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The Mismatch between Crime and Punishment
Justice depends on finding an appropriate balance between crime and punishment. Thus, when there is a mismatch between them, injustice prevails. Claudio’s arrest and sentence offers the key example in the play of a mismatch between crime and punishment. Many characters in the play express frustration about this mismatch, and they do so in two ways. First, they are frustrated by the fact that Angelo has chosen to prosecute a law that has long laid dormant in Vienna. No one denies that the law exists, but they strenuously resist the suddenness of its enforcement. Claudio is the first to make this complaint, when he claims that “this new governor / Awakes me all the enrollèd penalties / Which have, like unscoured armor, hung by th’ wall / So long that nineteen zodiacs have gone round” (1.2.164–67). Second, the citizens of Vienna are frustrated by the fact that such a recently renewed law should enable a punishment as severe as Angelo’s punishment of Claudio. Even men of the law, such as Escalus and the Provost, believe that execution is far too severe a sentence for the offense of fornication. The punishment clearly doesn’t fit the crime.
One of the deep reasons for the mismatch between crime and punishment relates to a conflict between different kinds of law. In Claudio’s case, the infraction for which he has been condemned is a matter that blurs the line between sacred and secular law. The term fornication specifically refers to the act of having sex outside of marriage. Within a Christian religious paradigm, premarital sex is considered a sin and hence something that endangers a person’s immortal soul. Yet this sin, which amounts to an infraction against God, also comes under the jurisdiction of the state, which has officially outlawed the act. But this conflation of the sacred and the secular has disproportionate effects on the citizens of Vienna, who have varying degrees of religious commitment. In the case of someone like Claudio, who is otherwise law-abiding and who loves his fiancée, but who isn’t nearly as religious as his sister Isabella, the conflation of sacred and secular law has particularly harsh results. For other characters, like Lucio and Pompey, there’s an additional conflict at play. They think the criminalization of premarital sex contravenes human nature. Sexuality is something of a “natural law,” and punishing it goes against the natural order of things.
The Difficulty of Knowing Oneself
Many of the characters in Measure for Measure have a troubling and even dangerous lack of self-knowledge, and the struggles that ensue reveal the difficulty of knowing oneself. The key danger of having insufficient self-knowledge is hypocrisy, and the play’s chief hypocrite is undoubtedly Angelo. Angelo fancies himself a moral authority who leads an exemplary life—at once a fastidious keeper of the law and an emblem of spiritual purity. Yet in his eagerness to prove his moral authority and make a name for himself in the public sphere, Angelo neglects to consider the finer points of human desire. Because he has dismissed the importance of the senses, he is uniquely susceptible when Isabella unexpectedly inflames his passion: “She speaks, and ’tis such sense / That my sense breeds with it” (2.2.172–73). His use of the word breeds here clearly indicates a link between rational sense and sensual appetite. As Angelo comes to realize that he may be less of an angel than his name would imply, he struggles to understand who he is and why he’s acting the way he does: “What does thou, or what art thou, Angelo?” (2.2.210).
Nor is Angelo the only one who doesn’t fully know himself. The same is arguably true for Isabella. She also believes herself to be a paragon of virtue, which is what drives her to pledge herself to the order of Saint Clare. Indeed, so virtuous is she that even the convent isn’t strict enough. She indicates as much when she tells a nun that she “wish[es] a more strict restraint / Upon the sisterhood” (1.4.4–5). Isabella’s desire for “restraint” is just as excessive as her brother’s lack of restraint, and it’s arguably just as bound up with sexuality. Her fastidious rejection of all sexuality is, in other words, something of a psychosexual expression of control. Yet Isabella never seems consciously to recognize how her rejection of sex is itself deeply related to her sexuality. Though this doesn’t exactly make her a hypocrite, it does mean she sometimes acts in bad faith. For example, despite professing to hate fornication, she evidently has no problem setting up an unlawful tryst between Angelo and Mariana. As these examples indicate, the difficulty of achieving self-knowledge is one of the key problems at the heart of this so-called “problem play.”
The Attachment to Life
For a comedy, Measure for Measure features a surprising amount of discourse about death. Indeed, much of the play’s action centers on the impending execution of Claudio and the Duke’s various efforts to delay—and hopefully prevent—his death. The specter of death that hangs over the drama affords many occasions for discussing the matter of mortality. Intriguingly, when the Duke disguises himself as a friar, the first thing he does is visit Claudio in prison and attempt to comfort him in the face of his death. As part of this attempt, the Duke indulges in a lengthy speech where he encourages Claudio to “[b]e absolute for death” (3.1.5). The Duke’s speech does offer Claudio comfort, and the condemned man appears to accept his fate. However, when Isabella visits him later in the same scene and informs him that there’s a way to save his life, his interest is piqued. Though initially repulsed by the idea that Isabella should have sex with Angelo in exchange for his freedom, fearful thoughts of death cause him to change his mind: “Sweet sister, let me live” (3.1.149).
Claudio isn’t the only character in Measure for Measure to express a strong attachment to life. Consider, for instance, his fellow prisoner Barnardine. According to the Provost, Barnardine has been in prison for a long time, awaiting his execution. The Duke, looking for a way to defer Claudio’s death, wonders if Barnardine might be killed in his stead. The Duke feels emboldened when the Provost indicates that Barnardine doesn’t seem very attached to his life: “A man that apprehends death no more dreadfully but as a drunken sleep; . . . insensible of mortality and desperately mortal” (4.2.154–57). However, as the Duke will soon learn when he tries to summon Barnardine for his execution, the prisoner does indeed prize his life: “I will not consent to die this day, that’s certain” (4.3.58–59). Yet it isn’t only those condemned to execution who feel their mortality and express an attachment to life. Perhaps the most profound example comes, surprisingly, from the clown Pompey. Speaking to Escalus, he says with sober clarity: “Truly, sir, I am a poor fellow that would live” (2.1.231). Pompey’s simple words offer a plain but powerful declaration of a basic—even primal—desire to stay alive.
