Isabella's Choice | Karl F. Zender, University of California, Davis
Isabella's Choice
Karl F. Zender, University of California, Davis
What should Isabella do, in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure? Should she yield up her body to Angelo's will, in the hope of saving her brother's life? Or should she refuse Angelo's demand, thereby preserving her chastity? Anyone who believes that these questions have been relieved of their difficulty by modern refinements in sexual morality need only pose them, in a non-directive fashion, to a class of undergraduates. Responses will almost certainly divide between the two options; and students will not choose their positions along any easily discernible demographic lines. Female students will urge Isabella to accede, male students to resist, and vice versa; and a similar lack of unanimity will reveal itself among self-professed liberals and conservatives, well-to-do students and not-so-well-to-do, young and old. Cold and remote as the concepts of chastity and honor may sometimes...
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