dramatist. According to Shelling, " He remains the most consummate character in "The Duchess of Malfi." Bosola defies understanding, for his professions and actions are at cross purpose, and his behavior in the play is irreconcilable with his philosophical wisdom and moral vision of life. Una Ellis Fermor in the Jacobean Drama points out that not only is Bosola an enigma and a mystery to his readers, but he must have remained so to himself for he does not know what he actually stands for and seeks to acquire in life.
Bosola is the most complex person in the play, and in many respects the most interesting. He is an intelligent, sensitive, and "melancholic" man who is said to have a measure of native goodness. His past is highly suspect: in all contrast to the fundamentally honest Antonio, who tries to put all that he knows to best use. Bosola has been an insincere student, using learning only to attain fame, and he is believed to have committed a murder at the Cardinal's instigation. At his first entrance, however, the most striking thing about him is not his reputedly violent character but his brooding over disparity between merit and reward. The Cardinal has not paid him for his work. Bosola says significantly, "miserable age, where only reward of doing well, is doing of it." .
Like so much that Bosola says and does, this is ambiguous. It is both a repudiation of the idea of doing good for good's sake, and an expression of Bosola's pride in his service for others.
