Measure for Measure: Writer's Methods and Techniques (OCR A Level English Literature)

Writer’s Methods and Techniques

The best responses don’t limit their analysis to individual words and phrases. Examiners are really looking for analysis of Shakespeare’s overall aims so try to take a “whole-text” approach and consider the effects of the writer’s methods and techniques. Each of the below topics do just that:

• Form

• Structure

• Language

Form

Measure for Measure is a Shakespearean comedy. It is important that the examiner knows from your essay that you understand the conventions of comedy and aspects of it which inform your analysis of the play. It is also worth exploring the elements of this play as a tragi-comedy and where it differs from a conventional Shakespearean comedy. This produces a more conceptualised answer which takes into account the methods and purpose of Shakespeare as a playwright. 

Shakespearean comedies usually consist of:

• A setting which incorporates a celebration or festival, often in idyllic locations: 

  • In this way, Measure for Measure differs in that it takes place in Vienna

  • Any revelry, due to rampant immorality, is about to be stopped

• A love dilemma or triangle which takes the ptoysgonists on a journey of mistakes and misunderstandings:

  • Measure for Measure alters the romantic triangle:

    • Angelo desires Isabella but is tricked into spending the night with his abandoned fiancée, Mariana 

• Juxtaposition of scenes to present emotional ups and downs, disorder to order:

  • Measure for Measure presents much disorder under the guise of order

  • Those with authority are shown to be fallible and weak

• A comic villain who plans to derail the happiness of the hero or heroine:

  • In this play, Angelo is the gullible and hypocritical villain

• The theme of human folly, trickery and gullibility is shown through slapstick comedy, sexual jokes, satire and parody:

  • Characters in brothels, in court and in the streets make bawdy and witty jokes, often at the expense of prostitutes

• Characters such as clowns, fools and others in disguise:

  • In this play, the Duke disguises himself as a friar and plots elaborate schemes

• The use of dramatic irony so the audience laughs at a character’s ignorance  

• Witty language, such as puns and innuendo, which heightens the comedy 

• A comic resolution where misunderstandings are clarified

• A resolution which provides a sense of catharsis, often ending with a marriage:

  • Measure for Measure is known as a dramatic comedy or a “problem play” because of the dubious happy ending 

  • Isabella does not answer the Duke’s proposal and the play ends ambiguously 

  • Lucio and Angelo are punished with marriage to women they do not love

Structure

The structure of a comedy

Classical comedy follows conventions of Greek drama. The main features are: 

• Unity of time, place and action

• Events which mimic everyday life 

• A plot which ridicules and satirises human folly or vices

Shakespearean comedies generally follow the same five-part structure:

• Exposition: the play begins with a scene full of tension; often conflict is foreshadowned:

• In Measure for Measure, the play opens in Vienna, a city overrun with immorality and sin

• The Duke is concerned about the city and the citizens’ opinions of him 

• Rising Action: the implicit conflict is developed as the characters are tricked and deceived:

  • The Duke disguises himself as a friar and leaves the evil Angelo in charge

  • Claudio is arrested for adultery

  • Isabella, about to take vows of chastity, is asked to plead for her brother’s life

• Turning Point: the climax of the play is signalled with chaos and an impasse:

  • Angelo develops lustful feelings for Isabella and refuses to release Claudio

  • The friar tells Isabella, Juliet and Claudio that the execution is to go ahead

  • This leads to a trick of substitution:

    • Angelo is deceived into consummating his marriage to Mariana

• Falling Action: the play’s misunderstandings are revealed:

• The Duke reveals himself to the city

• Angelo is told he has been tricked

• Resolution: problems are resolved and the play ends in marriage:

• The Duke delivers justice to Angelo by making him marry Mariana

• He instructs Lucio to marry the prostitute he abandoned

• He thanks Escalus and promises to reward him

• Claudio is released and he and Juliet marry

• He proposes to Isabella:

However, Isabella does not reply, leaving the ending ambiguous

Language

It is, of course, important to analyse Shakespeare’s use of language in any essay on Measure for Measure. However, try to see ‘language’ in a broader sense than just the words that Shakespeare uses: it also includes the form and patterns of his language. Moreover, try to take a “whole-text” approach and consider why Shakespeare presents - through his use of language - the ideas he wants to explore in the play. Below you will find revision materials on:

• Poetry and Prose

• Symbolism

Poetry and Prose

Shakespeare shifts his characters’ dialogue from prose to verse to indicate the mood in a scene, as well as the characters’ social status. Those who hold higher positions in society (such as Angelo, Duke Vincentio, Isabella and Claudio) speak in blank verse, while Shakespeare gives those of lower status (such as Elbow, Pompey, and Mistress Overdone) prose dialogue. This contributes to the theme of appearance and reality in the play as characters are revealed for who they really are. 

Blank verse

• Blank verse consists of unrhymed lines of ten syllables, although it does not always exactly fit that pattern

• Blank verse does not necessarily rhyme, but lines have a regular rhythm

• Typically in Shakespeare plays, the use of verse represents a character’s emotions, often employed during an intimate speech or soliloquy:

  • Iambic pentameter in Isabella’s speeches show her passion and her respected position in society

  • Isabella's rhetorical speeches to Angelo are delivered in verse

Rhymed verse

• Rhymed verse consists of sets of rhyming couplets: two successive lines that rhyme with each other at the end of the line

• In Act III Scene I, the Duke, disguised as a friar, delivers a soliloquy in rhyming couplets which dramatises the speech and gives it gravitas:

  • The use of rhyme emphasises the Duke’s strong views on justice:

    • He emphasises the idea that an authority figure acts on behalf of God:  “He who the sword of heaven will bear/Should be as holy as severe”

• Rhyming couplets can often be found at the end of a soliloquy to summarise the key ideas:

  • The Duke’s speech uses a rhyming couplet to link the theme of the speech to the title of the play: “Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure/Like doth quit like, and measure still for measure”

Prose

• Prose consists of unrhymed lines with no pattern or rhythm

• Shakespeare uses prose for dialogue of a comedic or a lower-class character

• Shakespeare uses prose in Measure for Measure to represent everyday language:

  • Mistress Overdone speaks in prose, representing her low status as a brothel owner 

  • Pompey and the two gentlemen speak in prose as they joke about war, the prostitutes and Angelo

• Lucio alternates between prose and verse depending on who he is speaking with:

  • This highlights his adaptable, yet deceitful nature

Symbolism

Shakespeare uses many contrasting symbols throughout the play in order to convey the close connections or dichotomies relating to themes of justice and virtue, appearance and reality and hypocritical societal standards.  

Crime and Virtue

• Shakespeare uses the symbolic brothel in the play to represent the moral decline in Vienna:

  • Characters who visit the brothels are presented as duplicitous and morally weak:

    • When Pompey decides to become an executioner rather than a brother-keeper, Shakespeare raises questions about sin and crime

  • However, Shakespeare shows double standards within the industry via Mistress Overdone, the brothel owner, who is presented as good-hearted

  • The prostitutes in the city are subjected to repeated humiliation:

    • They are the subject of jokes from Pompey and the gentlemen

    • At the end, the Duke marries Kate Keepdown to Lucio despite his protests 

• On the other hand, the symbolic convent, which Isabella plans to join, represents a place that the city considers virtuous and respectable:

  • Isabella’s vows of chastity and life in the convent are respected

  • Shakespeare illustrates how the strict life of a nun is considered virtuous

• Both locations are presented as isolated, beyond the foreground of the court and streets

• Shakespeare’s use of a convent and brothel in the play raises questions about patriarchal standards within Puritanism:

  • Both places are dominated by women who are unmarried

  • Angelo admires and desires Isabella for her religious devotion and chastity 

  • The play presents women such as Mariana, Juliet and Kate Keepdown who are abandoned or shamed for their sexuality outside of marriage 

Changing identities and appearance 

• In Measure for Measure. clothing symbolises changes in authority and power:

  • In Act II Scene IV, Angelo describes women as wearing “black masks” which make them appear even more beautiful as they tempt a man into sin

  • The Duke dresses as a friar and takes on all religious duties as if he were speaking on behalf of God

  • Isabella tells Angelo he is a man “dressed in a little brief authority”

• Shakespeare highlights Angelo’s good reputation with a name suggesting he is an “angel”:

  • Later, however, the Duke reveals he is an “angel on the outward side” 

  • Angelo references this when he reflects that writing “good angel on the devil’s horn” does not mean the devil has become an angel

• The Duke, in his disguise, plans to trick Angelo by substituting various people for Isabella and Claudio:

  • Mariana takes the place of Isabella and spends the night with Angelo

  • A prisoner with "beard and head/Just of [Claudio's] colour" is sent to Angelo in place of Claudio

Money and treasure

• In the exposition, Angelo describes his attitude to justice using an allegory:

  • He explains that you may tread on a gem in the street if you do not miss it, but if you do see one you will pick it up

  • He explains that this is the same with criminals - you can only ‘pick up’ those you find, despite all the others you miss

• Isabella compares the value of religion to the unpredictable nature of money:

  • She responds to Angelo’s request for a bribe saying prayer has more value than money: “Not with fond shekels of the tested gold/Or stones whose rates are either rich or poor”

  • Isabella tells Angelo she would rather have marks of a whip “as rubies” on her skin

• Angelo is presented as a man who values wealth over virtue:

  • He abandons Mariana because she has no dowry after her father’s death

  • He asks Isabella to “lay down the treasures” of her body 

• Angelo compares unlawful pregnancy (outside of marriage) to be similar to making counterfeit coins which were often referred to as “stamps”:

  • However, he links money and pleasure: “Their saucy sweetness that do coin heaven's image/In stamps that are forbid”

• Shakespeare makes ironic references to Angelo’s duplicitous nature in the exposition:

  • He likens him to a gold coin called an “angel”:

    • As a coin has two sides, this could also allude to Angelo’s deceptive nature

  • Angelo asks the Duke to treat him like a coin and test him for strength: “Let there be some more test made of my metal,/Before so noble and so great a figure/Be stamp'd upon it”

  • The reference to “stamp’d” here could be a humorous jibe at Angelo being ‘counterfeit’

• In the resolution, Escalus accuses Angelo of being like a counterfeit coin: “Lord Angelo, have still appear'd,/Should slip so grossly” 

  • The word “slip” refers to the colloquial term for a counterfeit coin