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Exploring Theatre as a Medium for Change:

A Critical Discourse Analysis of

Measure for Measure

in the Post #MeToo Era

Gaudi Delgado Falcón

Supervisor’s name: Lauren E LaFauci – Gender Studies, LiU

Master’s Programme

Gender Studies – Intersectionality and Change Master’s thesis 15 ECTS credits

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All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. ~ As You Like It, Act-II, Scene-VII, Lines 139-143

“The world is a stage and the play is badly cast.” ~ Oscar Wilde.

Abstract

This paper identifies the discursive practices and power mechanisms in passages of Measure for Measure where certain characters are ruled by the belief of superiority of one over all others. It examines how gender norms are constituted, reproduced, and challenged by drawing on Judith Butler’s theories on gender as a performative act to explore how meaning is reproduced dialogically. Also a Foucauldian understanding of power relations, Augusto Boal’s theatre theories and practices, and Sara Ahmed’s feminist theory.

This study contributes to critical-reflexive analyses of gender, language, and literary criticism. The analysis here illuminates how theatre serves as a medium for social change. In doing so, this study offers a feminist perspective in theory and methodology that enables an understanding of how class, gender and power are factors intertwined in social relations. In short, the findings draw attention to the gendered social relationship processes, and thus, demonstrates that theatre is a valuable tool for social change in creating agents of change.

Key Words: Theatre, Social Change, Social Movements, Phenomenology, Gender,

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Contents

Abstract 2

Contents 3

Introduction 4

Methods and Theoretical Framework 5

Analytical Approach 6

Phenomenology and Feminist Theory 10

Intersectionality as Critical inquiry 12

Gender as a Performative Act 15

From Theatre to Social Discourse 16

The Study 18

Measure for Measure: A Summary and Overview of Literacy Receptions 19

Analysis 20

Discussion 36

Conclusion 38

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Introduction

Through a critical discourse analysis of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure (1623), this research aims to examine how societies produce and reproduce gender norms and structures of power while contributing to an understanding of gender relations and gender as a performative process. As literature and theatre are tools of cultural production, we might also see them as catalysts for change. Thus, I argue that Shakespeare’s most contemporary play is significant in developing agents for change in the post #MeToo era. Hence, this topic is relevant for gender studies and intersectionality because I demonstrate that theatre can be used as a tool for change to challenge the misogyny in society highlighted by the #MeToo movement.

In the paper, I use Judith Butler’s theories on gender as a performative act to explore how meaning is reproduced dialogically in the struggle between multiple different voices. I add a Foucauldian understanding of power relations, Augusto Boal’s theatre theories and practices, and Sara Ahmed’s feminist theory. This combination of approaches recognizes power relations, gender violence, and gender as violence, and thus, demonstrates that a medium is necessary to end oppression.

The primary source of information for this research was Shakespeare’s play Measure for Measure, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604, and initially published in the First Folio of 1623. Additionally, a performance of the play streamed on the Shakespeare’s Globe website will support my argument and the analysis of the play. Further, this study is informed by an analysis of articles, journal entries, and theoretical works. In addition, a sample of scholarship and criticism of 1

Also, reports on the #MeToo movement gathered from the World Economic Forum website will serve to support my

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Measure for Measure relevant to my study will also be examined. Although much has been written about Shakespeare’s work, and theatre in general, I found there is a gap in the studies on theatre as a means of transforming society in the post #MeToo era. For instance, a few body of research have 2

addressed theatre in the post #MeToo era, however, not in the way of what one should reflect on a particular play, but on how Shakespeare’s plays like Much Ado (1623) was “oddly tone-deaf to the present #MeToo moment” and how this play “eschewed the opportunity to highlight Shakespeare’s less slapstick references to social class inequity” (Croteau, 2019, p.156) . Hence, this analysis aims 3

to examine to what extent theatre can create actors for change, and in doing so, I argue that going to the theatre should be intentional.

Methods and Theoretical Framework

According to feminist epistemologist Sandra Harding (1987), methods are particular procedures used to frame how research is conducted through the application of theory. Accordingly, quantitative and qualitative methods refer to specific research procedures, while a feminist methodology or feminist perspective refers to a broader conception of how feminist research ought to be conducted. As such, a feminist methodology can exist without a particular feminist method My findings show how the entertainment industry responded to #MeToo in the UK. Practical guidance to encourage a

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“cultural shift” in the theatre sector with unions creating a dedicated harassment helpline and a new code of behaviour. See an article on this regard on how much has theatre has changed since #MeToo. Retrieved from The Stage:

https://www.thestage.co.uk/features/a-year-on-from-metoo-how-much-has-theatre-really-changed

Melissa Croteau (2019) in a performance review Much Ado About Nothing at the Old Globe Theatre, argues that the

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texts of the play explores “the complexity of human relationships through its constant emphasis on deception (…) representing women’s infidelity to men, on top of an array of misogynist rhetoric and behaviour”. Indeed, as Croteau affirms, in reviewing stage productions, it is imperative to reflect with scholarly precision on what plays such Much Ado might have to say to our cultural moment (pp.154–158).

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(Epstein & Stewart, 1992), resulting in a plethora of approaches. Stanley and Wise (1983) note that the idea that there is only “one road” to the feminist revolution and only one type of “truly feminist” research is limiting and, offensive as a male-biased account of the research that has gone before. Further, Braidotti (2002) notes that gender research “challenges scientific thought and aims at enlarging the meaning and practice of scientific research to reflect further the changes in the status of women”: thus, gender research is a “multidisciplinary practice that engages in a constructive dialogue with a number of established academic disciplines and scientific practices” (p.286). Using multiple methods, allows researchers to link the past and present and relate individual action and experience to social frameworks (Reinharz, 1992, as cited in Letherby & Jackson, 2003, p.96). In this sense, when performing a discourse analysis, this research is concerned with the production of meaning through statements in speech and texts.

Analytical Approach

“Feminist objectivity means quite simply situated knowledges.” Donna Haraway 4

The object of this analysis is to explore theatre as a tool for change, and subsequently, this research is informed by different analytical approaches. One of these is discourse analysis through the exploration of discourse as a set of statements, and I focus on how gendered relations are mediated by texts in which women are active as subjects and agents. Using Measure for Measure, I analyze the main character, Isabella, not only as a submissive subject to Angelo and her brother but as an

Situated knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective,” Feminist Studies

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agent as well. In the discussion of social relations, Dorothy Smith (1990) stated that women are not just passive products of socialization; they are active, and they create themselves. In this sense, I examine gendered social relations by exploring how these relations go beyond the reach of any particular individual, and how women participate actively in a characteristic dialectic: people’s activities as participants provide power to the relations that overpower them (Smith, 1990, p.161) . 5

However, where this agreement usually ends, the question of how women create themselves arises. Whereas some theorists are convinced that this is an issue of class, others, like Smith, maintain that the relations organizing this dialectic between the active and creative subject and the market and productive organization of capital are those of a textually mediated discourse. In the context of Foucault’s archaeology, the concept of discourse has the same force as structuralism in displacing the subject or reducing them to a mere bearer of systemic external processes (p.161). In this sense, applying the discourse analysis (DA) subfields of critical discourse analysis (CDA) and Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA) to examine statements in a sample of passages from Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, I would not limit my analysis to the characters’ utterances but, as above, to gendered social relations and the mode of existing of this discourse.

In addition, Foucault defines discourse as an assemblage of “statements” arising in an ongoing “conversation" mediated by texts, among speakers and hearts, separated from one another in time and space (Foucault, 1972 cited in Smith, 1990, p.161). Ultimately, statements have a constructive role; they come to constitute objects and subjects. For instance, the following statement written for Measure for Measure’s character Angelo more than 400 years ago, “Who will believe thee, Isabella?” (2.4.156) still resonates today. When we hear this statement, it is at this very moment when we “snap,” a word Sarah Ahmed (2017) uses to describe a moment of clarity. With these

Dorothy Smith’s Texts, Facts, and Femininity (1990)

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words, Shakespeare brought to light the pressures that silence victims of sexual harassment. From 6

this perspective, I have identified various forms of gender constructions in Shakespeare’s play, which will be covered in the study section.

Moreover, this particular study situates Measure for Measure in the post #MeToo era by exposing sexual harassment and as a way to experience theatre to change this behavior. In this sense, Ahmed’s “snap” serves to illustrate a wakeup call in specific passages from the play when the reader—and spectator—can identify the moment of clarity in the play that connects us with the #MeToo movement. Different thought-provoking scenes can be that moment when spectators snap, and as a consequence, a play can transform us into “spect-actors,” a term developed by Augusto Boal’s in his Invisible Theatre —a public theatre that involves the public as participants in the 7

action without their knowing it (xxiii).

When it comes to the connection of the experience as a spectator in theatre and social movements, it is relevant to consider what many scholars have argued about movements such as women’s movements. These movements “make it possible for people to see the world in an enlarged perspective because they remove the covers and blinders that obscure knowledge and observation.” 8

Haraway (1988) argues that not all social and scientific revolutions have always been liberators,

I use the “sexual harassment” anachronism to illustrate the significance and the representation of the analysed scened

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in the contemporary era.

Developed by Boal between 1971 and 1975 in Argentina, Invisible Theatre is included in Games for actors and

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actors (2002).

Marcia Millman and Rosabeth Moss Kanter “Editors’s Introduction” to Another Voice: Feminist Perspectives on

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even if they have always been visionary (p.587). Contrary to this, Harding (1993) notes that 9

although feminist standpoint theorists agree with this statement, they also argue that researchers can do more than just wait around until social movements happen. I agree with Haraway that gender is a field of structured and structuring difference and that consequently, the feminist embodiment is not about a fixed location in a reified body, female or otherwise, but about nodes of fields (1993, p. 588). So, how should one be positioned in order to see these dimensions? My journey in research and literary criticism began during my studies in English and cultural studies by analyzing not 10

only Shakespeare’s plays but also Defoe, Woolf, George Eliot, and Dickens, to name a few. Although I did not explore feminism using Dickens’ or Eliot’s works and instead examined social norms and morals, when analyzing Daniel Defoe’s Roxana (1724) while writing my BA thesis, I 11

engaged with feminist theories, women’s social conditions in the Eighteenth century, and women’s representation in literary works . Engaged in this analytical tradition, I was able to identify not 12

only the power of the knower as an agent in the production of knowledge (Haraway 1988, p.592) but also women’s struggles, the historical origins, and women’s movements to date.

Rethinking Standpoint Epistemology: What is “Strong Objectivity”? In Feminist Epistemologies ed. By Linda Alcoff

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and Elizabeth Potter

As it is well known, Cultural studies transcends the traditional boundaries between academic disciplines such as

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literature, history, sociology, anthropology, and media studies. In English Studies, I was introduced to different theoretical models that provided me with a broad understanding of culture, representation, social movements and everyday life practices.

Silas Marner (1861)

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It is worth notice that the literary tradition continue to depict women in a negative way as we observe in Isabella’s

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character. Although, I may grant that in his previous works Defoe’s rhetoric on women reflected a critique of a misogynistic society as he does display in his proposals a real interest in women’s education and welfare, he portrays in

Roxana—and in Moll Flanders (1722) for that matter— a commodified woman and even though Roxana rejects the idea

of marrying, she is nevertheless subjected to men. the commodified woman, then, is a necessary image in the context of misogynist tradition, in which Defoe is also invested. (from a previous study on Defoe’s work, Delgado, 2016)

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Since the #MeToo became a viral social media movement, it has mobilized millions of women to share their stories and subsequently helped to illuminate both the structural and individual aspects of sexual harassment and abuse by men against women within virtually all aspects of society. As the #MeToo movement is here to stay, researchers need to continue the discussion of power and gendered relations. My point is this: we do not need to wait for another movement to rise, and cultural art manifestations can help us to “snap,” after that, to react.

In this study, I will employ multiple methodological approaches, namely, feminist epistemology, discourse analysis, content analysis, and critical discourse analysis (CDA). This combination of approaches will enable an understanding of how “interrelationships are constantly produced, reproduced, challenged, and transformed” (Hodkinson, 2017). This process of analysis allowed me identify the elements of transformative knowledge and strategies to understand statements and the discourse they carry, and thus, advance theatre as transformative tool.

Phenomenology and Feminist Theory

This analysis also focuses on theatre as a means of changing gender roles. Accordingly, drawing 13

on Harding (1986, 1987, 1991) I examine gender as a multilayered concept that needs to be investigated on three levels:

To the majority of feminist scholars, gender is a cultural and historical product, as opposed to an essentialist

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definition of the physical and differences between the sexes (Braidotti, 2002). To this analysis, I will be using a gender approach. By doing so, I focus on the social construction of these differences—relevant to a gender research one might

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1. Gender as a dimension of personal identity. On this level gender is investigated as an interpersonal process of consciousness, and as the dynamic relation of self-images to individual and collective identity.

2. Gender as a principle of organization of social structure. On this level, gender is investigated as the foundation of social institutions ranging from family and kinship structures to the division of labor in social, economic, political, and cultural life.

3. Gender as the basis for normative values. On this level, gender is investigated as a system that produces socially enacted meanings, representations of masculinity and femininity, which are shot through with issues of ethnicity, nationality and religion. These identity-giving values are organized in a binary scheme of oppositions that also act as principles for the distribution of power (in Braidotti, p. 287).

Employing this multilayered understanding of gender will create a more holistic perception of the topic. Likewise, phenomenology as a method of inquiry is interested in recovering the living moment of the now—even before we put language to it or describe it in words. As Given puts it (2008), phenomenology attempt to demonstrate how our words, concepts, and theories always shape (or distort) and give structure to our experiences as we live them. These experiences can be described, but ultimately the meaning of the primal experience is beyond propositional discourse. In this regard, to examine the spectator experience and propose how we become spect-actors after that is one of the objectives of this analysis.

Ultimately, by using a phenomenological approach, I attempt to uncover the structure of an experience, namely, an experience of theatre, by analyzing specific fragments of Measure for

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Measure. To borrow Hornstein’s words, “Crucial to [phenomenology] is a way of thinking termed imaginal variation, in which a given feeling, thought, or outcome is compared with other possibilities” (pp.6–7). Thus, crucial to my research process is a realistic and pragmatic strategy to implement a feminist perspective on the chosen methodologies. As Epstein and Stewart (2007) note, when doing research, some strategies for the practical implementation of a feminist perspective in social science research must be considered:

When selecting a research topic or problem, we should ask how that research has potential to help women’s lives and what information is necessary to have such an impact. When interpreting results, we should ask what different interpretations, always consistent with the findings, might imply for change in women’s lives, and lastly, always attempt some political analysis of the findings. (pp. 54–55).

Again, these strategies combined—discourse analysis subfields such as CDA, phenomenology, and feminist and theatre theories—will contribute to a new dialogue on the topic analyzed in this paper.

Intersectionality as Critical inquiry

“Intersectionality as a form of critical inquiry invokes a broad sense of using intersectional frameworks to study a range of social phenomena (…) across different social contexts. Intersectionality as critical praxis does the same,

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but in ways that explicitly challenge the status quo and aim to transform power relations”

(Colins & Sirma Bilge, 2016, p.33)

Intersectionality is a way of understanding and analyzing the complexity of the world, people, and their experiences and plays a key role in this analysis. Initially coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, intersectionality refers to the “fact that the experiences and struggles of women of colour fell between the cracks of both feminist and anti-racist discourse” (p.17). Although intersectionality is often associated with African-American feminist theory, Nina Lykke demonstrates that other feminist theorists inspired by postmodern theoretical perspectives have also welcomed intersectionality in their projects “of deconstructing the binary oppositions and universalism inherent in the modernist paradigms of Western philosophy and science” (Brah & Phoenix 2004, Phoenix, 2006, cited in Lykke, 2014, p. 18). Hence, I employ intersectionality in my analysis of Measure for Measure by considering the intersection of gender, class, and power depicted in specific passages of the play.

To Haraway (1998, cited in Lykke 2014, p.19), intersectionality embodies a commitment to the situatedness of all knowledge. In this sense, by looking at how gender, class, and power are intertwined in social relations, I use intersectionality very similarly as Maria Matsuda describes it:

The way I try to understand the interconnection of all forms of subordination is through a method I call “ask the other question.” When I see something that looks racist, I ask, “Where is the patriarchy in this?”

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When I see something that looks sexist, I ask, “Where is the heterosexism in this?” When I see something that looks homophobic, I ask, “Where are the class interests in this?” (1991, 1189, cited in Lykke 2014, p. 20)

Likewise, when I see a form of subordination in Isabella’s actions, I ask, where is the heteronormative in this? Additionally, when I see Angelo executing his will, I ask, where are the class and power relations in this?

Accordingly, when it comes to an intersectional analysis, Collins and Bilge (2016) highlight that intersectional frameworks understand power relations through a lens of mutual construction. In other words, people’s lives and identities are generally shaped by many factors in diverse and mutually influencing ways (p.27). Within the intersectional framework, there is no pure racism and sexism; instead, they note, power relations of sexism gain meaning in relation to one another. In this respect, one might see those factors illustrated in Measure for Measure as a representation of a society in which power relations are translated into gendered social relations. Nevertheless, I would argue that power relations are challenged in the play. Despite the ambiguous end that leaves space for different interpretations, what is at stake here are those moments in which the spectator relates to personal experiences or to social problems that affect them, and therefore inspire them to challenge and change them. For example, across domains of power depicted in Measure for Measure, those that are thought-provoking are namely structural—the Duke and Angelo’s disciplinary law enforcement to control sexuality, cultural-marriage, kinship, religion, and interpersonal-gendered relations. Thus, the study of Measure for Measure introduces the idea of power as a relationship. Of course, there is a social context; however, my aim is not to analyze Measure for Measure in a historical context but as a valid example of gendered relations that

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transcend time and space. Social inequality, relations, and power relations were not alien in Shakespeare’s time and neither are they in ours.

Gender as a Performative Act

This analysis is informed by the current influential understanding of gender as a performative act. In Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory (1988), Judith Butler claims that social agents constitute social reality through language, gestures, and all manners of symbolic social signs. To illustrate this, she argues that when Simone de Beauvoir claims, “One is not born, but, rather, becomes a woman,” she is appropriating and reinterpreting a doctrine of constituting acts for the phenomenological tradition. In this sense, Butler insists, gender is in no way a stable identity or locus of agency from which various acts proceed; instead, it is an identity tenuously constituted in time and an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts (p.519). In the same lines, Jürgen Habermas, in The Liberating Power of Symbols (2001), asserts that, “The world of symbolic forms, extends from pictorial representation, via verbal expression, to forms of orienting knowledge, which in turn pave the way to practice” (p.3).

In Measure for Measure, the spectator can recognize the characters’ identity by their gestures, language, and appearance. More precisely, Butler affirms that if gender is instituted through internally discontinuous acts, then the appearance of substance is indeed a constructed identity, a performative accomplishment that the mundane social audience, including the actors themselves, come to believe and perform in the mode of belief (p.520). In short, the acts by which gender is constituted bear similarities to performative acts within theatrical contexts (p.521). What is at stake here is that an individual is conditioned by a repetition of acts over time, and the possibilities of gender transformation are found in the possibility of a different sort of repetition, as Butler puts it,

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in the breaking or subversive repetition of that style. Therefore, I agree with Butler that if gender acts are constituted through repetition of acts, then they are capable of being constituted differently. What interests me in the analysis of the theatre model is that, as Butler affirms, the gendered self is before its acts. Although in Shakespeare’s time, female characters were performed by men, the character’s action carries gendered norms in their acts. Consequently, I take constituting acts as a starting point of my argument to demonstrate that performative acts can transform our understanding of gendered identities.

Luce Irigaray (2004) developed another influential understanding of gender and, in contrast to Butler, looks at sociocultural gender in a de-constructionist way. She emphasizes the non-deterministic but irreducible quality of sexed bodies; that is, their sexually different morphology. To Irigaray, historical inequality can only be challenged by insisting on and recognizing visible female difference (cited in Lykke, 2014, pp.108–109). In contrast, Butler defends not redescribing the world from the point of view of women, but to examine how the phenomenon of a men’s or a women’s point of view becomes constituted (p.529). These findings illuminate my analysis to demonstrate a connection among discourse in a play, the spectators’ experience in the theatre, and, consequently, the spectator as a spect-actor.

From Theatre to Social Discourse

“Theatre is a form of knowledge; it should and can also be a means of transforming society. Theatre can help us build our future, rather than just waiting for it."

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To understand what theatre can do for us and what we can do with theatre, I draw on Augusto Boal’s revolutionary ideas; thus, I claim theatre as a mirror of the world, one that we can reach into to change our reality. In his work The Theatre of the Oppressed (1973), Boal allowed people to reclaim theatre, providing forums through which they could imagine and enact social and political change, and by doing so, he breaks down the wall between actors and audience, allowing the two sides come together and the audience becomes the “spect-actors.”

Similarly, in Games for Actors and Non-Actors, Boal (2002) sets forth the principles and practice of his revolutionary method for using theatre to transform and liberate actors and non-actors alike. In this work, I focused on two elements of the dialectics of acting: the will and the counter-will. A fundamental concept for the actor, Boal asserts, is not the “being” of the character, but the “will”— the concrete idea. Here, one could raise questions, such as “What is represented?” or “How is it represented and to what effect?” For instance, in Measure for Measure, one can notice the world as an inhospitable place, especially for women. In this particular aspect, Ian Watt (2000) observes that characters are made by their environment. Admittedly, Isabella’s character sheds light on the state of women in a misogynistic society, not to mention Mistress Overdone (the brothel-madam), Mariana (betrothed to Angelo), and Julietta (loved by Claudio). Thus, this play and other plays could have the potential to mobilize a set of admirable resources.

Granted, the experience of the spectator plays a relevant role when using theatre as a means for change, and taking the way individuals come to “experience their experiences" (Dwyer, 2004, p.161) as a point of departure, I incorporate Boal’s “spect-actor” into the Brechtian theory of the alienation-effect as a critical and active relation. Employing this effect, Brecht hoped to create a new relation between the audience and the play performed. In short, he wanted to turn the spectator

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into an actor who would complete the unfinished play in their real life (p.146) . 14

Ultimately, the spectator becomes an active agent for change , an agent who will perform change 15

when the play ends in the world outside the theatre,1617 which would lead to a different mode of thinking and living. 18

The Study

In this section, I first provide a summary of Measure for Measure to offer the reader a background to the play, paying attention to the particular characters whom I analyzed. Second, I examine gender as a performative act; the gendered social relations represented in the play, and how they resonate

For an in depth analysis of Althusser’s notes on a materialist theatre see, The ‘Picolo Teatro’: Bertolazzi and Brecht

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In the Mai Zetterling’s 1968 “Flickorna” (The Girls), a film based on Lysistrata (400 BCE) by Aristophanes in which

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a theatre company in which the actresses not only apply the ideas they learn from Lysistrata, but, encourage the audience to discuss the play so they could gain some awareness of the problems of their works and thus change something. Lyz, one of the actresses, asks the audience,“Ni tyckte att den gav er någonting?” (meaning, Did you think [the play] gave you something? In other words, Did it make you snap? Lyz, further argues that Aristophanes’s goal in writing the play was to make change a possibility, to make people start a discussion, exchange ideas, and so forth. Although the paradox of this case is that relies on fictional experiences, is nonetheless didactic, and sheds light on the power of theatre and how, lives, theatre, and reality blend.

http://www.svenskfilmdatabas.se/sv/item/?type=film&itemid=4792

Also, Judith Butler (1997) refers to John L. Austin’s speech act theory. According to speech act theory, language

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should thus be understood not only as meaning making, but also as an active praxis with reality-production effects. See the Worlding Project (2007) by Rob Wilson and Christopher Leigh Connery, a critical blend of art and politics

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that suggests a whole new way to globalise. Rather than globalization, it is what they call worlding (p.viii)

In Brecht's Rundköpfe und die Spitzköpfe (1932), and adaptation of Measure for Measure, he did not only produce an

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with the #MeToo movement. Further, I analyze Isabella’s anger, theatre as a tool for change, and how to become spect-actors.

Measure for Measure: A Summary and Overview of Literacy

Receptions

Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure (1623), is a dark comedy depicting Duke Vicentio’s efforts to restore respect for the law after a period of lax enforcement. The play begins with Duke Vicentio, the ruler of Vienna, handing his power over to Angelo, though the Duke remains in Vienna disguised as a friar to observe the effects of Angelo’s governance.

The first thing Angelo orders is the beheading of Claudio under a long-ignored law against fornication. Claudio, with the help of Lucio, asks his sister Isabella, an aspiring nun, to talk with Angelo so that he can pardon him. When she does, Angelo offers to pardon her brother in exchange for sex.

In the end, all the sexual miscreants—Claudio, Angelo, Lucio, and perhaps even the Duke himself —are safely housed in matrimony, sentenced to marriage rather than to death. Ultimately, W. H. Auden asserts, “The play’s ending is actually no conclusion,” as we do not know if Isabella accepts the Duke’s offer to marry him.

In previous studies, Measure for Measure has been considered by F.S. Boas (1896) as a “problem play” that, “introduces us into highly artificial societies, whose civilization is ripe unto rottenness.” Along the same lines, to Rosalinda Miles, the controversy of the play is infinite. She argues that the Duke’s representation is a “god-like figure” and even a “seedy sadistic manipulator” and raises the question of whether Isabella is either a “feminist prototype or a masochistic hysteric” Further, Miles contends that the play was identified as supportive of the “king’s justice.” This is similar to Bennet, who argues that “Measure for Measure was written expressly for King James” (p.225). Although I

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agree with Boas up to a point, I still insist that Measure for Measure should be considered an “aid” play as it sheds light on the malice inherent in all societies.

Analysis

In this analysis, I examine Isabella’s agency, how gendered social gendered relations are depicted in the play, and to what extend societal norms influence the expectations of what a woman is. Moreover, I look at the discourse of domination and power in the passages selected for this study. Subsequently, the reader is confronted with the idea of women as objects to get what a man wants. Further, this analysis aims to shed light on why this particular play resonates with the #MeToo Movement. Finally, a feminist reading of the effect of the text on the audience allows me to argue about the power of theatre in making us, the audience, snap.

Isabella, the main character of Measure for Measure, adopts a personality and pretends to be someone else when she meets Angelo after having been urged by Lucio to perform a submissive role, that is, to be a woman. Behind the scenes and acting as her conscience, Lucio advises her to act in a more feminine way. I can illustrate this with the following fragment, where Lucio first attempts to convince her to use the power she has as a woman:

LUCIO

“Assay the power you have” ISABELLA

“My power, alas, I doubt. LUCIO

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Men give like gods, but when they week and kneel All their petitions are as freely theirs

As they themselves would owe them (1.4.79–83)

In this passage, Lucio is aware of the gendered social relations of his time and thus persuades Isabella to “assay the power” she has (emphasis mine). For Collins and Bilge (2016), power relations are about people’s lives, how people relate to one another, and who is advantaged or disadvantaged within social relations. That being said, it is relevant to note that using power requires being aware of the positions of power as well as the disadvantaged positions. This is evident in this case of Isabella as a nun and Angelo as a deputy and judge. As Maurice Charney puts it, the roles of Isabella as a nun and Angelo as a judge “have deep roots in the erotic imagination,” for they “represent the extremities of piety and rectitude that cry out to be violated" (cited in Shakespeare quarterly, 1997, pp. 683–685). Likewise, when examining how gender is constituted, there are similarities with performative acts from theatrical contexts. In the fragment above, Isabella performs a character alien to her, through such acts as submissiveness and obedience—first for her kinship, and then for Angelo, she is expected to fulfill her role as a woman. However, Isabella refuses to materialize herself in obedience. Accordingly, in the following fragment, she acts as an agent, and in doing so, she refuses Angelo’s advances. Such references allow us to penetrate the culture of a period that resonates with the present day:

ANGELO

Admit no other way to save his life— As I subscribe not that, nor any other—

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Finding yourself desired of such a person

Whose credit with the judge, or own great place, Could fetch your brother from the manacles Of the all-binding law, and that there were No earthly mean to save him, but that either You must lay down the treasures of your body To this supposed, or else to let him suffer; What would you do?

ISABELLA

As much for my poor brother as myself; That is, were I under that terms of death,

The impression of keen whips I’d wear as rubies, And strip myself to death as to a bed

That longing have been sick for, ere I’d yield My body up to shame

ANGELO

Then must your brother die. (2.3.88–105)

Although women are believed to be agents of their lives, women are still expected to be passive and accept and perpetuate the status quo. Indeed, doctrines of femininity interpret women as producing themselves for men as extensions of men’s consciousness and as objects of men’s desire (Smith,

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1990, pp. 191–192). To illustrate this expectation, note Lucio’s and Claudio’s insistence that 19

Isabella should convince Angelo claiming that Isabella’s youth will make Angelo change his mind on Claudio’s sentence:

CLAUDIO (to Lucio)

I prithee, Lucio, do me this kind service. This day my sister should the cloister enter, And there receive her approbation.

Acquaint her with the danger of my state, Implore her, in my voice, that she make friends To the strict deputy; bid herself assay him. I have great hope in that, for in her youth There is a prone and speechless dialect

Such as move men; beside, she hath prosperous art When she will play with reason and discourse, And well she can persuade.

(1.2.174–186)

In this scene, the spectator is confronted with the idea of women as objects to get what a man wants, and something that replicates in reality. The notion of discourse here is identified with Claudio’s idea that a woman “can persuade” a man with “her youth.”

Nevertheless, when it comes to gender as a form of social relations, the differences already exist; the seams, cracks, varieties, and contradictions in the multiple sites and modes of being a woman or Angelo uses his kinship relation as a mode of power over Isabella. He is aware that her intelligence, femininity, and

19

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being a man are reduced and homogenized, and we are conditioned to believe that “women can persuade.” Viewing gender from within is a way to explore social relations gendering the particular local historical sites of women’s experience and to examine specificities, not gender in the abstract, not as total, but as multiple and sometimes contradictory relations. In this regard, Smith raises an interesting question: “Does it make sense to formulate general statements of women as a social category?” (p.159). As soon as we do so, Smith remarks, we encounter the peculiar elusiveness of the object it names.

Moreover, while this study does not analyze Shakespeare’s play in its specific historical context, it sheds light on the problem of gender norms societies still face today:

ISABELLA

Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know That’s like my brother’s fault; if it confess

A natural guiltiness, such as is his,

Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue Against my brother’s life

ANGELO (aside) She speaks, and ’tis

Such sense that my sense breeds with it. (To her) Fare you well. ISABELLA

Gentle my lord, turn back. ANGELO

I will bethink me. Come again tomorrow. ISABELLA

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How? Bribe me? (2.2.139–148)

When looking at the statement above, sexual harassment can be examined from a modern perspective. First, while I concede that “sexual harassment” was not a concept in Shakespeare’s time, nevertheless, Measure for Measure resonates with women’s modern anger for non-stop harassment. To some scholars, the concept of sexual harassment has been defined as quid pro quo 20

in the same line as Shakespeare’s characters acknowledge it, “this for that.” As such, Angelo acknowledges social relations between men and women when asking, “Bribe me?” (2.2.148) With this questions, he is, thus, already considering asking for sex in exchange for her brother’s liberty; however, Isabella makes it clear that the bribe was purely spiritual.

In the climax of Measure for Measure, Isabella rejects Angelo’s “proposition” with a sound argument about how gender norms disfavor women, and but by doing so, contradicts what is expected from her gender. In other words, as I mentioned above, she resists materializing herself in obedience. She rejects Angelo, to which he responds, “Who will believe, thee, Isabella?” (2.4.156) Here, Shakespeare stages a moment of clarity for the spectator. In addition, at this point, one might notice Angelo is not only the perpetrator but the judge, and the law itself—Isabella’s fate is in his hands, so to speak. It follows then that Isabella utters a question to herself and the audience in her soliloquy: “To whom should I complain?” (2.4.172). This is the moment that Isabella connects us to the #MeToo movement. Certainly, Isabella’s statement that she has no one to complain to resonates

This passages shed light on what it is considered as quid pro quo sexual harassment. See Farley’s Sexual Shakedown

20

(1978). In this study, Farleys refers to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines in arguing that sexual harassment became defined as quid pro quo sexual harassment in the work environment: https://www.un.org/ womenwatch/osagi/pdf/whatissh.pdf

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with the #MeToo movement because of her struggle as the victim of a powerful man who takes advantage of his position, a powerful man who repeatedly wields his power when he declares:

ANGELO

My unsoiled name, the austereness of my life, My vouch against you, and my place i’ the state, Will so your accusation overweigh

That you shall stifle in your own report And smell of calumny. I have begun, And now I give my sensual race the rein. Fit thy content to my sharp appetite; Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes

That banish what they sue for. Redeem thy brother By yielding up thy body to my will,

Or else he must not only die the death, But thy unkindness shall his death draw out To lingering sufferance. Answer me tomorrow Or, by the affection that now guides me most, I´ll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,

Say what you can; my false overweights your true. (2.4.150–171)

This passage illustrates what we now recognize as sexual harassment today—what women have gone through historically, and, as mentioned above, the resistance of men to be held accountable for

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their actions. It is also interesting to note that Angelo’s actions serve to illustrate the position of men in power as “tempted,” and thus, once more, avoid being held accountable for his actions:

ANGELO

What’s this, what’s this? Is this her fault or mine? The tempter or the tempted who sins most, ha? Not she, nor doth she tempt; but it is I

(2.2.165–168)

In the following passage, the Duke, disguised as a friar, makes arrangements to help Isabella ask Mariana (who regards herself as Angelo’s wife) to pretend to be Isabella. According to the Duke, by doing so, Isabella will not only save her brother’s life but keep herself from dishonor:

ISABELLA

Show me how, good father. DUKE

(…)

Go you to Angelo, answer his requiring with a Plausible obedience, agree with this demands to the point.

Only refer yourself to this advantage: first, that

your stay with him may not be long; that the place may have all shadow and silence in it; and the time answer To convenience. This being granted in course, and now

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Follow all: we shall advise this wronged maid to stead Up your appointment, go in your place. If the encounter acknowlege itself hereafter, it may compel to him to her Recompense; and her, by this is your brother saved, your honour untainted, the poor Mariana advantaged, And the corrupt depute scaled (…)

What you think of it? (3.1.240–259)

What happens in the passage above was an unexpected plot twist in the play. Although Isabella has already informed her brother, there is no way to save his life because that involves a price she refuses to pay: when the Duke offers this strategy, she accepts. It is often assumed that the Duke arranged this episode as a test of Isabella’s suitability to be his future wife , a moralistic approach 21

that reveals men’s expectations of how a woman should be. However, this passage also suggests Isabella’s agency on her life decisions with the question, “What you think of it?” To what Isabella responds: “The image of it gives me content already, and I trust it will grow to a most prosperous perfection” (3.1.260–261). Further, one might also find interesting to highlight what Elbow, a simple constable, has to say in this same scene:

ELBOW

Nay, if there be no remedy for it, but that you will needs buy and sell men and women like beasts, we shall

Have all the world drink brown and white bastard. (3.1.270–272)

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Although this is believed to be a fresh scene, there is a linkage with the previous scene because the Duke remains on stage. What this scene suggests is a reference to illegitimate children. The intention of the Duke’s plan is not only to save Isabella’s brother but also to assist Mariana, who was wronged by Angelo, thus, placing men and women in their proper role.

So far, the analysis demonstrates how Measure for Measure illustrates societal expectations on the perception of sex. That is, as Butler suggests, gender reality is created through sustained social performances, and as performance is performative, gender is an act broadly construed. As we have seen in the analyzed passages, performing one’s gender wrong initiates a set of punishments both obvious and indirect—Isabella’s accusation against Angelo appears to backfire on herself; she is treated first as a madwoman, and then as an accomplice in political intrigue to discredit Angelo that leads to her arrest. 22

Another aspect worth examining is Isabella’s anger. Drawing on Audre Lorde’s The Uses of Anger (1981), I concede that women responding to sexist attitudes means responding to the misogyny of 23

the world —the anger of unquestioned privilege, silence, and betrayal (p.117). Isabella’s furious 24

outburst during her discussion with Claudio demonstrates her “anger and distress at her discovery

in Measure for Measure’s textual introduction p. 60

22

In Audre Lorde’s The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism, from a keynote presentation at the National

23

Women’s Studies Association Conference, Storrs, Connecticut, June 1981.

According to Harry Berger Jr. (2004), in his Gynephobia and Culture change, an Irigarayan just-so story, he notes that

24

there used to be a tendency in criticism by feminist scholars and others to use the term “misogyny” to denote the whole antifeminist position rather than merely the hostility, contempt, and dismissal expressed in conventional denigrations of women (p.138) as we have seen in the play analysed.

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that two men whom she had assumed to be honorable, are prepared to exploit her sexuality” (p.59). 25

Along the same lines, in Cultural Politics of Emotion (2013), Ahmed asserts that emotions are bound up with the sticky relations between signs and bodies. In short, Ahmed considered the relations between emotions and (in)justice, as a way of rethinking what it is that emotions do (2013, p.191). Think, for instance, of Isabella’s anger toward her brother and Angelo. In this sense, Isabella’s anger moves the spectator (and the reader) as it sheds light on sexual harassment and women's experiences with power and justice. As a result, it also elucidates that, ultimately, justice is not for all. Thus, Measure for Measure tells us a story quite similar to those that sparked the 2017’s #MeToo movement.

When analyzing Measure for Measure’s discourses as a set of statements, it is important to highlight that when I focus on how different discourses are represented, I also see how language acts, and in doing so, I am interested in why conventions of a language are conventions . In this sense, Henry 26

and Tator (2007) note that, language acts are not arbitrary; speakers and writers make grammatical and semantic choices, which vary with social context and function. Language is not value-free; it is motivated and influenced by ideological convictions (Henry & Tator, 2007, p. 119). In other words, Angelo acts through language, through discourse, and thus makes use of a “gendered language of masculine power” (Armstrong, 2000, p. 96). What he expects culminates in Isabella’s submission. However, this exists alongside Isabella’s struggle and resistance. I argue that the motivation of

In Measure for Measure’s textual introduction, p. 59

25

Ruth Garett Millikan, in her Beyond Concepts: Unicepts, Language, and Natural Information (2017), asserts that,

26

“Language in use involve not merely acts of the speaker but cooperative acts of the speaker, and not merely acts of the hearer but cooperative acts of the hearer. Language then, projects states of affairs in the world onto linguistic forms.

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Shakespeare’s heroine is to resist and to call for action through the theatrical power—a wakeup call. When we look more closely at the passages analysed above, the words uttered by both Angelo and Isabella conjure up an “image of power and resistance,” which reflect patriarchy and relations of power in society as Michel Foucault (1976) puts it in his History of Sexuality. This concerns the historical relationships of power and the discourse of sex as a circular project that involves “two endeavors that refer back to one another” (pp.90–91) In other words, one might understand Measure for Measure as a critical view of how, historically, power has gained access to sex, one of the most forbidden areas of our lives and bodies; as noted above, through the prohibition at the beginning of the play, the Duke wants to treat sexual offences more rigorously. This fundamental idea of power over our bodies produces a discourse of control over sex and is reproduced through power relations.

A feminist reading of the effect of the text on the audience is what I referred to in discussing the power of theatre in making us, the audience, snap. The moment in which Isabella utters: “To whom should I complain?”, is the moment when the Measure for Measure spectator “snaps.” In Ahmed’s (2017) feminist vocabulary, to snap is “the moment when a woman does not take it anymore” (pp.3–4). To further illustrate this, I use another passage in which Isabella resists her brother’s will of using her to gain his pardon:

CLAUDIO

Sweet sister, let me live.

What sin you do to save a brother’s life, Nature dispenses with the deed so far That it becomes a virtue.

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O you beast!

O faithless coward, O dishonest wretch! Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice? Is’t not a kind of incest to take life

From thine own sister’s shame? What should I think? Heaven shield my mother played my father fair! 27

For such a warped slip of wilderness

Ne’er issued from his blood. Take my defiance! Die, perish! Might but my bending down Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed: I’ll pray a thousand prayers for thy death, No word to save thee.

(3.1.136–150)

This moment stages the violence that saturates Isabella’s world. By telling her brother to assume his execution, Isabella recognizes what #MeToo has done to women: to recognize something—power relations, gender violence, gender as violence—Isabella therefore resists and urges the spectator to

Shield here can mean both ‘forbid’ and ‘protect’, but the former gives a much more powerful and grammatically

27

consistent reading: ‘Heaven forbid that my mother was faithful to my father when you were conceived, because you cannot possible be his true issue’. In the intensity of her revulsion Isabella would like to be able to regard her brother as

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resist too. In this sense, borrowing Ahmed’s (2013) words, I see Isabella’s emotions as “bound up with stories of justice and injustices.” 28

Analyzing Measure for Measure statements as discourse and complementing the idea of “snap” with gender as performative acts can demonstrate how these acts make an impression on the spectator. For instance, if Isabella is identified as an active subject and agent of her life, this could demonstrate the power in women; however, Isabella demonstrate this agency using with the only option that existed to her in her time of not conforming to the normative role of her gender, that is, by becoming a nun. What follows is the moment Isabella enters the cloister:

Enter Isabella and Francisca, a Nun ISABELLA

And have you nuns no farther privileges? NUN

Are not these large enough? ISABELLA

Yes, truly. I speak not as desiring more, But rather wishing a more strict restraint

In Ahmed, S. (2013). Cultural Politics of Emotion. In this work, Ahmed examined the cultural politics of emotion by

28

asking the question: what do emotions do? The doing of emotions, Ahmed suggests, is bound up with the sticky relations between signs and bodies: emotion work by working through signs and on bodies to materialise the surfaces and boundaries that are lived as world (p. 191)

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Upon the sisterhood, the votarists of Saint Clare. 29

(1.4.55–59)

Her wish of living a stricter life as a nun requires living in both poverty and abstinence. By doing this, Isabella rejects the reproductive role of women and her femininity. This particular attribute of a woman is a concept Isabella acknowledges but refuses, and becoming a nun is, therefore, the only way to respond to a feminine experience organized, imagined, and controlled by the patriarchal society of her time.

In this regard, Smith (1990) explains that statements attribute properties of society to concepts— social relations not as fixed relations between statuses but as an organization of sequences of action in time (p.160). What is at stake here is shedding light on forms of discourse that have emerged and are vested in social relations; in this light, reason, knowledge, and concepts, such is femininity, are more than mere attributes of individual consciousness, they are embedded in, organize, and are integral to social relations in which subjects act but which are not reducible to the acts of the subjects. The strategy of attending to social processes—accordingly, we can think of theatre as a social process—as ongoing can be extended to phenomena that have formerly been approached as subjective or as cultural phenomena. Discourses and ideology, Smith insists, can be investigated as social relations longingly organized in and by the activities of actual people. (1990, p.160).

Accordingly, exploring femininity as a discourse can be both positive and negative. For instance Claudio’s plan for Isabella tells us that she must use her youth, and therefore, her femininity. In Saint Clare: The order set up by St Clare (1194-1253), a followers of St Francis of Assissi, was rigorously enclosed

29

and had a strict rule (in theory if not always in practice) of poverty, silence, and abstinence. Nunneries were established in England in the late 13th c., but were dissolved in 1538. It is clear that Isabella would like an order with a reputation

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contrast, Angelo stresses the paradox that it is precisely Isabella’s virtue and purity that have provoked his desire:

ANGELO

O cunning enemy, that to catch a saint

With saints doest bait thy hook! Most dangerous Is that temptation that dough goad us on

To sin in loving virtue. Never could the strumpet, With all her double vigor, art and nature,

Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid Subdues me quite, even till now,

When men were fond, I smiled and wonder’d how. (2.2.212–219)

In this passage, the subject of sexuality only exists within the discourse—where Angelo considers his desire sinful. Although he claims that he would never be attracted to a prostitute, he still thinks of Isabella as a “virtuous girl” and recognizes and fears the effect that women have over men . The 30

rules that prescribe his way of talking about sexual attraction, “O cunning enemy,” exclude other ways of taking about this topic.

To him, as in patriarchal societies, women— like commodities—have dual value: use value (reproducing children and

30

labour) and exchange value. Accordingly, to Boer, women are both utilitarian objects and bearers of value (Boer Conrad, 2003)

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Discussion

By examining Measure to Measure and considering the #MeToo Movement, one can reflect on why not all women are heard. When Isabella declares “To whom should I complain?” (2.4.172), immediately resonates with the multiple responses to #MeToo around the world, such as #QuellaVoltaChe in Italy. Coined by actress Asia Argento after the #MeToo movement, meaning “that time when…,” this was used by Italian women to share the issues they have faced when reporting sexual assault to the police. The testimony of a woman in a tweet as a response she encountered from the police when she denounced her aggressor reads, “Madam, are you sure? You know that reporting it makes it a big deal?” She goes on to note that, “Afterward nothing happened.” In this regard and referring to reporting sexual assault in an interview with Tarana Burke, the founder of the MeToo campaign, Elizabeth Adetiba (2017) notes that part of the reason many marginalized people stay silent on sexual violence is distrust of law enforcement. Burke further claims that there is a need to talk about nontraditional methods to pursue justice. What does justice look like for a survivor? Burke argues that, “We need to look at alternative approaches to justice” (2017, p.30) and calls upon restorative justice as a way to achieve transformative justice. Admittedly, Burke’s discussion on marginalized people connects us when the moment Isabella declares, “To whom should I complain?” In which Isabella does only breaks the fourth wall—a technique that allows the actor and spectator to occupy the same theatrical space—she does not only urge the spectator to answer but, with her call for action, urges the audience to become participants or to become spect-actors: when one makes that choice a movement begins. According to Sara Ahmed, a feminist movement might be happening at the moment a woman snaps, the moment when she will not take it anymore, the violence that saturates her world, [the] world (2007) anymore; that is, feminism is a movement in many senses. In this regard, I agree with Ahmed in that we are

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moved to become feminists. My point here is that theatre might be a place where we find awareness, where we find feminism. Certainly, when it comes to sexual harassment, the majority might agree that it is everybody’s problem, and one does not need to be a woman to be aware of the abuses suffered by women. We, as Ahmed claims, are moved by something: a sense of injustice because something is wrong. Ultimately, there is some sense of sorority perceived in Measure for Measure; Isabella lacks a movement, but she can make connections. As Ahmed notes, feminism is the dynamism of making connections (pp. 2–3).

Indeed, feminism needs to be everywhere because feminism is not everywhere. From my experience as a spectator, I find feminism in many plays. Has theatre turned me into a feminist? If I use Measure for Measure as an example, it could have happened at the moment that Isabella rejects Angelo and refuses to help her brother at some point. Is Isabella’s decision to become a nun also a way of refusing to accept the place she had been given? Most likely, it is. Thus, I see theatre as a means of transformation, as a starting point of discussions, and as a tool for spectators to become actors for change. Accordingly, Ahmed insists that feminist movement requires that we acquire feminist tendencies and a willingness to keep going despite, or even because of, what we come up against.

When reading Measure for Measure one might wonder if the representation of men in positions of power as the norm can influence our view of gender relations, and I argue that although it can be accurate, representation must be challenged and changed. Is the representation of women in submissive positions, as a rule, a model? I also argue that this kind of representation can be examined so that it is challenged and changed. Certainly, we interpret a story depending on our cultural baggage. How we were social acculturated will determine how we react to such plays, stories, discourses, and so on. Thus, in a patriarchal and misogynistic society, Measure for Measure might be seen as an endorsement of such behaviors. However, our interpretation depends on the

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historical period in which we are situated. For instance, Foucault did not believe that the same phenomena would be found across different historical period. He thought that in each period, discourse produces forms of knowledge, objects, subjects, and practices of knowledge, which differ radically from period to period with no necessary continuity between them (1990, p.31). If things mean something and are true only within a specific historical context, as Foucault argues, then the fact that women’s representation today still carries the same discourse contradicts this theory. In other words, the idea of women as submissive and of men executing power over women bodies have not changed very much throughout history. However, Foucault’s idea that I draw on serves to allow one to “understand the production of knowledge is always crossed with questions of power and the body” (as cited in Hall, 2013, p.36), and this greatly expands the scope of what is involved in representation.

Conclusion

This study has presented an analysis of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, a relevant play that offers a way for us to be participants in the discussion of issues such as sexual harassment. Additionally, it offers the performing arts a venue to remind the public of the importance of going to the theatre and that theatre is not only a cultural attraction but also has transformative potential. This analysis offers a close examination of discourse practices and how they are reproduced and maintained as well as a reminder that they can be challenged and changed. The relevance of this analysis, not only to gender studies but to literature, social, feminist, and cultural studies, can be identified with the formulation of gender as a performative act in and outside theatre. Thus, literary works, plays, and art should be considered robust tools for change.

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The topic of this study can be further analyzed considering other factors that make theatre such an influential medium and from other perspectives, but given the timeframe and the scope of this thesis, the analyses were focused only on the research question. Conducted from a feminist perspective, this study offers a range of issues to be explored in future research regarding the liberating power of theatre.

Finally, at the time of the writing of this thesis, theatres around the world are closed due to COVID-19. To all of us who enjoy theatre, these closures are a considerable loss. In addition, although theatre can be streamed online, it is meant to be experienced live. As culture provides resilience, now, more than ever, people need culture. It gives us hope and reminds us that we are not alone. In this sense, it is important to keep giving theatre the value that it is worth not only because it makes us resilient but because it makes us question and challenge our societies. What is at stake here is how to provide people the opportunity to experience Ahmed’s “snap.” In this way, theatre is a valuable medium for social change, even under the present circumstances.

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Works Cited

Adéla Souralová. (2016). Nina Lykke: Feminist Studies. A Guide to Intersectional Theory, Methodology and Writing.

Adetiba, Elizabeth & Burke Tarana. (2017). Tarana Burke Says #MeToo Should Center Marginalized Communities. The Nation in Kinding, Jessie et.Al. Where Freedom Starts: Sex, Power, Violence #MeToo. A Verso Report. (2018). London: Verso.

Ahmed, S. oth. (2000). Transformations : thinking through feminism. Routledge.

Ahmed, S. (2014). The cultural politics of emotion (Second edition.). Edinburgh University Press. Ahmed, S. (2017). Living a feminist life. Duke University Press.

Alcoff, L. oth, & Potter, E. oth. (1993). Feminist epistemologies. Routledge. Althusser L. (1965). For Marx. Radical Thinkers. Verso: London

Armstrong, I. (2000). The radical aesthetic. Blackwell.

Berger, Harry Jr. (2004). Gynephobia and Culture Change: An Irigarayan just-so story in Irigaray. In Harvey, E. D., & Krier, T. (Eds.). (2004). Luce irigaray and premodern culture : Thresholds of history. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Boal, A. (2002). Games for actors and non-actors (2nd ed.). Routledge. Boal, A. (2019). Theatre of the Oppressed. Pluto Press.

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Cook, J.A. oth. (1991). Beyond Methodology: feminist scholarship as lived research. Indiana Univ. Press.

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