Class, Gender, and Society Theme Analysis

Social class and gender are major factors in Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, especially when it comes to justice. As the Knight Marshall of Spain, Hieronimo plays an important role in society as a civil servant and official judge; however, he is still only middle class (meaning he is a commoner of limited financial means), and in the social hierarchy, he falls far below noblemen and other royals—like Lorenzo, the nephew of the King of Spain, who murders Hieronimo’s son, Horatio. Kyd implies that Hieronimo is denied justice because he is of lower social standing, and he isn’t the only one who suffers because of social status. The play also follows Bel-Imperia, Lorenzo’s sister, and her own desire for revenge. First, she seeks revenge for Don Andrea, her lover slain during battle with Portugal; later, she seeks revenge for the murder of Horatio, Andrea’s best friend, whom Bel-Imperia falls in love with after Andrea’s death. Though she is the niece of a king and obviously of higher social standing than Hieronimo, Bel-Imperia is also denied justice—not because of her class, but because of her gender. Through The Spanish Tragedy, Kyd underscores inequalities and injustices within society based on class and gender, and he ultimately argues that there is rarely justice for women or those of lower classes.

The play highlights the preferential treatment of the upper class within Elizabethan society. Both Bel-Imperia’s brother Lorenzo and their father, the Duke of Castile, disapprove of Bel-Imperia’s relationship with Don Andrea, and they later disapprove of her relationship with Horatio as well, because of class standing. Lorenzo fears that the “old disgrace” of Bel-Imperia’s relationship with Andrea will continue with Horatio. As mere soldiers of the middle class, neither Andrea nor Horatio is good enough for Bel-Imperia in Lorenzo’s eyes, and he would rather see her marry Balthazar, the son of the Viceroy of Portugal. When Lorenzo and Balthazar—both members of the upper class—murder Horatio, they are protected from the law. As his nephew, Lorenzo has the king’s ear, and he can filter what is officially brought before his uncle. However, when Pedringano, Bel-Imperia’s servant and an obvious member of the lower class, murders Serberine, Balthazar’s servant, he is promptly hanged for his crime. There is no stay of execution or protection for those of the lower class. Conversely, when Alexandro, a Portuguese nobleman, is falsely accused of killing Balthazar, Alexandro is held prisoner—with a promise that his punishment will be a “second hell” if he is guilty—until the death of Balthazar is confirmed. Of course, Balthazar is not dead, and Alexandro is ultimately released with an apology and honored publicly. Had Alexandro been of the lower class like Pedringano, he likely would not have lived long enough to be vindicated.

Women, too, struggle for fair treatment in The Spanish Tragedy and are often denied justice in the same way that people of lower classes are. After Horatio is killed by Lorenzo, Horatio’s mother, Isabella, slowly goes insane. While she initially doesn’t want her husband, Hieronimo, to seek revenge, Isabella begins to mentally unravel as her son’s murder goes unavenged. She frantically runs about her room, babbling nonsensically about revenge and the men who murdered her son. As a woman, Isabella has no outlet for her grief, and she has no power to seek justice or exact revenge on behalf of her son. Ultimately, Isabella commits suicide in the very place where Horatio was murdered. “I will revenge myself upon this place / Where thus they murdered my beloved son.” Denied justice and distraught, Isabella takes matters into her own hands in the only way she can. Bel-Imperia, too, ultimately commits suicide, even though she finally gets revenge and kills Balthazar during the play-within-a-play staged by Hieronimo near the end of Kyd’s play. Like Hieronimo, Bel-Imperia must seek her own revenge, and this leads to her ending her own life as well; it seems that for women, finding justice also means accepting one’s own destruction. 

As Hieronimo unsuccessfully seeks justice for Horatio, he begins to doubt that it even exists. “The sham’st thou not, Hieronimo, to neglect / The sweet revenge of thy Horatio?” Hieronimo asks. “Though on the earth justice will not be found.” As Hieronimo’s attempts to get justice for his son are thwarted by Lorenzo and those of the upper classes, Hieronimo knows there will not be any justice for Horatio. “For here’s no justice; gentle boy be gone,” Hieronimo says. “For justice is exiled from the earth.” While justice is not wholly absent from The Spanish Tragedy, it is consistently denied to those of lower social standing, whether that social standing is due to class or gender.