Measure for Measure B Question

Question 1

A1:S2

Answer 1

1. Commentary on legality in Vienna
   - Comically undermines the absurdity of the laws that Angelo has laid down - even the most morally depraved that Claudio is a man among boys - compared to armour that hasn’t been used for 19 years - even in contemporary conservative England this was unheard of
   - commonplace - all houses in the suburbs, wise burgher put in for them, change indeed in the commonwealth
   - ‘tis surely for a name’ - arbitrary nature and futility of Angelo’s rule - Claudio calls Authority a demi god, in how it has divine power to punish people but is still susceptible to human faults - similar to absolute monarchy, where people with power can choose how they use that power
   - Claudio also notes that humans are predisposed to sin - yet the lightest sin born out of love and the beautiful thing of pregnancy is now seen as evidence of a crime
   - a lot of descriptions of moral degradation, and the people are cavalier in the purchasing of sex workers - three thousand dolours (pain), a french crown (disease humour), bones are hollow which is both a representation of syphilis but of morality as well because they are eaten up from the inside etc.
   - vienna has other concerns like diseases and a war, yet Angelo focuses on a killing a singular man - justice is dependent on who has the most power
2. Presentation of Lucio - not trustworthy
   - but also foreshadows how all the characters set their own laws
   - and thou the velvet - symbolises syphillis and Lucia’s depravity
   - unconvinced that Claudio went to jail which might be a commentary on how men don’t listen to women
   - asks if sex is like murder
3. Feminism
   - Madonna-Whore dichotomy - Mistress ‘Overdone’ describes how her dehumanisation is created for being part of the sex industry - only description is bawd - facetiously called madam mitigation
   - Claudio wants Isabella to sell herself away for him, incredibly misogynistic - difference between contemporary and modern audiences is that in the past they would agree w Claudio since a woman’s duty is to the men in her life - greatest value of a woman is her beauty
   - but also Claudio has the opportunity to publicly defend himself yet Juliet must do so privately to a friar - expectation placed upon men

Technical Aspects:
- commentary on the needlessly strict rules and regulations that follow Puritan Doctrine
- use of chorus to establish the environment of Vienna - moral and sexual depravity existent here
- use of gossiping and other characters to tell the narrative perhaps shows how the public sentiment is outside Angelo’s control
- Claudio mostly speaks in verse
- comparison simile of rats, where too much of a good thing is a bad thing
- Fricative in the coppery of freedom describes a form of disgust

Audience Response:
- Modern audiences may compare this to the modern sex worker industry or to modern forms of feminism that prioritise female autonomy and choice feminism - such discrimination may seem unwarranted

Question 2

A1:S3

Answer 2

1. Motif of disguise and the Duke’s Mischief
   - dramatic irony
   - falls for Isabella at the end
   - ‘Duke’ is lent power in the form a friar, shows how authority can be granted even through disguise and thus is arbitrary by nature
   - Duke is using Angelo to do the dirty work for him, to keep his name out of slander since he has for far too long allowed this depravity to reign supreme - perhaps he knows Angelo has done wrong in the past, and knows if ‘power changes purpose, what our seemers be’, setting Angelo up for failure to cleanse his name
   - dramatic irony and also foreshadowing the big question in the play of how Angelo succumbs to corruption
   - question lies in whether the Duke is responsible, or a manipulative coward who recklessly misuses power
2. Abuse of religion
   - how religion is manipulated for either stately matters or for personal interests
   - ‘he who the sword of heaven bears, should be as holy as severe’, yet abuses it himself
   - omniscience in observing everyone almost connects him to a sort of god - shows how authority believes itself to have divine power - also sets the scene for his puppeteering
   - importance of friarship is that it allows him to access private spaces where people admit their worst sins - this deception creates comedy later on with Lucio as well
3. Surveillance and Order
   - Angelo, and Vienna
   - ‘a man of firm stricture and abstinence’ foreshadows Angelo’s depravity
   - tests Angelo, thus suggesting that power without oversight is dangerous - this however comes into contrast with the idea of leadership being passed around willy nilly at the sacrifice of the people i.e. Angelo is tested at the expense of Claudio’s life - duke plays with the fate of the city
   - moral solution to Vienna’s problems? - he acts on a moral or ethical level to reveal people’s true character, critiquing Angelo’s moral hypocrisy while coming into touch with human compassion and nuance with Isabella, an interesting balance which comments on the moral balance of governance - complexity of human nature and moral gray areas
   - law is described as oergrown and as a rod threatening a kid - metaphors and personification of the strict laws that have been left idle, difficult to enforce - in fact are mocked like a father using a twig like a cane - all hell has broken loose in Vienna
   - maybe go deeper into religion and Angelo’s chain garter

Technical Aspects:
- sets up the dramatic irony for the rest of the play
- commentary on puritan doctrine and the abuse of power allowed for religious authority? - blurring the line between legal justice and spiritual guidance
- immediate entry connotes a visible shift from public to private space, from institutional authority to covert observation
- motif of disguise tells us that identity is fluid and that power is arbitrary, in the way that it is passed from individual to individual
- monologue - true insight into the Duke’s ambitions and thoughts

Audience Response:
- sees through the Duke’s plan, dramatic irony - perhaps questions the abuse of power and religion
- could note the Duke’s manipulation - justice operating in secrecy suggests dangerous connotations for a modern society, since he is using deception to control others while acting morally superior - but is also a critique of authoritarianism
- Jacobean audiences could note this as commentary on monarchical surveillance, absolute monarchy and divine rule, alongside question the relationship between church and state
- engages the audience as part of an overarching insight into the Duke’s plan, but also invites but us and the duke into the moral dimension of the play with an ability to evaluate all characters equally

Question 3

A2:S3

Answer 3

1. Abuse of disguise
   - question of whether the Duke’s disguise and deception is good because its created an equal outcome in spite of its self serving nature - morally wrong because he would originally never be able to access these secrets
   - almost slips up lol by knowing the provost
   - being a friar allows him into any space he likes, shows how religion has its way of invading any space it wishes to, perhaps critiquing that fact
2. Claudio and Juliet’s true love in the face of hypocritical justice
   - blistered both morally and physically
   - note the double standard of misogyny here, where women are expected to be the gatekeepers of morality - Juliet here is blamed for the sin because she fell in the flaws of her youth, and so even if both sin, she sins harder
3. Mercy and Justice
   - Equalized justice for all the minor characters, shows a true form of democracy that listens to the stories of everyone equally
   - perhaps as a friar, shows an idea of repentance and remorse and God’s true mercy as described by Isabella
   - juliet arguably receives a harsher penalty, where she is forced to live - showing the double standard held over women in terms of justice

Technical Aspects:

Audience Response:
- conflagration of church and state is problematic, and a contemporary audience would note this as a critique of King James’ Puritan Doctrine, in how the use of religion to influence the people is morally flawed
- expectation placed upon the duke, as we now know he is privy to inside information about the punishment and expect him to fix the balance of power that created these injustices

Question 4

A4:S1,2,3

Answer 4

1. Injustice
   - Marianna is in a moated grange, where she has been robbed of her place in society because of Angelo’s spurning
   - yet she is still deferential to the friar unlike her purview of being a whore - shes loyal, religious and polite, which further encapsulates the madonna-whore dichotomy
   - Marianna ends up being a pawn to be used by the Duke and Angelo and Isabella, which highlights how sad this is
   - the other side is Claudio and Barnardine, where even if Claudio is undeserving, he is still obedient
2. Angelo’s morality
   - Angelo when talking to Isabella in this later scene is whispering and guilty, which is different from the Angelo that came on to Isabella, which shows how he is still in a crisis of morality where he is not weak enough to not know its wrong, but weak enough to fall to his temptations
   - technically Isabella and the Duke are committing sins by leading Angelo to sin, which creates a moral conundrum bc why is Isabella ok w this - but the Duke says its okay, which again shows how he can bend morality according to what suits him best
3. Duke
   - after fulfilling Angelo’s carnal desires, expected to uphold his side of the bargain, which shows the Duke sewing the seeds of Angelo’s downfall - this is the last chance that the Duke gives to Angelo to see if he upholds his word, but also the first point the Duke doesn’t have control, manifesting in his questions and the Provost’s refusal
   - compares himself to a the star of bethlehem, again with the divine connections and his egotistical self - blurring the line between the monarchy and the divine, and so he incites faith from the Provost just as how one might keep faith with God
   - Duke returns to his mantle of the Duke to ultimately get his way, showing how he uses the civilians like pawns to get what he wants - Machiavellan in how he wants to paint himself as the hero - in this way he also withholds information from Isabella, so that he can come out as the hero - antithetical to Angelo because he wants Isabella to unveil her chastity in public for his own purpose, self servient compared to Angelo’s pure justice that does not care about the people’s perception
   - He describes his machinations with grandeur in how ere twice the sun hath made his journal greeting
   - the Duke also wants to be returned his mantle of the Duke in public, because true power lies in what the people give to authority - the gates are important as it is a passageway which is symbolism of the transition of power which will look good on the Duke when Isabella brings down Angelo - a utilitarian approach to governance since people will cosy up to him
4. Executioner smth
   - Executioner, which kills people, is seen as more moral than a bawd - shows how the State gets to decide what is lawful and wrong and what is moral and immoral - maybe also because one asks for forgiveness, which reinforces the Christian comparisons
   - apparently the sins of a bawd and an executioner are equal - but then what is justice if one is punished? but also the Provost is a voice of reason and empathy here by being able to judge both as being the same, which perhaps is an embodiment of Shakespeare’s voice
   - but with Barnardine, even the Duke is unaware of his sentence, perhaps showing that while Angelo is unjust, he is effective
   - Morally delapidated people all in the prisons, which just shows how intertwined the sex trade is within the culture of Vienna - Angelo represents a black and white, indiscriminate justice, vs the Duke’s lax justice, essentially making them two sides of the same coin
   - Barnardine is also just extremely recalcitant - incarceration seems to have no purpose in rehabilitation
5. Lucio
   - says it was easier to deny it was his baby because he didn’t want to marry - shows how mother and child have no worth to society if the father doesn’t want them - the rotten medlar that he calls his wife is incredibly dehumanising
   - people in the sex industry forced to help each other out bc of societal vices

Technical Aspects:
- marianna speaks in verse, so shows she has a good upbringing and is proper
- Angelo’s garden is secluded, which reflects how he’s secretive and closed off - perhaps shows how he thinks he is better than the sinful masses - only Isabella has the key, which also represents how she is the only one who knows who Angelo is on the inside - the darkness in this description also represent his secrecy and darkness, where only Marianna and Isabella will have seen who he is and can/will enter

Audience Response: