It is important to look at Frankford and Anne as man and woman. The fact is that they have different ideals. Even in class, there was a distinct difference in how the males and the females viewed the predicament. Frankford provides for Anne. This is his duty. If Anne provided for Frankford, the picture would be different. There cannot be an agreement over what is right and what is wrong if the male and female are forced to play a particular role. Anne takes control of her situation by refusing the abundance she has been given. It could be that by doing so, she eliminates the need to determine whether or not she is at fault. She weighs her own evidence and judges for herself.  In so doing, she takes any power of judgment out of her husband's hands. Anne denies Frankfords provisions, dying without any physical debt.  She denies Frankford's power both mentally and tangibly.

--on behalf of Drue

Denial and Gifting of Goods as Virtue

The denial of goods by women in this period appears to be a road to freedom for some but is also a way to virtue in the eyes of all, which somewhat diminishes its freeing benefits because the basic beliefs of "all" are patriarchal. The notion of patriarchy is a great contributing factor to the way gentlemen and Frankford were supposed to act. Giving freely to those beneath you is an act of a secure male with extra possessions to a person with less, thereby creating a debt of honor to powerful men and perpetuating the cycle of male dominated society.
Women who denied themselves sustenance and gave away family resources in an extreme form could be seen to be resisting this overall patriarchy, but that was not all women. By denying themselves sustenance women also complied with the notion that they should not consume a lot of food or be lustful, thereby controlling themselves for their men's sake.
The overall abundance of stage properties in AWKK seems to be an attempt to show off Frankford's wealth and the number of his servants by requiring them to carry in and out the items. This shows how much he has accumulated and how much he has to gift, both virtues of his sex. Anne accepts little from him, stays quiet, and does his bidding, deferring to his patriarchy until their relationship is over. This makes her seem like a child in his house, but historically she could have been very young. It is somewhat hard to realize the virtues for men and women are so very different in this period but the extreme patriarchal societal values and the young age of the women makes this disparity a little more understandable.

Consuming and Sinning, Giving is Good

It is very true that Frankford follows the "feed my sheep" ideal in the play. He offers his entire house and command to Wendoll and we are given countless other examples of the lavishness of that house and all that it includes. So on one hand Heywood has given us a character who indulges in consumer goods, but also shares them openly. This is only a man though, women have to play by different rules in the play. Anne, who it would seem comes from this level of life already, I would think, would be used to such a luxurious environment. However, once she is put in contact with Wendoll, who tempts her by his use of the goods entrusted to him, she meets her downfall.
The interesting part to me is the nature and description of her self castigation. Frankford did not physically harm Anne, he did not really financially, or (oeconomically), harm her either. He "killed her with kindness." So even though Anne was not harmed physically directly by the hand of Frankford her body is still the subject and recipient of a cruel punishment. After Anne shows her sin of indulgence, lust and desire she punishes herself by ceasing to eat. This is a message I have seen imposed on females which manifests itself in many ways. To me, it is almost like, in this play, a woman simply cannot get off the hook without physical harm to her body or starving herself. And in this play it is presented essentially as the natural reaction, which is weird when you think about it. What is natural about starving yourself to death? Punishment, to prove a point? It is worth thinking about.

No Such Thing as a Woman

Anne and Susan are never allowed to define themselves as humans or as women. Anne and Susan are continually defined by their bodies and how the men in the play perceive those bodies.

I loved Robbie Steiner’s comments on Anne in his post:

Anne may have had a loving and generous husband, bust she is still property. Her marriage was arranged, so she was simply passed from one family to another, not unlike a slave. If she has been considered property her whole life, could she have learned to make her own decisions? This is debatable. When Anne is wooed by Wendoll, she says, "What shall I say? My soul is wand'ring and hath lost her way." (372) This statement makes Anne look consumable. A modern (and perhaps feminist) rewriting of this line might read, "While Wendoll is in charge, I'm just his property, so how can I refuse his advances?"

Robbie really catches a moment where we see Anne struggle for what identity she is supposed to conform to. Is she supposed to follow the prescribed doctrine of society on chastity and how she should act? Or should she obey her husband’s command to obey the commands of yet another man. The idea of women as property has been prevalent for much of our history. I think that as a domestic tragedy, Heywood had many reasons for writing the characters of Anne and Susan as so stereotypical. Many modern feminists would say that these women have bought into and are acting out the female identity given and defined by men. “Sexuality is to feminism what work is to Marxism: that which is most one’s own, yet most taken away.” (Mackinnon) These women are expected to embody the “perfection” that Sir Charles and other men in the play place on their shoulders. These women strive to act out their perceived roles and Anne even commits suicide in order to redeem her identity from her husband! If men define women in terms of “the opposite of men”…then what the heck is woman but everything a man isn’t or doesn’t want to be!?

I think that Anne shouldn’t be considered a “cheating wife” but a victim of the domination schemes projected on her by men. How else could Anne have reacted to someone in authority commanding her to have sex with him? Her husband just announced to everyone, servants included, that Wendoll was in charge and that he would be gone all day! Talk about entrapment…

This play has a continual moralistic theme about how women should act properly, we root for Susan when she refuses the advances of Sir Acton and we feel confused and slightly shocked when Anne just hops into bed with Wendoll. Think of the reaction Heywood’s audience must have had at Frankford’s forgiveness of Anne before her death. On and endnote..I think it is interesting to look at the last scene between Anne and her husband. If you look closely you might see a strange mirroring of the concept of last rites and confessing of sins. But here, Anne is still a sinner, yet it is a man and her husband who absolves her of her sins and restores her position!
Note: I apologize if anyone finds this a little sexist…been reading a lot of feminist literature lately!

The Right Stuff?

From the beginning of the play, Anne is established as a mere household good, rather than a real person.  She is a newly acquired property, a trinket, a doll, an admired object.  In scene I, Anne is equated with objects.  She is characterized as a "well made suit" and a "chain of gold" (Heywood 354).  And though she is present during this conversation between Frankfort, Sir Francis and Sir Charles, they talk about her as though she was not there.  Even after their marriage, Anne seems to be a piece of household decor.  She says little, but rather, sits silently, playing the part of the perfect, obedient wife.

Wendoll takes advantage of Frankfort's generosity, stealing the one object of the household that cannot be shared: Anne.  Anne has little to say in the matter, only exclaiming "what shall I say?" (Heywood 372).  Why does she stray? Perhaps it is because she has little choice in the matter-she has always been under the control of men, so perhaps she really does not know what to say.  Or perhaps she succumbs to Wendoll because he sees her as more than just a household object, as he appears to foster an ardent passion for her. However, once Frankfort spurns Anne after discovering she and Wendoll together, it is then that Anne finally becomes free of the objectification that comes along with the role of wife and mother.  Frankfort laments Anne's deviance, telling her he gave her everything.  He cries, "Was it for want thou played'st the strumpet?  Was thou not supplied with every pleasure, fashion, and new toy-nay, even beyond my calling?" (Heywood 399).  But it seems as though generosity and "the right stuff", does not a happy marriage make.  Luxurious gifts do not replace love and affection.  Anne, consumed and wracked with guilt, leaves the household (along with all the stuff Frankfort has given her), and slowly dies of starvation in a new household.  Being surrounded by stuff seemed to prevent her from becoming a fully realized person, but once she denies herself material goods, for the first time in the play she becomes a real character.  She becomes passionate and vocal.  She dies happily, now free from the reign of men.  It seems that Heywood might be presenting a rather radical view of love and marriage.  Providing the right stuff is not always the recipe for a good marriage, as Frankfort learns.  Though he is generous, his generosity gave him nothing but a lecherous wife.  And Anne, despite all the gifts Frankfort has provided her, never becomes anything more than a puppet until she is forced to leave the household and she refuses to consume the food and other things provided to her, restoring her virtue.

GOD SAVE THE YOUNG WOMEN!!!

I couldn’t help but notice that the authors of these “manuals” were of course, men. Aside from this observation, one of the major questions that arose in my head while reading the Orlin piece was “Why this amount of pressure put on such young women, why not just let them be just that?” Of course, the answer would be, as Orlin said, that people during this age did not understand childhood and especially adolescence . The women were constantly being warned against such things as an over-abundant “appetite” and constantly reminded of their role as a wife or a daughter. When we examine what is going on with Frankford and his giving attitude, we must keep in mind that this is exactly the role of which women were supposed to fill during this time. Women were expected to give to charity, and refuse their own needs. The overall reason I justified this role reversal was by reminding myself that Anne had in fact “sinned” against her husband, having a relationship with the guest of the house. In this case, Anne can only expect forgiveness or self redemption by denying herself of all that is necessary to sustain life. It is somewhat besides the point, but an extremely strong correlation, when Frankford embraces Anne’s pitiful corpse at the end of the play. Anne can now be seen for the dead piece of property she is, after committing adultery.

Comparing the moral expectations of women and men during this time is like comparing apples and oranges. The two are treated in entirely different manners, because the understanding of their ability to be moral is so different.

Women were commonly considered to be less able to resist sin, as was "proved" in the Garden of Eden. Men are frequently depicted as having to resist female wiles, which would lead them into temptation. This is the case in A Woman Killed with Kindness. Wendoll, a man that we could presume, on the basis of his friendship with Frankford, is essentially good, is pushed into adultery by the force of his attraction for Anne. Were Anne not in the picture, Wendoll would have remained a loyal companion to Frankford, but, as he says, "Some fury pricks me on; The swift Fates drag me at their chariot wheel/And hurry me to mischief," (Heywood, 6.99-101). He debates with himself for nearly a hundred lines before he confesses his love to her. Meanwhile, Anne is moved "to passion and to pity" in less than half the time (6.139). When they exit the stage together, it is to the words "Your husband is from home, your bed's no blab" (6.164). In the play, she is easily convinced to betray her husband and their marital vows. Because women are supposedly less able to resist sin, their presentation of charity and purity is different. Women, who cannot resist sin, refrain from food and drink as Anne does, to prove or make themselves pure.

The Influence of Possessions on Self-Expression

In order to understand how Master Frankford and Anne relate to the concept of "stuff" and possessions, we must first question to what extent Anne is or is not one of the possessions of the household and we must understand how Anne's ability or inability to think for herself plays into the situation.  Anne's character is a difficult one to understand because we don't know for sure how much she really controls her decisions.  She has been raised in a society where women are property, first and foremost.  The question is; can property have a mind of its own?  The obvious answer, since Anne is ultimately a human being, is yes - of course she has a mind of her own.  But when we look into her character a bit deeper and consider the culture and household in which she lives, we must wonder whether or not she is truly consumable and manipulatable, like any other piece of property.  If she is just part of the "stuff" in the household, what could giver her the ability to control her actions and what does that say about the ways in which she can express a pursuit of goodness?

Anne may have had a loving and generous husband, bust she is still property.  Her marriage was arranged, so she was simply passed from one family to another, not unlike a slave.  If she has been considered property her whole life, could she have learned to make her own decisions?  This is debatable.  When Anne is wooed by Wendoll, she says, "What shall I say?  My soul is wand'ring and hath lost her way." (372)  This statement makes Anne look consumable.  A modern (and perhaps feminist) rewriting of this line might read, "While Wendoll is in charge, I'm just his property, so how can I refuse his advances?"

If it can be agreed upon that Anne indeed has no control over herself and is merely property, which can be controlled and manipulated, then we can better understand how Master Frankford and Anne express their pursuit of goodness differently.  Frankford is free to express his goodness through the act of giving away his possessions.  Anne, on the other hand, is little more than the property that surrounds her and cannot give anything away.  Therefore, her only option to express goodness is to refuse that which is material.  The difference between the ways in which the two express their goodness hinges completely on their respective places in the household.  Master Frankford is the owner and controller of everything (and everyone) in the household, which gives him the ability to direct his goodness outward, through the sharing of his possessions.  Anne is one of those possessions and has nothing to give, so her goodness is directed inward through the act of denying herself any part of her husband's "stuff."

Do They Succeed?

In both A Woman Killed with Kindness and Bynum’s Holy Feast Holy Fast excerpt, we can see how the line between excessive goods and self-denial can be made to appear to be “godly” or good. For instance, in AWKK, John Frankford has everything he needs to care for his wife, the servants, his estate, and still maintain another: Wendoll. The goods he maintains reflect what is “good,” for Heywood depicts him as the “best” man in the play, in so far as he doesn’t gamble, he’s rich, caring, and honorable. However, Anne’s position brings up the question of whether or not the goods are the means by which we become good or if our goodness is what leads to the means. By this I mean to say that if Bynum depicts women who try to denounce their families using their bodies (and use their eating habits to do so), and Barthelemy Batt depicts women who don’t eat to be “proper,” then how do we deem women as a whole? When they are fasting, are they trying to control their circumstance in life, or are they simply trying to be a dutiful daughter/wife, according to Batt’s prescriptions of a good woman? I think Heywood is trying to say that it is both. Anne fasts in order to redeem herself by her actions. Girls sought spiritual enlightenment and growth through anorexic behaviors; they all sought to control their position in society. Anne wanted to be forgiven and accepted back into her household; she was. Margery Kempe and other Saint like women (or the saints themselves) fasted to have a spiritual experience; I believe some of them did. Others fasted to get out of marriage, at least for at time; they were successful. As such, Heywood is simply using the fasting scene to provoke the same ideas and emotions as women have used for ages: to become good in their actions and to take control of their lives.

Excessive Goods and Excessive Melodrama

The overabundance of goods on stage is meant to be absurd. In her essay, Orlin discusses the extent of the wide array of props, noting its peculiarity. The unusual nature of this amount of stage details suggest that Heywood is doing this purposely, perhaps to make a point about the absurdity of the supposed the link between food and sin that the two readings illustrate.

Anne’s story mirrors (or maybe more accurately caricatures) Braithwaite’s argument that “Luscious fare is the fuell of every inordinate concupiscence. Nothing so much feeds it, nor insensates the understanding by delighting in it” and that only “by your spare life is lust extinguished” (140). After she is married, Anne is surrounded by all manner of fine consumables; Orlin details how the stage is filled with “table, stools, carpet, tablecloth, napkins, salt, bread…” (Orlin 146). Following Braithwaite’s dictum, after soaking in the ‘luscious fare’, Anne is then consumed with lust and is driven to sin against her husband. Since it was this excess of goods that ignited her sinful ways, Anne then takes the logical step to ‘extinguish her lust’ by sparing herself from food, even if the cost is her life.

The absurdity of Anne’s life ending in melodramatic self-inflicted starvation sits nicely along side the absurd amount of goods on stage in the beginning of the play. Both are part of a satirical critique of the perceived link between food and immorality.

Consumed With Sex: Sin and Guilt

Through critical reading and analysis, Frankford has been seen as less of the expected authority figure and more of a kindly gentleman, which as Orlin states “provokes a series of unhappy consequences” (173), causing the affair between Anne and Wendoll. The sexual affair between Anne and Wendoll is much more than Frankford’s ignorance, for Heywood allows readers an insight into how Anne is viewed as “property” and therefore, able to be consumed and vulnerable to such consumers as Wendoll. When reading Heywood’s play in this light, readers are compelled to see Anne as nothing more than another piece of the well- furnished household represented in “A Woman Killed With Kindness.”

Once Wendoll receives permission to treat Frankford’s household as his own, he immediately seeks out Anne, a character Heywood has not given much detail to. Anne does not seem to put up much fight against Wendoll’s proposal, is she not then deemed the consumed? True, both Wendoll and Anne are consumed in sin, but Wendoll seeks Anne out, which makes him the consumer, making Anne the consumed, and lastly, making Frankford’s possessions/relationships the consumable. Frankford sets up this scene by giving full possession of his household to Wendoll, but it is Wendoll who takes advantage of such beholding, taking Anne down with him.

It is ironic to see Anne as the consumed of the sexological part of “A Woman Killed With Kindness,” because it is Wendoll who says, “For you I’ll live, and in your love I’ll die” when proposing the affair (371). Wendoll was not at all consumed by their sin, for he suffered not punishment, but instead it is Anne who suffers and eventually ends her own life due to the guilt she feels. Wendoll suffers no death as he proclaims he would, but instead, Anne becomes literally so consumed with her guilt that she punishes herself with not consuming food. Heywood sets up this scene of the consumable through a sexological aspect in his play, which in turn leads to the downfall of the characters introduced throughout the play.

Food for Thought: Domestic Surplus and Female Hunger

Metropolitan Museum of Art: Sculpture-Relief in Terra-Cotta: Holy Women, 1487

In last week’s post we considered how Heywood presents the “realities” of love and marriage in comparison to Whately’s advice to husbands and wives. In the critical readings for this week, Orlin and Bynum led us to consider how the home was key agent in maintaining a social and familial order. We saw too that resistance to its demands was a difficult business. Individuals might threaten the home, but in both main plot and underplot of AWKK, it demands to be reconstituted, sometimes at great sacrifice. Given the power it exerts, it is not surprising to find the household so richly represented in Heywood’s tragedy; we might even say that the food, the objects, the furnishings, etc. that make up the home also make it the most fleshed-out character in the play. In this blog we will consider whether the force of goods is a force of good, while bearing in mind Bynum’s argument about how asceticism allowed women to shirk the demands of marriage and household.

The first text we will consider is The Christian Mans Closet, a child-rearing manual from 1581:



In the following passages, Barthélemy Batt prescribes the proper eating habits of daughters:

“Let her to not eate openly (that is to say) in the feastes and banquetes of her parentes, lest she see such meats as she might desire and lust after: Let her not learn to drinke wine, wherein is all excess and riotte.” (75)

“Let her to eat, as that shee may be always an hungred, that immediately after her meate she may either read or sing psalms.” (75)

The second work, The English Gentlewoman by Richard Braithwaite, outlines the proper practices of women in all aspects of their lives.



Again, Braithwaite warns women about the dangers of an over-abundant “appetite”:

“Luscious fare is the fuell of every inordinate concupiscence. Nothing so much feeds it, nor insensates the understanding by delighting in it. By restraint of this, you shall learne to moderate your desires. Whence you may rejoice, yet in him, who is your joy, if you can live sparingly, and embrace the means that may chastise in you all sensuality: for by your spare life is lust extinguished, vertue nourished the minde strengthened, the understanding of heavenly things raysed. Yea, abstinence assaileth much for preserving health of body and length of life.” (140)


In light of the advocacy for women’s restraint, how are we to read the household’s excess of goods? (Return to Orlin’s chapter to recall the extent of the goods AWKK puts on display.) More particularly, how do we reconcile the fact that the virtuousness of Frankford’s householding is expressed by his generosity—his sharing and giving away of his stuff—while on the other hand, his wife Anne displays her goodness by refusing stuff? Or to put the matter in a slightly different way, what are we to make of the fact that Frankford follows the Christian dictum “feed my sheep,” whereas Anne follows the lead of the mystic anorexics who make themselves virtuous by refusing to be fed? In your posting, consider how Heywood asks us to think about consumable, consumer and consumed by attending to the materials and bodies involved in the play’s production. You may take up this question with regard to any subject that interests you—theatrical, sexological, matrimonial, hierarchical, theological, etc. Just make sure to be specific in your use of evidence.

The Mystic Tradition

St Catherine of Siena. The orchard of Syon. London: printed by Wynkyn de Worde, 1519. [Lambeth Palace Library, Sion College Library Collection]
see: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/iss/library/spec/exhib/sacred/orch

Cordis Effusio

Christopher Harvey, Schola cordis, or, The heart of it selfe, gone away from God brought back againe to him & instructed by him in 47 emblems. London, 1647.

Conscience & the Iconography of Casuistry

The Conscience of Anne Frankford

William Holman-Hunt, "The Awakening Conscience," 1853

Heywood the realist

Overall, Heywood seems to be representing a much more realistic picture of marriage. He really is not dressing the marriage up in any way. The only time when the reader notices the unrealistic side of marriage or a relationship is at the beginning of the play when Sir Charles is speaking so highly of Anne. It may be more accurate to say this is the only time when the marriage between Frankford and Anne appears dreamy, and completely wrapped in love. Especially when we examine the thoughts of Whately on how marriage was supposed to be during this time, the reader can begin to draw parallels that correlate to the plot and overall feel of the play. In the play, Heywood sets his characters in an environment that many people at this time could relate to or at least recognize. The text can also be understood today because this picture of marriage still exists now and is very prevalent in modern society.

Whately carries the views of many people during the time of this play's publication. In summary, the men were the providers, while women represented the picture of frailty and completely obedient to one’s husband. Heywood seems to take these same stereotypes of a marriage or relationship and apply them to his play, but bring it back to reality. Heywood shows us that in fact, this marriage is quite imperfect, and flaws exist within the relationship between Anne and Frankford.
--on behalf of Austin