A Feminist Perspective of Measure for Measure and The Merchant of Venic

A Feminist Perspective of Measure for Measure and The Merchant of Venice Isabellas only cause could be in saying no, her no to Angelo that she would not leave the institution ravaged and soulless, no to Claudio that she would sacrifice herself, no to the nunnery that she had wished to enter or no to the Dukes offer of marriage. Isabellas role ability to be self-determining was quite different from Portias advocacy in The Merchant of Venice, for Isabella was the similarlyl of the Duke, fulfilling his scripting. Her nuns dress up should have ensured a neuter role, and she intended her pity and love for her associate to involve her in this world only so far as to counsel him in honour. Despite her self concept, two men of the world with power over her saw her as a beautiful sexual object to be acquired. Against this, Isabellas strength was in theological purity, going sequential to the sense of the Gospels. We cannot cast the first stone. We must have lenity for others, becau se he which is the top of judgement had mercy on us. Because the censors usually eliminated the word God, references were oblique, plainly t here(predicate) could be no real substitution of Jove or the gods here where the sense was so very New Testament. Isabella was preaching to a indian lodge which had gone far in condemnation and execution in the identify of religion she was a beacon of clear light.Portia actively sought mercy as the greatest response and carefully gave Shylock every resource to release the bond which held him when she stage-managed the last-minute dramatic revelation, showing that he too could be forfeit. Significantly, the advocacy of both Portia and Isabella was the same mercy must be applied to the law. Could a Dukes one gateway denouement be... ...d expanded, and the whole prospered on the servitude and devotion of women. Petruchio did his bit, as did Isabellas Duke, so that protectionism was the right end and repository for womens personal identity an d role. Yet in the next section Benedick will undertake his match, and that paragon, Portia, will tactfully remain within the rhetorical framework of male supremacy, costuming her more able endeavours....i Jill Bavin-Mizzi, Ravished (Sydney University of New South Wales Press, 1995).ii Margaret Thornton, Women as fringe dwellers of the jurisprudential community, in Sex, Power and Justice (Oxford Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 190. third Charlotte Lennox (ne Ramsay), 1729 -1804, actress and poet,Women Reading Shakespeare 1660-1900, An anthology of criticism, ed. Ann Thompson and Sasha Roberts (Manchester Manchester University Press, 1997), pp. 17-18.