Protecting Homosociality: Nicholas as Servant Exemplar and Jealous Lover in A Woman Killed with Kindness
John Michael Rezes
At what point does a master’s affection for a servant diminish or undermine the master’s power? How might the homoerotic affection that normally subordinates a servant work in other situations to empower the servant?” (DiGangi 67). These two questions — posed in The Homoerotics of Early Modern Drama— have varying answers when asked in the context of the dramatic world of Thomas Heywood’s play, A Woman Killed with Kindness.
Homoerotic desire is almost entirely one-sided in this piece, and thus the two respective relationships found within the text answer the rhetorical questions quite differently; Master Frankford, Master Wendoll (his friend), and Nicholas (his servant) form an expressive character trio that Heywood employs to reveal the moral implications of homosociality through a dichotomous representation of ‘friend’ and ‘man-servant’ in Frankford’s male counterparts. The master-servant dynamic of early modern Europe was established in strict fashion, and analysis of such “service and servant-master relations [is] a way to define early modern subjectivity, as it is mediated between the social networks in which servants participated and a sense of interiority that might variously be phrased as a spiritual calling, moral conscience, liberatory impulse, or autonomous will” (Rivlin 11). A close reading of Nicholas’s lines will delineate Heywood’s fictional understanding of the exemplary servant, as his character’s actions are in sharp contradistinction to the betrayal of Frankford by Wendoll. Idealistic homosociality and master-servant relations are upheld in A Woman Killed with Kindness through Nicholas’s steadfast, performative relationship with Master Frankford.
To better understand Nicholas’s function in the play as “servant epitome,” the master-servant relationship of the early modern period must be dissected for its basis and core. While this deviates from close reading, discourse surrounding the aesthetics of servitude are useful in understanding Heywood’s use of language for Nick’s speech. To ground this theoretical, pseudo-theological idea of servitude in the text itself, the following quote gives a few vocabulary examples of the playwright’s manifestation of the origin of service in this time period: “I do not like this fellow by no means: / I never see him but my heart still earns. / Zounds, I could fight with him, yet know not why. / The Devil and he are all one in my eye [emphasis mine]” (4.83-6). The bolded words in this section are samples of Nick performing Christian rhetoric as a servant should in the early-seventeenth century. In this regard, Heywood is imposing the ideals of service —the antithesis of “eye-service” that dates back to Paul speaking in 1 Corinthians— into the character of Nicholas. This biblical conceptualization of servitude showcases that the master-servant relationship is multilayered in terms of motivation if, and only if, the servant is performing his duties simply to please the eyes of his master rather than pleasing Christ in all acts of service with wholesome and pure intentions. Moreover, the master performs as the metaphorical middle-man between his servant and God if there is to be true, Christian servitude (Rivlin 14). In short, there are two kinds of servitudes: a servant performs duties for his master’s acceptance, or he performs his duties to his master for God’s acceptance. This sharp distinction solidifies the idea that a writer of the early modern period would represent a well-respected and idealistic servant as a God-fearing, Christian man to emphasize the virtue of character; Heywood does just that with the diction choices he uses whenever Nicholas speaks. Terms like “zounds” (Christ’s wounds) and “’Sblood” (God’s blood) used as exclamations by Nicholas give a clear characterization of his performance as the honorable servant, as well as strengthen the performative nature of “Nicholas-as-dramatic-device” to clarify the plot’s objective of bonding the master with the servant, likewise foiling him with Wendoll.
The knowledge of early modern servitude aesthetics, namely the strength of master-servant relationships that have a focus on Christ, serves as a foundation for the tensions between the homosocial (and homoerotic) triangle of Frankford, Wendoll, and Nicholas. A Woman Kiled with Kindness has its main plot unfold when Nicholas suspects that Wendoll, after being welcomed into the household, has the intent to cuckold Master Frankford. Nick performs his duty as servant by devoting himself fully to the task of outing Wendoll as a knave to Frankford: “I will not see/ him wronged. Sir, I have served you long. You entertained me / seven years before your beard. You knew me, sir, before you knew my mistress…’Sblood sir, I love you better than your wife. / I’ll make it good” (6.30-41). Nicholas could be performing his duty out of faithfulness to his master’s household, out of anger at the dishonor of Wendoll, or, more interestingly, out of jealousy due to his homoerotic love for Frankford being encroached upon by Wendoll’s presence in the shared space. This envy is evidenced by Nicholas’s sparked watchfulness in the household (Hoenselaars 130) and boundless desire to warn Frankford of the affairs taking place in the house while the master is away. While there is no textual evidence to prove that Nick does have romantic or sexual feelings toward Frankford, there is the fact that homoerotics were common between masters and servants in the early modern period. In fact, these relationships were primarily kept in check as “homoerotic desire may function not only as a sign of…power but as the very means through which power circulates” (DiGangi 124). A close look at the quote above reveals textual clues about a connection between Frankford and Nicholas that, from at least the servant’s perspective, is substantially homoerotic with innuendo. The phrases “you entertained me” and “you knew me” have strong sexual energies, that can be used to pinpoint the homoerotic in the master-servant relationship. While not focusing on the Wendoll/Frankford bond, this reading makes it clear that the performative nature of Nicholas in this play has ‘jealous servant’ is not far-fetched, and has a basis in the speeches made by the servant.
Moving beyond homoeroticism and into the realm of homosociality as a major performative aspect in the world of A Woman Killed with Kindness, the idea of Nicholas’s jealousy of Wendoll begs the question of whether or not a master-servant relationship could exist as anything other than a singular, uneven bond. To answer that question, the concept of friendship (viewed commonly in the present day as an even exchange of power and support in a relationship) can be analyzed from the early modern perspective. Homosociality pervades this play, as the exchanges of power and wealth are lodged in the forming and breaking of bonds between the male characters. In terms of this homosocial atmosphere, it is said that “as a symbol of support of orderly intimacy between men, secrecy grounds the Renaissance discourse of friendship” (DiGangi 82). Performing the duties of a confidant establishes friendship in a male/male bond according to this ideology. Are the obligations of a servant any different from that of a confidant viz. that of a friend? The trajectory of Nicholas’s character throughout the play would suggest that there are differences in these titles, as his duties to Frankford shift over the course of the plot. Once Wendoll enters the home —befriending and vying for the affections of Frankford like no other man in the play— Nick begins to transform from ‘dutiful servant’ into ‘watchful friend’. After he has suspected the wrongdoings of his Mistress and Wendoll, Nicholas declares to Frankford that he will “henceforth turn a spy [for his master]. / And watch them in their close conveyances” (6.172-3). This promise is powerful, and it is kept over the course of the play. Secrecy becomes the language of the Nicholas/Frankford relationship, and as the servant performs acts in privacy and solidarity to aid his master, such as covertly getting keys made by a locksmith from the molds made by Frankford (11.3-5), the line between servant and friend blurs in conformity with Renaissance ideas of secrecy being a strong symbol of male/male friendship.
While confidentiality builds between Frankford and Nicholas, there is no denying that performance of the master-servant relationship is immutable in the world of A Woman Killed with Kindness. One of the key factors of servitude in early modern Europe centers around the idea of a servant performing ‘mimesis’ in response to his master’s behavior. “If masters make themselves worthy of imitation and servants dutifully imitate their masters, both will be ennobled” (Rivlin 14). Within homosociality of the time, the lower class of men could find worth in the imitation of the men above them. Mimesis is shown in Heywood’s work when Nicholas becomes increasingly more worried about the wellbeing of the Frankford home, a concern that should be reserved for the master of the house (Hoenselaars 130). Nick is imitating the role of his master in a productive way, as he is helping to maintain order in the home. Mimetic activity fails, however, if there is no worthy, imitable quality to be found in the master. Frankford allows Wendoll to usurp his role in the home, and that includes lowering his guard about his wife’s chastity. This, besides Nicholas’s homoerotic jealousy, is enough of a transgression on the master-servant bond to produce this outburst from Nick: “I love my master, by these hilts I do, / But rather than I’ll ever come to serve him, / I’ll turn away my master” (4.90-93). As established earlier, Nicholas is an honorable servant with Christian ideals of service. Frankford, allowing unchaste activity in his home due to his infatuation with Wendoll, no longer presents himself as a master worthy of imitation. Nicholas would rather turn away from Frankford than serve the dishonorable Wendoll.
In addition to Nicholas’s disapproving of the Frankford/Wendoll bond in a Christian mindset, the servant also removes his mimetic activity due to the unequal hierarchy of his ‘friendship’ with Frankford. Although the two men do interact with a level of secrecy that would indicate friendship on a homosocial level, Nick does not fully shift to that role in the master-servant relationship. He is static in the social order (Rivlin 39). That said, Nicholas’s performance in the servant role is not in stasis throughout A Woman Killed with Kindness. The budding homoerotic relationship between man and servant results in a degradation of Nick’s honorableness. The last scenes of the play display Nicholas as the comic character; he disapproves of the treatment of his mistress, and finds Frankford to be lax in his punishment. The performance of servant becomes one of reluctance, and a close reading of Nicholas’s interaction with Mistress Anne near the end of the play is evidence of that when he says “My master commends him to ye…All that I have to deliver you is this. He prays you to / forget him, and so he bids you farewell” (16.20-4). This interaction is curt and aggressive, as Nicholas’s jealousy, sadness, and lost faith surrounding Frankford culminates in a begrudging servant who is devoid of true devotion to his master. Dynamism in this character is directly linked to his performance as a servant. The shift is a result of Nicholas trying to transgress the master-servant relationship, hoping for a friendship with Frankford steeped in homoeroticism.
John Michael Rezes ‘18 is a queer theatremaker and scholar who focuses his studies on the interplay betwixt identity and performance. As a dramatic auteur, he hopes to continue pursuing gender and sexuality studies in tandem with theatre studies at the graduate level. One day, if Rezes can direct, write, act, and teach under the guise of ‘professor’, he will have achieved his dreams.
Works Cited
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Rivlin, Elizabeth J. The Aesthetics of Service in Early Modern England.
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