Shakespeare's Measure for Measure - Book Report/Review Example

Running Head: "MEASURE FOR MEASURE" Justice In "Measure For Measure" By ______________ Shakespeare's measure for measure is no doubt aplay highlighting the principles of justice and injustice and at the same time the play provides several reasons to go through vengeance and justice. Every character in a play is presented as a symbol of justice, who is always willing to perform just as to gain justice. No one has ever read or seen 'Measure for Measure' without experiencing some bewilderment especially when it comes to fairness. Even on first acquaintance, the variety of impressions gives a disquieting effect on the reader or on the audience; and it is for sure that one feels graver displeasure on the part of such issues of the play, which had to be resolved at the utmost. The extent to which the concept of justice is involved in the play can be determined individually as every person who has read or watched the play possesses his own perceptions regarding integrity of the play. It depends how the audience has perceived several critical issues which otherwise would not had considered by the then authors of Shakespeare's era. Like the concern for 'sexuality' in Vienna, it seems as "Measure for Measure" has more concerned with sexuality rather than the issue of 'justice'. Any way, as the topic requires analysis and examination of 'justice' or 'injustice' in "Measure for Measure", we would start examining each character of the play in the light of this context. Claudio is such a character, which has given rise to injustice in the play by impregnating Juliet (his fiance). When we examine Claudio, several questions arise here like first if Claudio was aware of the new strict law, why he attempted to take such an act. This refers to the fact that he did not respect the law. Secondly, Duke has left in charge Angelo just to view how Angelo would handle things in his absence. Angelo started taking laws in his own hands by imposing different punishments to those who misuse freedom according to his perception. Shakespeare has portrayed Lord Angelo as a symbol of prejudice and chauvinism, which can be analysed by considering conflicting situations of Angelo's behaviour. On one hand Angelo enforced the law of 'sex' as unlawful and sentenced Claudio to death for having sex with Juliet, whereas on the other when Claudio's sister Isabella arrives to settle down the dispute with Angelo and asks him to pardon his brother, he simply suggests her a way that if she agrees to have sexual relation with Angelo, he would let her brother live. How hilarious it looks that law enforcers themselves become a symbol of injustice and immorality. Shakespeare defines it as "The deputy invokes an old law which had not been used in nineteen years, and for this offence sentences Claudio to be executed in three days. The same day on which this judgment is passed is the one on which Isabella, sister to Claudio, is to enter a cloister. On hearing of her brother's trouble, she determines to petition the deputy for his life". (Shakespeare, 1909, p. 3) Shakespeare's contribution to the development of this story consists in the relation of the events and characters to their background and the background refers to the whole of the space commanded by the group of characters on which imagination is invited to dwell, and the use to which the dramatist puts it. Angelo, Claudio and Isabella occupy their share of world which is subjected towards injustice comprising of conflicting situations like experiencing good and evil, joy and sorrow, justice and injustice mingled with endless variety of proportion and innumerable modes of combination. Isabella who is a religious lady and is about to become a nun, despite all the morals just for the sake of her brother's life agrees with Angelo. This, when seen from a judicial point of view is another injustice in the play. Isabella meets the Duke regarding the situation and receives a suggestion from the duke from where the play experiences turning point and starts revealing justice. Actually the play portrays the Duke as a symbol of impartiality in a bias environment. Environment where justice is nowhere except the Duke, the only hope of justice. In most of the parts of the story, the person who at the close redresses wrong is no more than a symbol of justice, and has hardly been heard of until he is called on to perform that function. Shakespeare has indeed presented the Duke at the end, but is content to offer the conventional portrait of an ideal ruler, as it recurs throughout the "Measure for Measure" likewise a pattern commander; each has delegated authority in the course of administrative routine. However, the concerns that are different over here is the representation of supreme authority which is far more prominent than his predecessors that was to be expected, given the larger scale; but he is much less easy to understand. The Duke is more vociferous than any other character in the play, but what he utters is harder to construe, for he joins to enigmatic behavior ambiguous comment, and mutually contradictory explanations of his purpose. Whereas the absence of the ruler had been explained indirectly in practical terms, or passed over as not worth explaining, the Duke announces that his withdrawal is of choice, and that he has reasons for it. This announcement is just to analyse the extent of justice his people and his town follows. The Duke's caution has troubled some whose very prejudices are worth hearing. It has been censured as bad divinity. Claudio is invited to regard life as an unwanted gift, of which a well-judging man will gladly disembarrass himself and may do so, for good and all, by death. This accords strangely with the religious habit, which the Duke has put on, as there were elements in the context with which he may not have reckoned. We have only lately learned how curious an amalgam of moral precepts drawn from ancient philosophy, the Bible and the writings of the fathers, would be set in circumstances where Isabella is in a bias situation whether to accept Angelo's offer or not. Even in the end when the Duke proposes Isabella, this issue possesses in it a great injustice, which is often ignored by the audience or spectators. We all know that Isabella is going to enter such a religious emblem, which does not allow marriage or any sexual act at all. Despite of knowing this she is asked for marriage by the Duke, which in itself is a severe injustice not only to the society but also to the religion. Shakespeare has written the play keeping in view the sixteenth-century moralists who, however, were sometimes contented to accept from ancient philosophy precepts pointing towards conduct in keeping with Christian doctrine; whether these pointed anywhere else, beyond or beside the approved aim, they seem not to have asked for. The play has no doubt challenged the Christian doctrine and in this sense is the greatest injustice it has done to the Christian doctrine. In another sort of context, this passage is certainly apposite; and yet a doubt attends this very suitability. The Duke warns Claudio against setting an inordinate value on life; in terms, which would not disconcert that first audience, he invites him to ask himself the price of such commodity. The question is very much to the purpose supposing only that the speaker knows Isabella to be coming, and on what errand she comes. When the Duke acts as a messenger of justice and tells Claudio that Angelo has never meant to corrupt Isabella his only intention was to examine her virtue and to practice his judgment with the disposition of natures; and when he goes on to exhort him: he is saying something which, if spoken by an actual person, could not be called anything but a lie; but, spoken by a fictitious person of a particular sort, may fairly bear another title. He deliberately misinforms his hearer inside the play, presenting him with information, which on his own reckoning is false for he has no doubt whatever as to Angelo's purpose, and every intention of preventing it. Nevertheless, he is informing us, his hearers outside the play presenting us with information which, on his own computation, should eventually prove true; for his words carry an intimation of what he means to fashion out of the situation even, in some sort, what he has already made of it. In his design this is how those characters who have hitherto carried the play's burden are now situated: whereas Angelo has insisted, Isabella has admitted, and Claudio has believed that it is in her hand that his life lies, to give or to withhold, it now becomes plain that his hope of escaping death must lie elsewhere. Nothing remains for Isabella to keep or to surrender; no decision now rests with her that burden has been lifted from her. The play tells us the extent to which the Duke is subjected towards justice, equality and truthfulness at the end of the play. This justice that is depicted in the Duke's character enables us to think positively towards traditional truths as it is due to the justice granted by the Duke that everything in the end goes fine as in the case of Claudio, despite all the laws breaking and all his misdeeds he is pardoned by the Duke and the time being in charge Angelo is granted forgiveness. In this respect when we analyse Duke's principles of justice we come to know the following points: Duke has learned and followed through the centuries, there has been a very marked reluctance to give meaningful recognition to the right of the citizen to speak his or her mind freely on the administration of justice. Strengthening this official reluctance and acting at times as a corollary to it there has also been an ingrained reluctance on the part of his people generally to concern itself very much with the administration of justice. This thinking kept him in maintaining friendly relations with his administration and the general public due to which he practiced freedom in Vienna. Duke is the main and only symbol of justice in 'unfair' society which can be proved that during his reign despite of practicing laws the underlying idea of free speech in legal matters, that is, the free imparting of information about the processes of the law, was followed even on the part of those very judges involved in its actual suppression but there is a profound lack of communication between citizens and their administration of justice. It is due to Duke's leniency that Isabella dared to talk on her issue, freedom of speech in general receives generous recognition in the constitutions of the world. As a viable doctrine of meaningful control of state power, it exists in varying degrees of efficacy only in a small number of states. However, as far as freedom of speech specifically relates to scrutiny of the administration of justice, it does not even apply fully and effectively in that small minority of states. Apart from scattered references in judgments and books on either wider or more specialized topics, the concept of this freedom has nowhere really commended itself at all to serious study. It can hardly even be said that a separately identifiable concept of freedom of speech concerning the administration of justice has evolved in legal literature. When Isabella demanded justice from the Duke, these were here words: "Justice, O royal Duke! Vail your regard Upon a wrong'd, I would fain have said, a maid! O worthy prince, dishonor not your eye By throwing it on any other object Till you have heard me in my true complaint, And given me justice, justice, justice, justice"! (Shakespeare, 1909, p. 116) The Duke however provides justice in the end by suggesting proper means. The Duke's appearance before Angelo in the character of Friar Lodowick is charged with more significance than this. It makes intelligible the symbolism of the trial's opening, by opposing its image reversed. On his first appearance, in state, accompanied by his deputies, the Duke had been a symbol of power without knowledge; now he reappears as knowledge without power. Lucio is the touchstone: formerly he was irrepressible, now he is dangerous. The Duke, enthroned but unenlightened, had been unable to secure order; in disguise, he cannot ensure even his own safety. Sitting in state, he had deliberately shown himself to his audience within the play as one who, for want of better knowledge, must take the word of a seeker, of the man not yet found out Angelo's word; now he joins the sorry ranks of those who are at the mercy of the informer, the plausible, officious man Lucio's mercy. He knows now what is behind the fair shows of society. His description of Vienna is rather a token of this shocking discovery than a social document to be taken at the foot of the letter; he knows, but he cannot make his knowledge effectual. He can give expression to the dreadful irony of the situation, inherent in every version of the story: the victim, turning to the source of justice for redress of wrong, is confronted with the wrongdoer. He can, that is, see and speak, but he cannot act until, with the disclosure of his identity, knowledge and power are at last effectually joined. Reference William Shakespeare, 1909. "Measure for Measure": Publisher: Funk & Wagnalls. Place of Publication: New York. Read More