Book Review: Measure for Measure
'“Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all!
Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall”
So… hi. It’s been a while. I know, I know. But I’ve been a cocktail of emotions recently. Some good. Some pretty bad. And, I’ve just not had the strength to pick up a good book. Or any book for that matter. But I thought I’d take it easy this time and sink my teeth into a good ol’ fashioned play. Shakespeare to be exact! What could possibly go wrong from reading a lil’ bit o’ the bard? Turns out quite a lot. I didn’t pick up a comedy as I’d hoped. This is a… you know I’m not 100% sure. It reads like one fucked up family soap opera but ends as a comedy? Was Shakespeare on mushrooms?!?!?
Okay, so everyone (apart from me) knows that Measure for Measure is one of Shakespeare’s problem plays. And WHY is it a problem play? I hear you ask! Because is it ever okay to let your darling little sister submit to being raped to save your worthless-good-for-nothing-fuck-boy life? Short answer ‘No’. Long answer ‘Noooooooooooooooooo’ but hay. It’s Shakespeare. All’s well that ends well. No?
Right so why does our oh so charmant man-of-the-fuck-boy moment do that means he may die (his name, if you don’t like ‘fuck boy’ is Claudio) Well he’s been cheeky and fallen in love with a maid (well not anymore) called Juliet. And she is now with child. Okay, I concede ‘fuck boy’ may be a little harsh. It seems like the feelings between Juliet and Claudio are mutual. So why not just… get married? It’s not hard. But apparently it is when the ruler of the city: The Duke, leaves. And now we have a temporary ruler (the duke will be back) Angelo. Who… well he’s a prick. The worst kind. The hypocritical kind.
Angelo wants power and with the Duke temporarily gone. He has it and to cement his power he will enforce that very old and awfully outdated law (even by 21st century standards) of having sex with a woman out of wedlock. I know. It’s mad. But it takes us back to Claudio! Who hails his noble sister Isabella to intercede with Angelo on his behalf. And she willingly does so. But as I’ve said Angelo is a prick. And the minute he sees Isabella. He wants her. Not in the romantic sense. Ahem. This is what JW had to say after their meeting, and it makes my skin crawl “is this her fault, or mine? The tempter or the tempted?… Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary, and pitch our evils there?”
So, it looks like Isabella is in a little bit of a pickle. And, sure we like Claudio. We do. But my resolve gets tested. Isabella goes to see him in prison and tells him about Angelo. Now Angelo said he will spare Claudio’s life on the condition that she, Isabella, sleeps with him. To which she says no, obviously. But Claudio, oh Claudio, begs her to save him. Begs and begs. Okay, sure desperate times and all that… but really?!?!? Your own sister?!?! Did I mention she training to be a nun?
But hooray for the Duke! For he hasn’t really gone but chosen to observe the city in disguise. And has this witnessed Angelo being a power hungry mongrel. He proposes a solution, well tricks. First Isabella is to let Angelo believe that she will sleep with him but only in silence and in the dark. At which point Marianna will be in the bed not Isabella (as Angelo refuses to marry her because of her dowry - it was a different time) and it would consummate their marriage – like Claudio and Juliet. The second is to substitute Claudio’s head with that of another to fool Angelo. And it all works! And Angelo is feeling a bit of a fool. Good! He is also unmasked by the Duke as the villain he truly is, and is sentenced to death. Yet he is spared (most unfortunate) because Marianna loves him (heaven knows why). And we end with another little conundrum, the duke asks Isabella to marry him, but she offers no reply. It is normally assumed that she says yes. But how can we be sure? As this is a comedy, the base assumption would be yes. But to a 21st century audience how’re we to know? Perhaps in certain productions they like to leave it as s cliffhanger. Which I would applaud was it takes advantage of the ambiguity. But PLEASE! Let the woman speak.
All in all, it was an odd foray back into literature. I really need to read something happy.