Why Does Shakespeare Use Language In Measure For Measure

Shakespeare’s play Measure for Measure uses words to both confuse and represent the religious and sexual struggles of the characters. We can see this in act two, scene four of the play. This conversation between Angelo and Isabella shows how the characters use language to convey their ideas, to each other and against each other, and how sexual and religious influences are undercurrents throughout, especially for Isabella.
Starting at the end of Angelo’s second big monologue, we can see at once how he uses sexualized religious images and how they reveal him. The end of his monologue reads, “You must lay down the treasures of your body / To this supposed, or else let him suffer” (lines 96-97). The image of Isabella laying down her body at once

is literal and figurative, and sexual and marital. He wants her to engage him in sexual intercourse, literally laying her body down and giving him the treasure of her virginity. The figurative and marital meaning of the phrase is revealed more in the next line. The supposed he mentions means the fictional man Angelo proposes in his speech. It is popularly used to refer to a fiancée, if the accent is put on the “ed” instead of the “supp”. If we think of Angelo as the supposed, we see that in asking her to lay down her treasure he is referring to a kind of marriage between the two of them, one with no lasting power beyond intercourse. While they can never be actually married, because of Isabella’s religious duties, in the act of sex – the act of making two bodies one – Angelo is suggesting they make a marriage of their own. Instead of a dowry, Angelo asks for her body and her complicities in the act. Not only does the marriage mean the joining of the two sexually, he also means the joining of them in hiding the intricacies of their deal.
The use of the word supposed offers more meaning than just this marriage. Supposed can mean many things, and often the meanings are contradictory. It can mean genuine, pretend, or a place or position below. In using this word, Angelo is showing the confusion he has over the urges he feels concerning Isabella, and the way in which she is in charge of him by way of these urges. Angelo represents the hypocritical meanings of supposed. He is at once counterfeit and genuine. He is this in the way he acts, throughout the play as the “moral person” who treats other people without respect, and in this line as he tries to make his genuine feelings seem fake. Fake meaning he attributes them another person in the use of the supposed. As he is the supposed, he presents himself as the other meaning of the word, that is a person in a position below. He is below Isabella, as she is the one making him show his corrupt side.
The line in which Angelo turns to prose reveals a proverbial chink in his armor. The last line in verse he says is, “Else let him suffer –” (97). In his ultimatum, Angelo proposes that Isabella have sex with him or her brother will die. On the surface, he seems to mean “him” as Claudio. He appeals to her familial sense of duty and makes Claudio’s death her fault; an attempt to get Isabella to agree. In reference to the “supposed”, the line changes meaning. The “him” seems to be a slip from Angelo. He would be the one suffering – pinning for her love (or just her body) and stinging from rejection. Then there is a pause in the line. At this pause, he realizes he has revealed himself to be the supposed that wants a connection with Isabella. Then we get prose. The simple line, “What would you do?” (98). Impersonal and rushed, he seems to be trying to gloss over the admittance that Isabella has to power to make him suffer, and that he has to ability to be corrupt. The question, though, is finally direct. It is not a “supposed” or a fantasy situation, he is putting the suggestion directly to Isabella and asking her to respond. While he does show that he is corrupt, the line shows that he is cut and dry. When he languishes on fantasy, he loses his head and reveals that he has the capacity to feel, opposing his hard outer shell and morally sound reputation.
Isabella’s response has religious and sexual undertones – it is a mix of his influence and her beliefs.

She does not subjugate herself to Angelo. She uses his metaphors and imagery against him. She says, “Th’ impression of keen whips I’d wear as rubies / And strip myself to death, as to a bed / […] ere I’d yield / My body up to shame.” (101-2). Keen usually means sharp in the way of intelligence and in reference to objects. Keen can also mean an Irish funeral song that involves intense wailing, and a person full of desire. The keen whips could be a reference to the Christian practice of whipping oneself in order to feel the pain that Jesus Christ felt. She could be suggesting this form of punishment would be used on her, not as a religious practice, but as a judicially induced pain stemming from her rejecting Angelo. This is another reason she uses keen. She is implying that her screams of pain stemming from the whips would make a funeral song. The advent of this painful screaming image illuminates how the line could also be a sexual reference. The impression of keen whips could be Angelo, as a person full of desire, and his phallic member, as the whip. In the act of taking her virginity, one can see where the screaming image would come

in.
The part of the line that mentions rubies reveals hidden undertones, and becomes important when the metaphors Isabella uses are interpreted as sexual. She says she would wear “keen whips, I’d wear as rubies.” (101). She uses the word rubies because he described her body as a treasure. Rubies would be in treasure chests. In remembering this connection, ruby can mean a genuine or artificial gem, and it can be used to describe something red or the process of dying something red. First, she makes both her and him the ruby. She wears them, but he is both genuine and artificial – as shown by the meaning of supposed. Presenting image that she is wearing him makes the sexual connection stronger. The ruby would be the blood dying the sheets red; the product of their elicit tryst, a signifier that he did get her treasure. There is also another meaning we can pull from this. If we think she is outright rejecting him and not seducing him, suggesting that she would wear these impressions like rubies could mean she would be proud of her herself, it could be her showing off her rejection of love and keeping pure.
Isabella makes a stronger connection between sex and death to present in her next line. The line, though, confuses the reader on whether she is rejecting or seducing him, as it has a double meaning. She says, “And strip myself to death, as to a bed.” (102). Her death could be orgasm – a reference to the belief that every time one had an orgasm they died a little bit. The bed could mean her wedding bed, as that is the night she would loose her virginity. This would suggest that she accepts the “marriage” Angelo proposes by giving him the same image of a marriage as he gave her. The line could also mean rejection, with the rejection still laced with images of sexuality. She could mean that by having sex, “striping”, she would “die”, or be in perpetual shame by loosing her virtue. The bed then would represent her deathbed, a moral deathbed.
To remedy these opposing interpretations, one need look at her last time. As Angelo’s showed a rushed change in tone, the last line from Isabella suggests a climax of sense – almost mimicking what would happen in their dalliance. In these lines, she seems to resolve the issues between sex verses religious duty. She tells Angelo, “Ere I’d yield / My body up to shame.” (103-4). Here, Isabella uses the same body imagery that Angelo uses. Instead of her laying down her body, as Angelo uses the image, she takes back the image and lifts it up. The word “yield” means to stop, surrender, sacrifice to a deity, and a sum of money. In colloquial terms, Isabella is saying that she would rather be punished (as said in earlier lines with “keen whips”) than sacrifice her body to this shameful proposal, or even this shameful man. I think Isabella is also saying that she is not an object. She is not a sum of money to be exchanged, and her body/virtue is not a sacrifice to a “deity” or a man with false power. In these lines, she wins the struggle of wits. Even when she uses sexualized images, she is able to, in some ways, use them against him.