"Power, Gender, and Self Preservation in Shakespeare: Taming of the Shrew and Measure for Measure" by Alyssa Cook
The effects of trauma can irrevocably change the soul. In the case of Katherine in Taming of the Shrew and Isabella in Measure for Measure, their trauma culminates in a demonstration of character changes during the final acts of their plays. Both are manipulated and preyed upon by powerful men in societies that demonize independence and self-determination. The characters radically change from their first appearances due to their interactions with and subsequent trauma from men who harass them without acknowledgment of autonomy. Kate and Isabella’s respective parroted speech and silence in the final acts of their plays signify their resignation to suffering their purported fates for self-preservation.
In Taming of the Shrew, Kate’s development shows her moving from a strong-willed, perpetually independent woman to an unwilling participant in her own subjugation. When her father informed her she would be marrying Petruccio, she responded by cursing Petruccio and claiming her father is not acting as he should (2.1.284-287). She was angry at her father for making this life-altering decision without consideration of her desires and needs, but also at Petruccio for instigating it in the first place. When Petruccio explicitly says she will have no choice in marrying him and offers the next Sunday as a wedding date, Kate responds, “I'll see thee hanged on Sunday first” (2.1.297). Here, Kate is not only promising personal retribution, but also a sort of state action. She knows she has been wronged and, at this point, thinks others would share her beliefs. Kate is definitively outspoken about how she feels, especially towards the men she interacts with, but her eventual submission to Petruccio offers an interesting insight into her characterization. While other scholars may read these early exchanges as a “feminist” characterization or interpret it as commentary about Early Modern women, the eventual shifts in Kate’s character largely lend themselves to interpreting how power dynamics affect the characters, especially women, in the play.
Kate is a member of a wealthy, successful family, so there would have been considerable differences in power between her and other “lower-class” female characters in Shakespeare or their historical counterparts. Wealthy women were commonly viewed as a means to gain power in the Early Modern Period, but Kate—even though she was ostracized for it—spoke her mind freely and at this point had no physical repercussions. In Act III, she states, “I see a woman may be made a fool / If she had not a spirit to resist” (3.2.213-214). Katherine believes that being contrary is central to womanhood and the limited power that comes with it. She subliminally recognizes her limited power compared to the male characters and states outright that she believes she would be stupid to bow under their pressure. Katherine’s use of “fool” is not meant to allude to the position in the court, but rather a state of being should she submit to the whims of the men around her. Weeks of mental and physical abuse from Petruccio would eventually cause Kate to verbally oppose this perspective. After starving her, isolating her, and threatening to turn back after traveling on horseback for a long while, Kate’s change becomes more overt as she relents to her husband’s whims and says:
Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,
And be it moon, or sun, or what you please.
And if you please to call it a rush candle,
Henceforth I shall vow it shall be so for me. (4.6.12-15)
Here, Katherine textually released her hold on some, if not all, the resistance she praised herself for in the previous act. Petruccio broke her through his abuse, and he revels in it, embarrassing her in front of the people they run into by making her agree with whatever he says, including inverting the age and gender of an old woman (4.6). Her wilfulness to be abrasive suddenly shifts to a willingness to obey her husband if he will cease his attacks on her. This is the moment she becomes an “unwilling participant in her own subjugation.” She sees that, if she does not do what Petruccio says, he will continue to break her by any means possible. Her changes foreshadow her final monologue, in which she admonishes other women for not falling at their husbands’ feet and obeying their every command.
Isabella provides similar character development in Measure for Measure as well. In her first scene, she is shown conversing with the leadership of the sisterhood she is in consideration for, asking for more restrictions on behavior and rules (1.4.3-5). Not long after, when confronting Angelo about her brother’s crimes and death sentence, she says:
There is a vice that I most do abhor
And most desire should meet the blow of justice;
For which I would not plead, but that I must;
For which I must not plead but I am
At war ‘twixt will and will not. (2.2.30-34)
Isabella is trying to relieve her brother of his death sentence while simultaneously morally condemning the actions which required the sentence in the first place. Her only brother is literally on the chopping block, and yet as she pleads for his life, she tells the man who has control over it that his actions were deplorable. Her faith—or rather self-righteousness—in this scene exhibits the respect and admiration she feels she is due.
In Act II, scene IV, after Angelo refused her pleas and asked her to return to him the next day, she seems to have some hope she can get through to him. But, instead of offering to save Claudio’s life on the basis of his own legal power and authority, Angelo’s only offer is for Isabella to give herself to him to save her brother. In her refusal, she stated, “Ignomy in ransom and free pardon / Are of two houses; lawful mercy / Is nothing kin to foul redemption” (2.4.108-110). She remained stringent in her beliefs even in the face of such adversity in Act II, but when presented with an arguably more sinful way to relieve herself of Angelo’s coercion, she takes it. Disguised as a friar, the Duke encouraged her to collaborate with Angelo’s previously spurned fiance to trick Angelo into bed with the latter rather than herself (3.1). Not only is this sexual assault, but according to the Christian doctrine Isabella purports to uphold, it is completely immoral. Isabella saw the power Angelo held, and to prepare for or prevent further trauma at his hands resigns herself to immoral actions out of necessity. She believed there was no other way to save her brother’s life and her own soul from Hell because of the position Angelo has put her in. This change in character would not have occurred if not for the benefit of Isabella’s own life.
Katherine remains silent in Act V of Taming of the Shrew until Petruccio bids her to speak on his and his friends’ behalf. He demands she tell the other women what “duty” they owe their “lords and husbands” (5.2.130-131). She says that angering their husbands makes them ugly as much as being angry themselves does (5.2.138-141). Consistently referring to their husbands not as lovers, but as rulers, she continues:
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign, one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body…
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience--
Too little payment for so great a debt. (5.2.146-154)
Kate’s language of “sovereigns” in this speech demonstrates that these changes in character occurred out of a necessity for self-preservation. Rulers and husbands need not be beloved or respected; they must only allow their subjects (or their wives) a certain measure of safety through subjugation. Kings and husbands are meant to care for their subjects through legal and militant and to better their lives. Kate realizes this is the function of Petruccio as well: she must acquiesce to her trauma and subjugation to remain safe from Petruccio’s abuse and the society that allowed her marriage. Petruccio will not further traumatize Kate if she is “agreeable” to his wants and words. The only way for Kate to be safe from Petruccio and other, possibly more devious, men is to submit to him.
Katherine further assures they must heed their husbands’ wishes, and if they do not want to, stating, “Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot, / And place your hands below your husband’s foot, / In token of which duty if he please” (5.2.176-178). This woman is diametrically opposed to the Kate presented in Act I. The latter is constantly and outwardly angry not only with the people around her, but also with her position in life as a woman, but the Katherine presented in Act V is a diluted, “tamed” version of her former self after the abuse she went through from Petruccio and his friends.
Once zealous and righteous, Isabella similarly becomes different from her initial portrayal. She commits immoral acts because of the abuse and harassment she received from Angelo, but when the Duke proposed marriage to her, she remained silent. Her final words were to spare Angelo’s life at his former betrothed’s begging, stating:
Let him not die. My brother had but justice,
In that he did the thing for which he died.
For Angelo, his act did not o’ertake his bad intent
and must be buried but as an intent
That perished by the way. Thoughts are no subjects,
Intents but merely thoughts. (5.1.451-456)
She seemed to be not only apologizing Angelo’s actions but also revealing her own. Out of guilt, Isabella is using double-coded language that serves to save Angelo’s life and demonstrate the internal struggles she is having about the bed-trick. Though Angelo wanted to assault her and thought he did, he did not; Isabella’s actions against Angelo did not originate within her own mind, but she perpetrated them with the bed-trick and was still trying to lie to the Duke about her “stolen virginity” (5.1.103-109). This speech and the actions that were purposefully omitted illustrate that Isabella, though guilty and scared, is still trying to keep herself safe. The Duke felt guilty for planting these dangerous seeds within Isabella and wanted to save her social standing, and possibly her life, by proposing. When pardoning Angelo, he turns to Isabella and says, “If he be like your brother, for his sake / Is he pardoned, and for your lovely sake / Give me your hand, and say you will be mine” (5.1.494-496). The Duke is offering a new path for Isabella to follow that would grant her a certain measure of immunity for her own wrongdoings, but will cost her subjugation through marriage; she does not respond to him or speak again for the rest of the play.
Isabella’s silence is one of the most poignant responses she could have had. She could not say no to such a powerful man, even if she wanted to; she also committed sins against other powerful men in her search for liberation from their machinations. Her only choice to save her standing and her head was to resign herself to one to protect her from others, and the Duke is willing to be the “one.” He pardons Angelo’s actions, and in doing so pardons Isabella as well, urging “for your lovely sake / Give me your hand, and say you will be mine” (5.1.495-496). The Duke recognizes that his actions have put Isabella in this position and wants to reconcile with his own actions by marrying her. Isabella’s silent acceptance is not defiance as some would read it; it was an acceptance and resignation of what is to come if she is to survive. Silence, here, is deafening and more telling than any other words could be. Isabella is cognizant of her lack of power and the Duke’s abundance of the same—especially the power he has over his subjects, advisors, and court. He could protect her if she accepts being controlled and subjugated by him, and she really has no other safe choice, so she says nothing.
Other readings and interpretations may lead to different conclusions. If Kate gives her final monologue with a sardonic or sarcastic tone, then the audience would leave with an understanding she is still resistant to Petruccio and will most likely continue to be. Isabella’s staging and facial expressions with her silence could denote resistance rather than resignation. Staging and directorial interpretation can drastically change the tone with which the two women end the play, but the lines they are working from decisively indicate these shifts offer great insight into power dynamics in Shakespearean plays. Highlighting the text rather than particular productions show that Katherine and Isabella should be interpreted as doing whatever they must to keep themselves safe.
Detailing and examining the character developments from these two women, especially with regards to how they act in the final scene, reveal the function of women and power dynamics in these plays. Kate and Isabella’s lack of power was not necessarily inverted, even though our conceptualization of Shakespearean comedies demands it. Instead, the changes to their characters may be permanent out of necessity. Both women also seem to radically change throughout the play with their developments manifesting themselves most visibly in the final act: Kate giving a monologue about women needing to obey and serve their husbands and Isabella’s silence after (for all intents and purposes) pardoning her would-be rapist. Though the medium is different, the message is consistent: Kate and Isabella’s choices are for self-preservation.
In Taming of the Shrew, Kate’s development shows her moving from a strong-willed, perpetually independent woman to an unwilling participant in her own subjugation. When her father informed her she would be marrying Petruccio, she responded by cursing Petruccio and claiming her father is not acting as he should (2.1.284-287). She was angry at her father for making this life-altering decision without consideration of her desires and needs, but also at Petruccio for instigating it in the first place. When Petruccio explicitly says she will have no choice in marrying him and offers the next Sunday as a wedding date, Kate responds, “I'll see thee hanged on Sunday first” (2.1.297). Here, Kate is not only promising personal retribution, but also a sort of state action. She knows she has been wronged and, at this point, thinks others would share her beliefs. Kate is definitively outspoken about how she feels, especially towards the men she interacts with, but her eventual submission to Petruccio offers an interesting insight into her characterization. While other scholars may read these early exchanges as a “feminist” characterization or interpret it as commentary about Early Modern women, the eventual shifts in Kate’s character largely lend themselves to interpreting how power dynamics affect the characters, especially women, in the play.
Kate is a member of a wealthy, successful family, so there would have been considerable differences in power between her and other “lower-class” female characters in Shakespeare or their historical counterparts. Wealthy women were commonly viewed as a means to gain power in the Early Modern Period, but Kate—even though she was ostracized for it—spoke her mind freely and at this point had no physical repercussions. In Act III, she states, “I see a woman may be made a fool / If she had not a spirit to resist” (3.2.213-214). Katherine believes that being contrary is central to womanhood and the limited power that comes with it. She subliminally recognizes her limited power compared to the male characters and states outright that she believes she would be stupid to bow under their pressure. Katherine’s use of “fool” is not meant to allude to the position in the court, but rather a state of being should she submit to the whims of the men around her. Weeks of mental and physical abuse from Petruccio would eventually cause Kate to verbally oppose this perspective. After starving her, isolating her, and threatening to turn back after traveling on horseback for a long while, Kate’s change becomes more overt as she relents to her husband’s whims and says:
Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,
And be it moon, or sun, or what you please.
And if you please to call it a rush candle,
Henceforth I shall vow it shall be so for me. (4.6.12-15)
Here, Katherine textually released her hold on some, if not all, the resistance she praised herself for in the previous act. Petruccio broke her through his abuse, and he revels in it, embarrassing her in front of the people they run into by making her agree with whatever he says, including inverting the age and gender of an old woman (4.6). Her wilfulness to be abrasive suddenly shifts to a willingness to obey her husband if he will cease his attacks on her. This is the moment she becomes an “unwilling participant in her own subjugation.” She sees that, if she does not do what Petruccio says, he will continue to break her by any means possible. Her changes foreshadow her final monologue, in which she admonishes other women for not falling at their husbands’ feet and obeying their every command.
Isabella provides similar character development in Measure for Measure as well. In her first scene, she is shown conversing with the leadership of the sisterhood she is in consideration for, asking for more restrictions on behavior and rules (1.4.3-5). Not long after, when confronting Angelo about her brother’s crimes and death sentence, she says:
There is a vice that I most do abhor
And most desire should meet the blow of justice;
For which I would not plead, but that I must;
For which I must not plead but I am
At war ‘twixt will and will not. (2.2.30-34)
Isabella is trying to relieve her brother of his death sentence while simultaneously morally condemning the actions which required the sentence in the first place. Her only brother is literally on the chopping block, and yet as she pleads for his life, she tells the man who has control over it that his actions were deplorable. Her faith—or rather self-righteousness—in this scene exhibits the respect and admiration she feels she is due.
In Act II, scene IV, after Angelo refused her pleas and asked her to return to him the next day, she seems to have some hope she can get through to him. But, instead of offering to save Claudio’s life on the basis of his own legal power and authority, Angelo’s only offer is for Isabella to give herself to him to save her brother. In her refusal, she stated, “Ignomy in ransom and free pardon / Are of two houses; lawful mercy / Is nothing kin to foul redemption” (2.4.108-110). She remained stringent in her beliefs even in the face of such adversity in Act II, but when presented with an arguably more sinful way to relieve herself of Angelo’s coercion, she takes it. Disguised as a friar, the Duke encouraged her to collaborate with Angelo’s previously spurned fiance to trick Angelo into bed with the latter rather than herself (3.1). Not only is this sexual assault, but according to the Christian doctrine Isabella purports to uphold, it is completely immoral. Isabella saw the power Angelo held, and to prepare for or prevent further trauma at his hands resigns herself to immoral actions out of necessity. She believed there was no other way to save her brother’s life and her own soul from Hell because of the position Angelo has put her in. This change in character would not have occurred if not for the benefit of Isabella’s own life.
Katherine remains silent in Act V of Taming of the Shrew until Petruccio bids her to speak on his and his friends’ behalf. He demands she tell the other women what “duty” they owe their “lords and husbands” (5.2.130-131). She says that angering their husbands makes them ugly as much as being angry themselves does (5.2.138-141). Consistently referring to their husbands not as lovers, but as rulers, she continues:
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign, one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body…
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience--
Too little payment for so great a debt. (5.2.146-154)
Kate’s language of “sovereigns” in this speech demonstrates that these changes in character occurred out of a necessity for self-preservation. Rulers and husbands need not be beloved or respected; they must only allow their subjects (or their wives) a certain measure of safety through subjugation. Kings and husbands are meant to care for their subjects through legal and militant and to better their lives. Kate realizes this is the function of Petruccio as well: she must acquiesce to her trauma and subjugation to remain safe from Petruccio’s abuse and the society that allowed her marriage. Petruccio will not further traumatize Kate if she is “agreeable” to his wants and words. The only way for Kate to be safe from Petruccio and other, possibly more devious, men is to submit to him.
Katherine further assures they must heed their husbands’ wishes, and if they do not want to, stating, “Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot, / And place your hands below your husband’s foot, / In token of which duty if he please” (5.2.176-178). This woman is diametrically opposed to the Kate presented in Act I. The latter is constantly and outwardly angry not only with the people around her, but also with her position in life as a woman, but the Katherine presented in Act V is a diluted, “tamed” version of her former self after the abuse she went through from Petruccio and his friends.
Once zealous and righteous, Isabella similarly becomes different from her initial portrayal. She commits immoral acts because of the abuse and harassment she received from Angelo, but when the Duke proposed marriage to her, she remained silent. Her final words were to spare Angelo’s life at his former betrothed’s begging, stating:
Let him not die. My brother had but justice,
In that he did the thing for which he died.
For Angelo, his act did not o’ertake his bad intent
and must be buried but as an intent
That perished by the way. Thoughts are no subjects,
Intents but merely thoughts. (5.1.451-456)
She seemed to be not only apologizing Angelo’s actions but also revealing her own. Out of guilt, Isabella is using double-coded language that serves to save Angelo’s life and demonstrate the internal struggles she is having about the bed-trick. Though Angelo wanted to assault her and thought he did, he did not; Isabella’s actions against Angelo did not originate within her own mind, but she perpetrated them with the bed-trick and was still trying to lie to the Duke about her “stolen virginity” (5.1.103-109). This speech and the actions that were purposefully omitted illustrate that Isabella, though guilty and scared, is still trying to keep herself safe. The Duke felt guilty for planting these dangerous seeds within Isabella and wanted to save her social standing, and possibly her life, by proposing. When pardoning Angelo, he turns to Isabella and says, “If he be like your brother, for his sake / Is he pardoned, and for your lovely sake / Give me your hand, and say you will be mine” (5.1.494-496). The Duke is offering a new path for Isabella to follow that would grant her a certain measure of immunity for her own wrongdoings, but will cost her subjugation through marriage; she does not respond to him or speak again for the rest of the play.
Isabella’s silence is one of the most poignant responses she could have had. She could not say no to such a powerful man, even if she wanted to; she also committed sins against other powerful men in her search for liberation from their machinations. Her only choice to save her standing and her head was to resign herself to one to protect her from others, and the Duke is willing to be the “one.” He pardons Angelo’s actions, and in doing so pardons Isabella as well, urging “for your lovely sake / Give me your hand, and say you will be mine” (5.1.495-496). The Duke recognizes that his actions have put Isabella in this position and wants to reconcile with his own actions by marrying her. Isabella’s silent acceptance is not defiance as some would read it; it was an acceptance and resignation of what is to come if she is to survive. Silence, here, is deafening and more telling than any other words could be. Isabella is cognizant of her lack of power and the Duke’s abundance of the same—especially the power he has over his subjects, advisors, and court. He could protect her if she accepts being controlled and subjugated by him, and she really has no other safe choice, so she says nothing.
Other readings and interpretations may lead to different conclusions. If Kate gives her final monologue with a sardonic or sarcastic tone, then the audience would leave with an understanding she is still resistant to Petruccio and will most likely continue to be. Isabella’s staging and facial expressions with her silence could denote resistance rather than resignation. Staging and directorial interpretation can drastically change the tone with which the two women end the play, but the lines they are working from decisively indicate these shifts offer great insight into power dynamics in Shakespearean plays. Highlighting the text rather than particular productions show that Katherine and Isabella should be interpreted as doing whatever they must to keep themselves safe.
Detailing and examining the character developments from these two women, especially with regards to how they act in the final scene, reveal the function of women and power dynamics in these plays. Kate and Isabella’s lack of power was not necessarily inverted, even though our conceptualization of Shakespearean comedies demands it. Instead, the changes to their characters may be permanent out of necessity. Both women also seem to radically change throughout the play with their developments manifesting themselves most visibly in the final act: Kate giving a monologue about women needing to obey and serve their husbands and Isabella’s silence after (for all intents and purposes) pardoning her would-be rapist. Though the medium is different, the message is consistent: Kate and Isabella’s choices are for self-preservation.
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William. Measure for Measure. The Norton Shakespeare, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, Walter Cohen, Suzanne Gosset, Jean E. Howard, Katharine Eisaman Maus, and Gordon McMullan, 3rd ed., W. W. Norton, New York, 2016, 553-611.
Shakespeare, William. Taming of the Shrew. The Norton Shakespeare, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, Walter Cohen, Suzanne Gosset, Jean E. Howard, Katharine Eisaman Maus, and Gordon McMullan, 3rd ed., W. W. Norton, New York, 2016, 149-208.
Shakespeare, William. Measure for Measure. The Norton Shakespeare, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, Walter Cohen, Suzanne Gosset, Jean E. Howard, Katharine Eisaman Maus, and Gordon McMullan, 3rd ed., W. W. Norton, New York, 2016, 553-611.
Shakespeare, William. Taming of the Shrew. The Norton Shakespeare, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, Walter Cohen, Suzanne Gosset, Jean E. Howard, Katharine Eisaman Maus, and Gordon McMullan, 3rd ed., W. W. Norton, New York, 2016, 149-208.