'Loss and suffering are familiar conditions with human experience.'

In Chaucer's 'The Merchant's Tale' and Webster's 'The Duchess of Malfi' the writer's contemporary societies are reflected in the society portrayed, with both consisting of a feudal system governed by Richard II and James I respectively. Within a pyramidal feudal system, suffering is expected as a condition of human experience as the structure is dependent on the suffering of the majority to maintain the standard of living for the societal elite, as exhibited by the lower class characters: Damyan and Bosola. However, both texts lack the explicit suffering of one particular character adding a level of complexity which is also reflective in the text's generic categorisation. Webster's nominal Revenge Tragedy lacks a clear hero and even motive for revenge and Chaucer's fabliau, though it does see the generic senex amans, January, suffer, though the ultimate bearer of suffering at the end of the text lacks clarity. The disproportionate suffering of the lower classes is present in both texts through the characters: Damyan, January's "squier", and Bosola, the Duchess's brother's "true servant". Damyan's lack of statue is reflective of that of the Merchant's, whom Chaucer writes as narrating the tale. The merchant is a member of the medieval merchant class, whom acquiring their wealth through the newly prolific trade in England, meaning their wealth was attained outside the brackets of the feudal system. Chaucer is therefore playing with the contemporary fear of the societal elites that the lower classes are capable of rising up the echelons of society and that their superior position was therefore under threat. This fear of wealth and status acquisition is displayed in January's description of Damyan as "a gentil squier", with 'gentil' being a trait exclusively affiliated with nobility, suggesting that January has in fact socially promoted Damyan and therefore put and end to his suffering. The narrator, the merchant, clearly reflects his suffering of lack of status through Damyan and his admiration for January, the wealthy "noble knight", and according to Innes he likens himself to January as doing so "justifies his own interest in goods and property" as January inhumanly treats his bride, May, as "his tresor". However, the merchant envy is also clearly present in the tale as he makes January appear as the literally blind fool who is "woxen blind and that all sodeynly" as soon as May and Damyan plan to make him a "cokewold". This demonstrates that suffering is not dictated exclusively by social status, complicating what should be a simple narrative for a bawdy fabliau as Stevens states it complicates "any simple generic categorisation". The Merchant is similar to the character Bosola in 'The Duchess of Malfi' who has also suffered due to a lack of status, clearly established in the first scene where he claims: "I will thrive in some way; blackbirds fatten best in hard weather, why not I, in these dog days?" This demonstrates that, unlike the Merchant, Bosola is determined to put an end to his loss of suffering as Ornstein states he is "a malcontent, embittered by his own experience, and hungry for the security which advancement will afford". Webster's use of parasitical imagery demonstrates the corruption inevitably intertwined with a society based on a hierarchical structure, in which the only way to avoid ones suffering is to use the suffering of others for self-promotion, essentially proto-capitalism. And so, both texts prove suffering to be typical of human experience due to both societies severely lacking basic equality between individuals, particularly involving classes.