Sexuality in the Elizabethan plays: Measure for Measure and The Duchess of Malfi - Essay Example

?Introduction Sex has always been a part of theater. However, how sex is portrayed in the theater is evolving. Elizabethan drama showed that sex was a destabilizing influence on the theater because of the way that sex was portrayed, or, in the case of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, satirized. In the case of The Duchess of Malfi, sex and the strict laws surrounding sex had tragic consequences. In both of these plays, the mores of the audience was reflected in the theater, and these theater pieces took the mores and used them as a reflection of what should not be occurring, thus reflecting back to the audience the folly of their strict views on sexuality. Thus, the mores of society were deconstructed and destabilized, and the mores of these plays reflected back upon society a new way of thinking of sexuality, thus destabilizing society as well. This paper will examine how two Elizabethan plays, Measure for Measure and The Duchess of Malfi accomplished this, as they reflected and destabilized sexuality, thus radicalizing society to accept more loose versions of sexuality then they were accustomed to. Content Sex is definitively a destabilizing force in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. Sex is the basis of the destabilizing of society which is the foundation of the play. As we begin the play, moral corruption is rife in the city of Vienna, so much so that the Duke has to deputize a moral prig, Angelo, to act in the Duke’s place, a role that Angelo takes all too well to heart. The corruption is epitomized by Claudio, who got a woman pregnant out of wedlock and Lucio, a man of loose morals who keeps company with prostitutes and pimps. Because Claudio got a woman pregnant, and Angelo is determined to make an example of somebody, Claudio is sentenced to death (Shakespeare). Here, Shakespeare seems to show the hypocrisy of a society which is built upon dubious morality laws which are arbitrary and based upon a capricious moral code. Claudio is apparently a monogamous fellow, as there is not any indication that he has had sexual relations outside of his relationship with Juliet. In fact, by all appearances, the two are in love, Claudio and Juliet. On the other hand, Lucio appears to be somebody who really is a corrupting force in society, for Lucio actively encourages the sex trade by hanging around the pimps and prostitutes in town. Yet Claudio is in trouble, not Lucio. If sex is truly destabilizing to a society, then the only kind of sex which has this kind of effect is the kind of sex with which Lucio is involved, not the kind in which Claudio is involved – “even those historicists who use Measure for Measure as a key text in their studies of early modern English culture tend to treat religion as a conservative and stable orthodoxy in the service of the state and monarchy” (Diehl, 1998, p. 394) and monogamous sex is a cornerstone of religious practice. The commentary here is that Angelo is targeting the wrong person in Claudio. If Angelo really wanted to “clean up the streets” so to speak, he would have targeted Lucio. He did not, therefore Angelo is not doing anything about the destabilizing influence illicit sex has on the city. On the other hand, the play introduces Isabella, who is the sister of Claudio. Isabella is a chaste and pure lady who virtuously refuses Angelo sexual favors, which is the price Angelo wants to exact to free Claudio. Isabella apparently has principles regarding her sexuality, yet some commentators find the character priggish and self-righteous. For instance, Skura (2008) states that ther were many who were offended by Isabella’s stance against sleeping with Angelo – “many were offended, for example, by Isabella’s priggish goodness and blamed Shakespear for contradictions in his heroine” (Skura, 2008, p. 40). That Isabella was shown to be virtuous, yet this is treated with contempt by some commentators, shows that sexuality is a further destabilizing influence in this play. Like Claudio, Isabella really has done nothing wrong, except refuse to sleep with the shady Angelo in order to save her brother’s life. Yet she is an object of contempt. This suggests that, for some commentators, there is something which is somehow wrong with a woman who will not trade sexual favors to save the neck of her brother, and that the willing and wonton trading of such sexual favors is a desirable thing. Perhaps these commentators see free and easy sex to be a staple in society, both modern and Elizabethan, and this sort of immoral trading of sex can only work to destabilize society, because sex is being actively divorced from any act of love or procreation in this scenario, and this does not provide a sense of stability to society. Like Claudio, who is being punished, despite not being sexually promiscuous, Isabella does not come up sympathetic. Yet, so far, the depraved Lucio seems to be no worse for the wear. Misogyny is another destabilizing factor which is loosely based upon sex, in that misogyny is the ill treatment and hatred of women, therefore it affects only one sex. Because misogyny is sex-based, it can also be examined as a destabilizing influence on society. A society which is misogynistic will necessarily be unbalanced, therefore unstable, because, basically, 50% of the population is oppressed in such a scenario. Rackin (2000) argues that Shakespeare was misogynistic and obsessed with the fact that women cannot control their sexuality. Because of this, his plots tend to center around female chastity on one end, and references to cuckoldry on the other (Rackin, 2000, p. 44). In this case, Isabella is shown to be pious and chaste, which would be seen by Rackin as an indication that Shakespeare cannot handle a woman’s uncontrolled sexuality, which shows Shakespeare to be a misogynist. Juliet, on the other hand, is not chaste and is not married, either. In the end, all the women are ordered married off, including Lucio’s whore, Juliet and Isabella. This is definitively showing Shakespeare’s desire to “tame the shrew” so to speak, as the women are all forced into a monogamous relationship, which means that they cannot display their budding sexuality. This desire to control women’s sexuality is seens by Rackin to be a sign of misogyny, which is, as indicated above, very destabilizing for a society because it results in the oppression of women. While the above argues about how sexuality is treated in Measure for Measure, while showing the hypocrisy of not targeting the kind of sex that would be destabilizing for society, while targeting the kind of sex which actually adds societal stability, The Duchess of Malfi has more commentary on how sex can be radically destabilizing in society. As with Measure for Measure, The Duchess of Malfi makes a commentary on a society which treats monogamous sex as destabilizing influence on society, and, as with Measure for Measure, Duchess shows the hypocriscy of this kind of treatment of sexuality. Duchess features a woman who is widowed, yet remarries and bears three children to her new husband. This is seen as a sin by her brothers, who imprison and kill her (Webster). Mikesell (2010) argues that this was a product of the times, in that widows were not expected to remarry, and, in fact, were actively discouraged from doing so. However, Mikesell acknowledges that, even in Elizabethan society, it was not uncontroversial that a widow would be counseled to remain chaste, as different segments of society thought different about this matter (Mikesell, 2010, p. 267). Therefore, Duchess deals with similar themes as Measure for Measure. Like Measure for Measure, Duchess deals with the hypocrisy of a society which would condemn monogamous sex, in this case married sex, which is supposed to be a stabilizing influence on society. As with Measure for Measure, Duchess seems misogynistic. There is no indication that the society portrayed in Duchess would have the same restrictions against a widower not remarrying or remaining chaste, so this shows that the play has a running undercurrent or misogyny. Kim (2005) states that this is a show of “violent male oppression and a symbol of patriarchal power” (Kim, 2005, p. 130). However, because the play seeks to show the ill consequences of these actions of hypocrisy and misogyny, in that, unlike Measure, there is no happy ending as the Duchess is killed by her own brothers, yet these brothers are avenged by their own consciences and a courtier who was loyal to them, Duchess actually is more of a commentary against these actions then was Measure. While these plays show the stabilizing and destabilizing effect that sexuality has on society, in that they were commentaries about the persecution of those whos sexuality, being monogamous, should be a stabilizing influences yet is persecuted with a zeal that should be reserved for uncontrollable sex, as with the sex trade, these plays also show how sexuality affected the theater during this time as well. The theater was a reflection of society, yet, as the same time, it was a commentary on this same society. These plays showed the audience how and why sexuality is condemned and persecuted, and showed the audience how this was wrong. In this way, these plays depiction of sexuality as a thing to be persecuted acted as a way to destabilize society’s thinking on the matter, in that society was geared towards thinking that out of wedlock sex is the basis of an unstable society, yet these plays shows the dangers of thinking this way. In this way, the sexuality which is portrayed in these plays, especially Duchess, as Duchess had tragic consequences for the self-righteous brothers who killed the Duchess, helped to radicalize society into thinking in a different way. Duchess would help to destabilize thinking that widows have to be forever chaste, by showing the consequences of killing a woman to enforce this code. Measure would similarly serve to destabilize thinking about out of wedlock sexuality by juxtaposing the harsh treatment of Claudio with the lenient treatment of Lucio. Conclusion Sexuality was a radical destabilizing force in early theater in that it gave an impetus for the playwrights to show the hypocrisy of a society which is based upon arbitrary sexual mores. It destabilized the theater in that the plays no longer had to portray a strict code of morality as being always just and right, while, at the same time, these plays took this destabilization factor and put it outward into society. Just as society shapes the theater, in that the current mores are the basis for the theaters’ fundamentals, the theater shaped society. In this case, the theater’s impact upon society would be to show how arbitrary certain sexuality laws are, and that monogamous sex is not the foundation of the breakup of society, even if this sex is out of wedlock, as in Measure, or in wedlock after widowhood, as in Duchess. Therefore, evolving sexuality served to not only destabilize the portrayal of sex in the theater but society itself. Sources Used Diehl, H. (1998) “Infinite Space”: Representation and reformation in Measure for Measure. Shakespear Quarterly, 49(4), 393-410. Kim, H. (2005) The ocular impulse and the politics of violence in The Duchess of Malfi. Available at: http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/mesak/mes131/HwaSeonKim.pdf Mikesell, M. (2010) Catholic and protestant widows in The Duchess of Malfi. Available at: https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/renref/article/view/12396/9263 Rackin, P. (2000) Misogyny is everywhere. Available at: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~prackin/misogyny.pdf Shakespeare, W. (2010) Measure for Measure. In The Works of William Shakespeare, vol. 9. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Skura, M. (1979) New interpretation for interpretation in Measure for Measure. Boundary 2, 7(2), 39-60.. Webster, J. (1937) The Duchess of Malfi. In Harvard Classics: Elizabethan Drama, vol. 2. New York: P.F. Collier & Son Corp. Read More