Critical Analysis: Measure for Measure

Measure for Measure is a dark comedy because of the acrimony, pessimism, and moral implications about Christianity that Shakespeare addresses in the play. Critics and scholars classify it as a problem play because the characters seek solutions to the problems that arise from misunderstandings due to secret identities. The idea that characters need to solve problems is separate from the moral implications in the play. Measure for Measure begs the question can moral leadership maintain an orderly society.

The Duke rules Vienna, though not with an iron fist. The Duke announces he is leaving Vienna for a time and leaves Angelo in charge. Then the Duke disguises himself as a friar and remains in Vienna to observe Angelo’s conduct. The actor who plays the Duke waffles between a man who wants to mind his subjects using whatever means necessary and a moral compass. Measure for Measure presents the Duke as a moral compass even though he is actively dishonest. The Duke manipulates others into acting as spies. The Duke wants to assess Angelo’s machinations and the manner when not supervised. The Duke takes a voyeuristic pleasure in observing Angelo otherwise the Duke would have simply unmasked himself and stopped Angelo’s scheming. The Duke of this production is not only a devious character he is also a bizarre and changeable man. The actor’s pensive reflections in the beginning of the play indicate that he doubted his actions even then. Any misgivings about the correctness of his actions are over-shadowed by delight in his own cleverness and an apparently the irresistible chance to play dress-up.

In a sense, the Duke becomes the purveyor of disorder through his manipulations. In order to restore order by rooting out corruption, the Duke must himself engage in the very same kind of deception in which Angelo engages for purposes of appropriating justice as not merely a tool for disguising his moral depravity, but also a tool by which he may exercise this depravity. Shakespeare expresses this paradoxical state of affairs is in Act II: "The tempter or the tempted, who sins most” (Shakespeare 2.2.162)? While Angelo’s temptations towards Isabella are viscerally contemptible, he is only able to indulge them fully as a result of the opportunity presented by the Duke’s supposed departure. In this sense, while the Duke’s disguise is what enables him to preclude the play’s most potentially unjust outcomes, it also represents a failure of leadership in that the potential for these outcomes would likely never have materialized but for the Duke disguising himself thereby tempting Angelo into an abuse of his authority.

The actor who portrayed Angelo at first seems a cautious man surprised by his sudden elevation to judge. As time passes, he grows into the position and becomes merciless. Then Isabella arrives to plead for her brother's life and Angelo is stunned. The actor’s interpretation of Angelo is that of a man madly in love. The character of Isabelle is interpreted as a woman with dogmatic moral values. Some actresses portray Isabelle as a prude. In this production, she is a woman who is as zealous about morality as Angelo is about justice. The sexual agreement Angelo tries to strike with Isabelle appears a misguided attempt to romance a woman he has no idea how to handle.

Shakespeare highlights the paradoxical moral state of affairs several times in the play, but no more aptly than it is in Act II, Sc. I: “Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall” (Shakespeare 2.1.42). The question then emerges: might the laws of God and man be insufficient to affect an ordered society? Alternatively, as Shakespeare puts it, “might there not be a charity in sin…?” (Shakespeare 2.4.64). this sentiment refers to Isabella’s decision to forebear intercourse with Angelo. Isabella refuses, despite her brother’s pleas to the contrary. She feels that an act of sin will not only compromise her service as a nun but also will condemn her brother to hell. The actor who plays Claudio does so as a man filled with dread and doubt. He is passionate at times and gentle at others. His character mildly implies that the situation may not be as clear-cut and rigid as Isabelle believes it to be. Shakespeare seems to suggest that Isabella’s of piety guarantees her brother’s death. In a similar sense, while the Duke’s dishonesty is inherently amoral it prevents Angelo’s far more destructive moral transgressions.

The play’s central theme begins to emerge through consideration of the morally paradoxical world in which it is set: a man's words do not define him; his actions do. Both Angelo and the Duke verbally present themselves as something other than what their deeds reveal them to be. In Angelo’s case, he is a scrupulous administrator of the law. In reality, however, Angelo abuses his authority not only in and of itself, but also by manipulating the law to suit his own ends. Similarly, the Duke claims to be departing Vienna. In reality, he is merely disguising himself, though these means are ostensibly justified by virtue of his noble ends. Shakespeare does not challenge the reader to consider the morality of the Duke’s deeds, but only the extent to which the deeds themselves further a moralistic order: “Condemn the fault and not the actor of it” (Shakespeare 2.2.37)? Shakespeare thus seems to present a world in which actions are measured not by the motivation most deeply underlying them, but rather by the kind of outcome they provoke for those effected by them.

Throughout the play, the actors masquerade and dissemble. It falls to the actor who portrays Lucio to give the audience a character who embodies Shakespeare’s ambiguity toward moral issues, the state of man and human nature. Lucio enjoys stirring the pot. He is glib, pathological liar. However, Lucio finally impresses upon the Duke that in public and private behavior there are many gray areas.

The reader begins to suspect that the Duke understands how a leader must balance moralism if he is to lead effectively: his manipulative acts increase in frequency as the play progresses, as the Duke appears to process that he must balance pious qualities with contemptible ones. Indeed, by the play’s end, we see the Duke extending merciful treatment to those who committed the same transgressions as he--disguising deeds in words to the contrary, albeit towards a different end. Yet, the Duke’s personal ends are not necessarily as savory as his more global ones. In this sense, we can take Isabella’s silence in reply to the Duke’s marriage proposal as either tacit approval or tacit disapproval of the manner in which the Duke has re-manipulated his kingdom towards order, while also seemingly accounting for his own personal interests regarding Isabella.

Ultimately, Angelo recommends his own execution thereby exemplifying the concept of moral compromise. Angelo’s recommendation is in the spirit of the law but the Duke chooses to pardon him. The actor’s facial contortions and body language convey the Duke's doubt and indecision. It is obvious when it occurs to the Duke that Angelo’s dishonesty matches his own. The question of paradoxical morality permeates the play. Angelo’s has a capacity for strict adherence to legal tenets. The Duke offers the mercy needed to mitigate Angelo’s strictness. As such, it is the Duke’s sense of measure that Shakespeare identifies as necessary.

In Measure for Measure, Shakespeare orchestrates a paradoxical moral order to illustrate the challenges of leadership and societal order predicated only upon moral justice. Angelo and the Duke are men engaged in disguising of their actions with words. Shakespeare suggests a socio-political dichotomy unique to his oeuvre: “that the best men are molded out of faults, and, for the most, become much more the better for being a little bad” (Shakespeare 5.1.440). Only through this little bit of badness can men achieve justice. Otherwise, strict statutes and most biting laws are themselves insufficient for purposes of ordering society in such a way as precludes the potential for overwhelmingly unjust outcomes (Shakespeare 1.3.21).

Work Cited

Shakespeare, William. Measure for Measure. MIT, n.d.,http://shakespeare.mit.edu/measure/full.html