New directions: The deconstructing 'Tis Pity?: Derrida, Barthes and Ford

Abstract

At the famous climax of `Tis Pity, Giovanni enters the last scene of the play and, as he knows, his life, `with a heart upon his dagger', with which he-hearted implement he stabs his enemy and brother-in-law Soranzo, before himself being fatally stabbed in the ensuing melée. The heart, it seems, is Annahella's, removed from her after Giovanni's loving, surgical sacrifice of his pregnant sister/wife in the scene before. The `seems' here is crucial, for at first this is not clear, neither to the onstage audience, waiting for Giovanni to arrive at the banquet, nor to an audience watching the play or those reading it. The eloquent Giovanni exults in providing the explanation to both groups.