Hypocrisy, the Love-Hate Relationship

Hypocrisy, the Love-Hate Relationship

                So, I personally am not the biggest fan of anyone in this play to be honest with you. The very concept that we have to be talking about Claudio being sentenced to death for the same thing that Angelo is now trying to get from his sister is simply outrageous to me. However, as much as we hate hypocrisy, it is what keeps us reading. Do you guys agree? Give me your thoughts! Also, in a sense I feel like the person that is watching creepily in the bushes, as we have seen by a couple of characters in this play as well. And no matter what I do obviously I cannot leap out of the bushes and tell these people how idiotic they all are, Angelo especially.

                Anyway, back to the play, as some of you posted about already (I got myself behind because I misread the schedule) the entire issue of Claudio  asking Isabella to give herself up to let him live, especially when he knows how meaningful of a "sin" in this manner affects her and her "purity" I believe is fairly selfish. Asking Isabella to give up her body to some creep that is trying to corrupt the very structure as to why you are in jail from the start just seems ridiculous to me. If I were you I would be asking her to simply start going around telling everybody you know what Angelo is doing. I feel like that is far less of a sin to tell someone Angelo is trying to just use you than to consider backing away from everything you believe in and have worked this hard for. And I do feel for Isabella because she has just been thrown into this lose-lose situation because a couple of guys can't seem to hold their horniness to themselves. And one just happened to be her brother so she HAD to care. I hate this situation because I know for a fact that if I were in Claudio's position I could never ask for my sister to do such a thing, and maybe just maybe I would have not had sex RIGHT before I was going to get married anyway, knowing that if I did that I would have gotten in trouble. Who do you guys think was in the right here? Who was in the wrong? Do you see an escape from this? Let me know what you think!

The S Word!

Oh, sex. Yep, I said it. The three letter word that nobody is comfortable with…and to seems as though Shakespeare liked to use this natural discomfort to his advantage in his plays, particularly unconventional sex (if that's a thing). I'm talking about Romeo and Juliet (young lovers), Othello (interracial lovers), and of course, this play (lovers that decided to have sex before marriage…of all things!).

But sex today seems quite different than it would be back then (other than you know…the basic stuff). From what I remember from some history class of the past, there wasn't a reliable form of contraception until the 20th century…and unless it's a myth, people back then could only hope to use lemon wedges and dung (is that seriously true?).



Aaaaaanywaaaay…

When considering Isabella’s situation, we need to remember that her situation doesn't exactly consist of the “one night stand” we are familiar with today. If allowing some predatory man put his sweaty self on her wasn't bad enough, she'd have to deal with the after effects of her time with him.
Isabella wouldn't just have to deal with shame, she'd have to deal with the result of that shame: a child.
How on earth would Isabella be a nun then?
How would the child live? With no father? Or worse, with Angelo as a father, but a mother who is shamed.

This is why I'm shocked at the selfishness of Claudio.
He's not asking his sister to just deal with a five minute nasty-fest (an act that can cause psychological pain in itself), but the possibility of having a child with a man who has no intention of keeping her around when he is done with her.
He would be asking her to carry the child of her rapist (if the idea of “rape” resembled our idea of it today), which could result in the literal ending of her life.

In fact, Claudio seems different from any honorable man we are used to seeing. Which leads me to ask…is he a protagonist at all? He is the man who is supposedly wronged, but does he do anything to redeem himself in our eyes? Is Juliet ever going to come back in the story? Isn't she pregnant? You'd think that'd be a pretty big plot point!

Oh, sex. Sex started this madness, and has been advancing the plot ever since. Will sex finish the plot? Will sex (or moreover lust) finish Angelo? What will become of Claudio, our not-so-white-night?
Will Isabella remain the heroine we see her to be?

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These two are suppose to be Siblings?

I am having an issue with the relationship of Isabella and Claudio in this play. The situation Claudio is in, being put to death and all, you would think that Isabella would do almost anything to save him, but she accepts his fate because she is preoccupied with her own situation. To her, her chastity is more important than her brother.  I don’t think she knows that once you are dead there is no coming back. Remaining pure is the top priority to Isabella and this makes me  conflicted on that idea. Her virtue means everything to her and Claudio’s life means everything to him, one is not thinking of the other. I know that being a woman during this time you were a virgin, you got married, had children and lived for the rest of your days. Isabella to me is an independent female that can hold her own. She did when she approached Angelo in the garden in Act 2.  Meeting together in the prison clears up the idea of how close they are to each other and it is not close at all. She makes the decision to let her brother die than to live in shame. I think she would live in more shame that knowing she let her brother die just to keep her name clean. Claudio on the other hand is afraid to die. “Death is a fearful thing/and shameful life a hateful” (3.1.131-132). It is weird that she places the loss of her virginity on the same level as being killed. When Claudio finishes speaking be turns and tells he that giving up her virtue would be a virtue in itself. He doesn’t care about her feelings on the situation. She basically says I give up on you, you will die tomorrow and I don’t have to think about this anymore, because we're done.   As we read you can tell she loves her brother if she didn’t care she wouldn’t have made an effort to go see Angelo and beg for his life. Not see the other point of view and are not thinking clearly.  The main issue of this play is how selfish the people are in this play. The self is greater than the whole. Claudio and Isabella are better off without one another. In this play, nothing is sacred. We see how our true selves come to light when we encounter certain situations.  In addition, a relationship between siblings can become damaged and two people who are supposed to love one another turn against each other. That is the issue I have with these two “siblings”.  

Measure for Measure is Flat Out Flat

One problem I have with some of Shakespeare's work is lack of development. I understand that he wants to write what he wants to write, and the parts he chooses to flush out are amazing, but I'm left with several questions that I would really need answered if I were to understand this play. 

I need more development here. Angelo is the worst character here, but that's kind of thrown in our faces without any backstory or precedent, so it's difficult for me to immerse myself in this play and see more than what we're given on the surface. We get this apex of tension with Isabella and Angelo arguing quite early in the play, which makes the play move rather quickly. It might just be me, but I don't feel like I know everyone quite well enough yet. Where Shakespeare's thoughtfulness shines through is his dialogue. The confrontation between Angelo and Isabella is such a well-written scene, as it sets the situation up, explains the characters, and builds into an early climax for the play. That being said, I just don't approach this scene with the same level of interest as I would another play that had been written with more development. I'm not swayed either way, except of course I thought Angelo was slimy and gross. 

I think my main problem is that this play is rather flat. I was turned off by the fact that deception is the pervasive theme here. There is a presented and acknowledged problem, and all the characters are woven into this web of lies in order to solve it. In the end, Claudio is spared, but what is actually accomplished? The Duke reveals his disguised self, proposes to Isabella, and sentenced Lucio to marry the woman who comes forth with claims of his child. Angelo is pardoned, and Isabella doesn't have a chance to respond. The play just ends. It reads like a deus ex machina style play, with the last-minute interference of the Duke, but it has all the closure of a kid who closes his/her toybox when they get bored of playing. The good aren't really rewarded, the evil don't get their comeuppance, and no characters really learn any lessons. 

I felt as though I was watching from outside a house here, not knowing the full story or who each character is. 

How did y'all feel about this? Did the story seem to fall flat? Why? Why not? Is the ending too thrown together?

Not a Fan

The brother sister relationship in this play is so strange, neither sibling is willing to sacrifice for the other, understandably, and the shifting of opinions and actions is a little bit unbelievable. Claudio in particular seems to shift his feelings and opinions often. Also I find the the general sexual nature of this play a little boring, it's the entire force behind the plot. I forget Shakespeare was a crude guy when reading Hamlet or MacBeth but this play proves it. I want to talk about Isabella's character a bit in this blog post. Against the sexual overtone of the entire play she is a stark contrast clinging to her virginity and her virtue. The play tries to cast her as rigid and prude because she will not give up her virginity to save her brother, which is a very strange and uncomfortable position to be put in. I find that in most of Shakespeare's tragedies the main female characters are either cast as villains or victims. His female characters in his comedies seem to have less rigid boundaries, however Isabella is still written as a very one dimensional character with very limited choice in her own life.

Angelo is obviously the most despicable character in the play, but I wish Shakespeare had given him more reason to be how he is. I know it is a play so we cannot have pages of character development but I think he would be a better character if we were given more definite motives for his actions. Why does he want to have sex with Isabella in particular? This might have a lot to do with the trope of men wanting to take virgin girls virginity because they are threatened by their control over their own bodies. I think Angelo is probably feeling threatened by Isabella’s conviction in what she believes in.

There is a lot of debate on if Isabella’s decision not to save her brother is justified. I believe it is totally justified, she does not owe anyone anything, especially not something so personal and sacred to her own identity. Also it is not as if she would sacrifice for her brother, she actually states that she would give her life to save him if possible, just not her virginity. Which is understandable. It would be a violation of her own body while giving her life would be her choice. Also Claudio seemed pretty comfortable with dying for a while, what happened to that? The solution the characters come up with seems like a good idea. However I do feel bad for Mariana who has to marry Angelo. Ugh I am not a fan of Shakespeare's comedies.