Sunday, June 2, 2019

William Shakespeares Measure for Measure Essay -- Shakespeare measure

William Shakespe ars Measure for MeasureThe desires of the characters in Shakespeares Measure For Measure are not entirely clear, and are made ambivalent and ambiguous by the use of their language. Particularly in 3.1.52-153, when Isabella visits Claudio in prison, ambiguous lines and puns make it unclear whether Isabella desires Claudios death and whether he rattling desires to be free of sin. These desires were further convoluted by viewing the current Folger Theatre production of the play. Trade (151) is one pun which illuminates ideas about Claudios desires. Taken to call up an exchange, Isabella insinuates that Claudios sin and death are like the title of the play, a measure taken for a measure, or rather a punishment that fits the crime. However, Freuds notion of the fixation to repeat is evoked when the word is taken to mean a habit. Isabella insinuates Claudios perpetual sinning earlier when she comments that Claudios freedom would offend Angelo still (99) by c ontinuing his behavior. The excogitation of the death drive as a desire to return to the womb also emerges when Isabella warns Claudio that accepting Angelos offer Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear / And turn over you naked (70-71), the image of debarking a tree becoming a form of regression. Claudios response that he would encounter darkness as a bride / And hug it in his arms (82-3) is wholly ambivalent and ambiguous. It could be a straightforward admission to his desire for death, also showing that he readily accepts his punishment. Additionally falling downstairs Freuds philosophy, it could instead be an admission of his compulsion to repeat he would make love to death as his bride, just as he did to Juli... ... truly became steamy during his 15 line speech about the unsettledty of death. He was spotlighted during this passage, making it more like a soliloquy and therefore more honest. The audience was tooshie to his real fear of death and his desire to live, but then his pathetic supplication on his knees made my desire for him to die increase. What sin he refers to is of descent unclear in the text as well as in the production, and literally holding that line above the characters heads made it even more uncertain who was truly the sinner Claudio, Angelo, or Isabella? The audience was left feeling uncertain just as Claudio is about death, and Isabella is about her feelings towards whether her brother should die. Mostly this scene illuminates the popular desire for certainty, made even more apparent from the lighting change during Claudios soliloquy.

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