Representation of Women’s Suffering and Patriarchy in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure

Abstract

Worsening relationship between Claudio and Juliet, Angelo and Mariana as well as fake and passionate relationship between Isabella and Duke seems at last a fatal disease which creates psychological tension among women characters in Measure for Measure. Though Shakespeare has raised a rebellious lady- Isabella in the beginning of the play, she later internalizes the idea of the need for the establishment of patriarchal social system. This drama discuses about how women characters like Isabella, Mariana, Juliet and other females are represented and how they suffer at last in the solid entrapment of patriarchal social norms and values, which is only one factor to create tension between man and woman. Females in patriarchal societies are deprived of personal freedom and social opportunities. Similarly Shakespeare has exposed the patriarchal social reality of the Elizabethan period. Thus, this present research especially deals with the humiliating position of the females characters in Measure for Measure and brings into light their overwhelmingly helpless plight.