The White Devil in Beauty as Mask: John Webster

The incongruous name of John Webster’s play “The White Devil” has often led to attempts to identify one of the characters with the titular devil. This paper argues that. This paper argues that the hardship of pinpointing lie not only in the obvious paradox of the consortium of “White” with “Devil’’, but also in the changing role of colour in the early modern period. This change was marked by the evolution of painting procedures as well as by the attacks on cosmetics and the “False colouring’’ of rhetoric accustomed during this grandiloquent colour, the stage therefore came to be a specifically contentious institution at which similar disagreement were often levelled. Through an inspection of the three major female character in “The White Devil’’ Isabella, Zanche and victoriya, This paper illustrates the way in which these assault are defused and become the substances of the author’s sarcasm .As females, these characters have a unique bond with colour because their (claimed)use of beauty products and thus the accuracy of their skin colour eventually determine their position within society. The complete paper analysis and shape the characters through colour division and exposes the artificiality behind beauty as a mask.