William Shakespeare's Characters and Themes

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William Shakespeare's Characters and Themes

Shakespeare's characters have been named and moulded carefully to

represent different themes in the play. The character of the Duke

holds the overall power in the play and his name Vincentio is only

mentioned in the 'dramatis personae' at the beginning of the play. By

calling him 'Duke' the audience is also continuously aware of this

power. A Duke is supposed to have a divine right from God, when the

Duke disguises himself as a Friar, he also has the right of confession

which he abuses when other characters confess to him. One of the

themes of 'Measure of Measure' is the abuse of power which many

characters do in different circumstances. The Duke however does appear

weak and somewhat cowardly by leaving Angelo to reinforce all of the

laws and to do the so-called dirty work, while the Duke goes into

hiding to see what the town's people think about him.

Angelo abuses the power given to him by the Duke while he is in

hiding, by first pulling back a fourteen year old rule that has not

been in existence without any announcement, and then by bribing

Isabella to save her condemned brother who was arrested for breaking

the law Angelo wants to commit. Angelo actually wants to go against

the law he brought back for the sake of lust. Angelo is an immoral and

unjust character by abusing this power as well as hypocritical. All

the characters who described Angelo, said almost the same thing, that

Angelo, 'whose blood is very snow-broth.'

The job of Duke however is not so important to Angelo when the lower

classes need dealing with as he cannot make a name for himself in the

higher social circles, therefore in Act 2 Scene 1, Escalus is given

the job of sorting out Froth, Pompey and Elbow. With this scene, it

shows the audience how good a Duke Escalus would have been if he was

left in the position. He was going to be the Duke's first choice;

however the Duke may have wanted to test Angelo's loyalty and honesty.

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