The Two Noble Kinsmen · Chapter
Scene III explained
The Gaoler consults a Doctor about his daughter's madness, which manifests as obsessive love for Palamon.
What happens
The Gaoler consults a Doctor about his daughter's madness, which manifests as obsessive love for Palamon. The Doctor diagnoses a profound melancholy and devises a therapeutic deception: the Wooer is to impersonate Palamon, using song, flowers, and tokens to gradually restore her senses.
Themes in this chapter
Love and Madness
The Daughter's obsessive love for Palamon drives her into a state of madness, blurring the line between devotion and delusion.
Nature and Artifice
The Doctor's plan to cure the Daughter through a deliberate impersonation of Palamon exemplifies the use of artifice to restore natural order.
Characters to notice
- Gaoler
Seeks medical help for his daughter's madness, describing her constant fixation on Palamon.
- Daughter
Appears in a distracted state, raving about Palamon, Dido, and fantastical punishments in the afterlife.
- Doctor
Diagnoses the Daughter's condition as a 'thick and profound melancholy' and prescribes a deceptive therapy involving the Wooer impersonating Palamon.
- Wooer
The Gaoler's friend who once hoped to marry the Daughter; he is instructed to pretend to be Palamon to cure her madness.
Key passages
“the name Palamon lards it; that she farces every business withal, fits it to every question.”
She stuffs every topic with Palamon's name, forcing it into every conversation.
The Gaoler describes how his daughter's obsession with Palamon pervades all her speech.
“How prettily she’s amiss! note her a little further.”
How charmingly she is deranged! Observe her a bit more.
The Doctor comments on the Daughter's madness with a mix of clinical interest and aesthetic appreciation.
“It is a falsehood she is in, which is with falsehoods to be combated.”
She is trapped in a delusion, and we must fight it with deceptions.
The Doctor justifies his plan to use impersonation as a therapeutic lie to cure her.