Measure for Measure Reader Response

Measure for Measure is truly a disturbing play. The characters engage in behavior that is not only highly deceptive and malicious, but potentially destructive as well. Shakespeare once again takes seemingly horrific situations and corrects them at the last second so that every character receives what they seem to deserve. Within this play, we are introduced to a wide variety of characters who represent certain elements of humanity. Shakespeare gives us characters who are solely dedicated to the arts of deception, love, cowardice, friendship, kinship, and power. However, it is within certain characters, like the Duke and Isabella, that we truly see a melding of these ideals into working personalities that are, in one moment, capable of intense kindness and loyalty, and yet in the very next moment, subscribing to hatred and deception.

The Duke was a very interesting character to me. Here is a man charged with running a city state that is in intense negotiations regarding its safety and he takes time to disguise himself and walk amongst his people. I understand his logic of trying to understand Angelo as well as the mentality of his people, but his actions seem a bit overdone. His decision to do this speaks to his position and character, as he less resembles a leader and seems more like a child playing with toys for his own amusement, or even a father attempting to discipline his children. Of all the male characters in the play, he is the most put-together, and yet he is the most destructive, as he seems to have no real respect for his subjects. This can be seen in his decision to go out in disguise:

We have strict statutes and most biting laws.

The needful bits and curbs to headstrong weeds,

Which for this nineteen years we have let slip;

Even like an o'ergrown lion in a cave,

That goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers,

Having bound up the threatening twigs of birch,

Only to stick it in their children's sight

For terror, not to use, in time the rod

Becomes more mock'd than fear'd; so our decrees,

Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead;

And liberty plucks justice by the nose;

The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart

Goes all decorum. (1.3.3)

In this scene, we truly see how the Duke views his people. He speaks of them as if they were always under his absolute control and the only reason that they have regressed this far was due to his lack of attention. He uses terms like "bits and curbs" to describe what the people need, as if they