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Measure For Measure
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Symbols & Motifs
Disguises
Disguises occur throughout Measure for Measure, symbolizing the way in which all people conceal their true nature to some extent. Vincentio spends the majority of the play in disguise as Friar Lodowick, hiding his true status as the duke in order to investigate the social problems of Vienna. Similarly, Isabella and Mariana use disguise in order to preserve Isabella’s virginity and trick Angelo into consummating his marriage to Mariana. These disguises are intentional and they are undertaken in order to bring about greater social order. Vincentio even uses a disguise to help save Claudio’s life. He remarks when he has the head of another prisoner sent to Angelo in Claudio’s stead that “death’s a great disguiser” (IV.2.2079). For Vincentio, Isabella, and Mariana, disguise is not a malicious lie, but rather a way to restore proper relationships.
However, Shakespeare also evokes the language of disguise figuratively to indicate that all social interactions result in something being concealed. Disguise is most harmful when it relates to Angelo and The Problem of Hypocrisy. Vincentio frames Angelo’s seemingly upstanding behavior as a sort of disguise when he laments “O, what may man within him hide / Though angel on the outward side!” (III.2.1780-1781). Similarly, social standing and reputation serve as a form of disguise for both Vincentio and Angelo. Vincentio complains that his station as duke results in people slandering him, complaining:
O place and greatness! millions of false eyes
Are stuck upon thee: volumes of report
Run with these false and most contrarious quests
Upon thy doings: thousand escapes of wit
Make thee the father of their idle dreams
And rack thee in their fancies (IV.1.1862-1867).
While Vincentio’s high-status position results in slander, with Lucio spreading rumors about his character that are contrary to his inner reality, Angelo’s status helps him to hide his crimes. Rather than being slandered with false stories that he is lecherous, Angelo relies on his reputation for upstanding morality, warning Isabella that no one will believe her if she accuses him publicly. Reputation and power act as a disguise, hiding the truth about those of high status.
Payment
Justice in Measure for Measure is symbolically referred to as a form of payment. The language of payment and economic exchange proliferates throughout the play, demonstrating that part of Vienna’s social problems relate to the transactional nature of its society.
Punishment and justice are consistently referred to using the language of payment by characters throughout Measure for Measure. When Angelo refuses to release Claudio, he uses a mathematical analogy that equates execution with a monetary fine, scoffing that, “Mine were the very cipher of a function / To fine the faults whose fine stands in record / And let go by the actor” (II.2.791-793). Isabella also uses economic terminology when she frames her chance at salvation as a calculation. She claims:
And twere the cheaper way:
Better it were a brother died at once
Than that a sister, by redeeming him,
Should die for ever (II.4.1132-1135).
Refusing Angelo‘s offer is not just the right thing to do; it is the “cheaper” option in the economy of salvation. Vincentio employs the language of payment when he discusses the plan to trick Angelo. He frames the bed trick performed by Mariana and Isabella as righteous because it provides equal payment for Angelo’s hypocritical behavior: “So disguise shall, by the disguised / Pay with falsehood false exacting / And perform an old contracting” (III.2.1789-1791).
One of the chief institutions that Angelo seeks to eliminate is the brothel—a place where sex is traded for money. Through the recurring language of payment, Shakespeare subtly implies that all of Vienna is brothel-like because of its reliance on transaction and exchange. While the city government initially appears to be in opposition to brothels, it operates in a similar way. Angelo solicits sex from Isabella and promises payment in exchange—her brother’s life. Vincentio directly alludes to this when he describes how Claudio’s pardon was “purchased by such sin” (IV.2.2014). Through these parallels between the law and the brothel, Shakespeare hints that a transactional society is not the ideal and that not all forms of interactions should be conceived of as payment.
Prisons
The prison is one of the main settings of Measure for Measure, representing the constraint of the law, but Shakespeare also uses figurative language to suggest that all of earthly existence is a form of prison wherein sin serves to restrict human freedom.
Throughout the play, Vincentio and Isabella come to visit Claudio in prison, but Shakespeare indicates that being trapped in a physical jail is less important than being trapped by worldly sin. Vincentio blurs the boundary between life in the world and life in prison when he deceives Isabella into believing that Claudio has been executed. While his language first implies that Angelo has gone through with his agreement to free her brother, Vincentio reveals that Claudio is only figuratively free when he claims “He hath released him, Isabel, from the world” (IV.3.2241). The prison therefore symbolizes all of worldly life, with the only true freedom being found in salvation after death.
When Isabella visits Claudio in prison, she uses verbal irony to indicate that obtaining his freedom from the literal jail will result in him being imprisoned by sin. She warns him that if he takes Angelo’s offer, “that will free your life / But fetter you till death” (III.1.1292-1293). Claudio will be freed from one prison, but metaphorically bound by chains, as he will never be able to escape the burden of the sin he asked his sister to commit.
Similarly, Shakespeare compares the brothel to the prison, indicating that they serve the same people and that vices like fornication inevitably limit freedom. When Pompey switches from being the bar tender at a brothel to an executioner at the jail, he observes:
I am as well acquainted here as I was in our house
of profession: one would think it were Mistress
Overdone’s own house, for here be many of her old
Customers (IV.3.2117-2120).
In this circumstance, sin directly leads to literal imprisonment. Shakespeare suggests that the brothel is not really a place of freedom, but rather a trap that leads a person to prison eventually.
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By William Shakespeare
