Isabella AO1/AO5 Pairs Flashcards
(4 cards)
• In this scene, Isabella pleads with Angelo to stop Claudio’s execution
• She repeats to Angelo that her chastity is worth more than her brother’s life
Analysis
• Isabella emphasises the value of her chastity in an emphatic sentence which places the words “live” and “chaste” beside each other
• This line comments on the power and influence Isabella gains by her virtuous sexuality
• The oxymoronic comparison of “live” and “die” signifies her belief that her chastity is equivalent to life:
• This highlights the limited autonomy of Jacobean women
Quote + 2 named criticisms of Isabella’s valuation of chastity
AO2: “Live chaste, and brother die/ More than our brother is our chastity” (2,4)
AO5: “More than our brother is our chastity is a formal statement of belief rather than an inner revelation of feeling” (Emma Smith, 2010?)
AO5: Isabella’s preoccupation with her chastity shows “spiritual arrogance” (Darryl Gless, 1945-2015)
Isabella on Claudio’s mental state in (2,2), using ingenious ‘reason and discourse’ to plead his case
Critic picking up on Isabella’s assimilation of the Duke’s watchful qualities
“He’s not prepared for death. Even for our kitchens/ We kill the fowl of season; shall we serve heaven/ With less respect than we do minster/ To our gross selves
Stephenson identifies that Isabella is “the panoptic guard; it is she who watches the Duke, the Duke who capitulates under the female gaze”
She also suggests that “it is Isabella who becomes the voyeur” (in 5,1)
Isabella commenting on Angelo’s virtuous outward appearance against the grimy reality of his inward corruption and licentiousness
“Seeming, seeming!/ I will proclaim thee, Angelo, look for ‘t”
Irene McGarrity vituperatively puts forward that Isabella “is holding a hollow sculpture of virtue to hide inside of” (Irene McGarrity)
Isabella (perceptibly) slightly alters her position on Angelo, presenting his hypocrisy/ sin as a mercurial, one-off event. In support of Mariana, who pleads against Angelo’s death in (5,1)
“I partly think/ A due sincerity governed his deeds/Till he did look on me”
Kent Lanowski: “Isabella wanted Angelo dead, and justly so. However, if she ever desires mercy upon her brother, she must experience a conversion to mercy in her own heart, a conversion that extends mercy to her enemies”
