Moral Constitution: Elizabeth Cary's Tragedy of Mariam and the Color of Blood

Any feminist inquiry must assume that the gravity of political pow er bears upon the sexed subject, notwithstanding other considerations of subject position. But the way that other categories engage and inflect the position of woman as a social actor and subject—how these fundamentally change what a “woman” is—in many ways defines the inquiry itself. ¹ Years ago, Dympna Callaghan wrote brilliantly and provocatively about how Elizabeth Cary “deploys and manipulates the concept [of race] as a vital aspect of her construction and interrogation of femininity” in her drama, The Tragedy of Mariam. I revisit this observation because, as much as I admire the piece, I believe that a contemporary—which is to say, early modern—application of the concept of race needs to be applied to Cary’s interrogation. The embodiment of moral differences in the play, color-coded in black and white, are grounded in prevailing medical theory as it attaches to rank.