Theme Of Measure For Measure

Arguably one of Shakespeare’s most timeless pieces, Measure for Measure contains within it an inquisitive complexity so great that it continues to find relevance in the modern day, centuries after its initial creation. Despite its roots in England’s Jacobean era, the work possesses a similar tone that captures the spirit of the American Modernist movement of the 20th century. Measure for Measure is a play of suggestion, one that preoccupies itself more with asking the right questions than it does with conveying the correct answers. The play is composed of questions about sexual morality and crime and punishment, yet its tone is ambiguous. Such ambiguity is truly highlighted by the play’s plethora of weddings at the end. While usually a joyous

Friedman argues that the marriages of the play are bound in social order, and how men must take responsibility for what they have done to women, stating “At the heart of all three constrained marriages at the play's conclusion lies the notion that the men must offer matrimony to compensate their sexual partners for the damage done them through fornication” (454). In the case of Isabella and the Duke, he suggests that the Duke’s use of Isabella in his plan, having her describe how she yielded to Angelo, false as that allegation may be, is a sort of sexual slander that undoes her chastity. Due to this, the Duke proposes marriage as a means of restoring her honor much in the same way Mariana’s honor was reclaimed in her marriage to

Lynn argues that Isabella’s desire to be a nun is a characteristic that Shakespeare places great emphasis on. Isabella does not just want to join a nunnery, she specifically desires to join the Order of Saint Clare, and even desires that the rules of the covenant could be stricter. Lynn describes Isabella as “a pillar of morality” before meeting the Duke, and that by the final scene of Act V, Lynn proposes that Isabella may not have felt like she had the ability to say no. With the Duke having the greatest amount of power in the Vienna, what would she do? Lynn claims that the two proposals he gives are more like commands, and upon no answer to the first, he asserts “What’s mine is yours, and what is yours is mine” (5.1). Lynn’s argument is more than plausible, and she is not alone in the belief that Isabella finds herself between a rock and hard place by the play’s