Post by shaxper on Aug 3, 2002 11:09:10 GMT -5
*My sincerest apologies to Juliet, who began this topic. Your message was accidentally lost when I hit reply to this topic and got "modify" instead. The board then replaced my post with yours, without me realizing what was happening.
Juliet's post was about the ending of Measure for Measure and the fact that Isabelle never says "yes" when proposed to at the end. She was curious about what reprocussions this may have had for the final outcome of the play.
(Juliet, if you would like to restate your original post, I can put it at the start of this topic. Again, I'm very sorry)
I think Shakespeare's take on "extreme" women has always been vague. Isabelle is an extreme woman in the sense that she shows up at the nunnery and demands harsher restraints. Her desire to be restrained is not just a disposition; it's almost an obsession. For me, she is similar to Kate from TOTS, who also has an extreme disposition; her rageful need to control and abuse which, rather than a typically rebellious disposition, is also followed to the extreme of an obsession. Both characters take on rolls that are highly uncomfortable to a male society, unusual rolls that completely removing these women from the realm of potential marriage and subordination. By the end of both plays, these women are seemingly converted to mainstream norms, though doubt remains in both cases. The question though, is whether Shakespeare is placing those doubts or whether we, as a more feminist-oriented society, are placing them there. No doubt, we find the conversion of these extreme women to be troubling, but perhaps Kate's final lines were unquestionably intended to be sincere, and perhaps we don't see Isabelle's answer because it is not important, nor dramatically necessary. Perhaps it's just assumed that a woman marrying an important political figure does not say no and run down the aisle in the middle of the ceremony. Who's to say?
Juliet's post was about the ending of Measure for Measure and the fact that Isabelle never says "yes" when proposed to at the end. She was curious about what reprocussions this may have had for the final outcome of the play.
(Juliet, if you would like to restate your original post, I can put it at the start of this topic. Again, I'm very sorry)
I think Shakespeare's take on "extreme" women has always been vague. Isabelle is an extreme woman in the sense that she shows up at the nunnery and demands harsher restraints. Her desire to be restrained is not just a disposition; it's almost an obsession. For me, she is similar to Kate from TOTS, who also has an extreme disposition; her rageful need to control and abuse which, rather than a typically rebellious disposition, is also followed to the extreme of an obsession. Both characters take on rolls that are highly uncomfortable to a male society, unusual rolls that completely removing these women from the realm of potential marriage and subordination. By the end of both plays, these women are seemingly converted to mainstream norms, though doubt remains in both cases. The question though, is whether Shakespeare is placing those doubts or whether we, as a more feminist-oriented society, are placing them there. No doubt, we find the conversion of these extreme women to be troubling, but perhaps Kate's final lines were unquestionably intended to be sincere, and perhaps we don't see Isabelle's answer because it is not important, nor dramatically necessary. Perhaps it's just assumed that a woman marrying an important political figure does not say no and run down the aisle in the middle of the ceremony. Who's to say?