A woman's role

Act 4.2 line 35-38
Three of the major themes in the Spanish Tragedy are revenge, sanity/insanity and justice/injustice. At the delay of justice, a hunger for revenge takes over which in turn causes people to lose grip of their minds. Unfortunately, this seems to happen to Isabella. In the delay of justice for her son, she quickly turns to her own form of revenge on herself. She enbodies a role (of which she considers her most important identity) of a mother. Therefore since Horatio defined her life, her revenge is to barren herself and the earth. Her womb/fertility is her most important duty in nature She curses her womb (as she did of the trees) and decides to kill herself by wounding her breast. The breast is a symbol that represents fertility, birth, motherhood, while also used as a symbol for a women's sexuality. It is interesting that while Isabella represents the image of a woman- mother, wife, submissive, etc. Bel-Imperia isn't a character of a traditional woman role. She is aggressive in her tactics (she approached Hieronimo in her disappointment over his inaction of revenge) while she's forward (in act 1 she's very open with Horatio) and she is a monster at the end (aka murderer) when she actively kills Baltzar. Isabella's character compared to Bel-Imperia's are quite contrary although they are both taken over by revenge.