윌리엄 셰익스피어의 『자에는 자로』—여성 목소리의 상실에 대한 페미니즘적 읽기

Abstract

From a feminist perspective, this essay attempts to show that, in Measure for Measure, patriarchal oppression and rigidity entrap its main female characters into the loss of their own voices. Representatively, Isabella and Mariana, who do not have the social opportunity to articulate their own voices, are eventually degraded into the passive role of women as the objects of exchange by the patriarchical order. This essay, therefore, tries to analyze the passivity and enforced silence of the two heroins in the play, using the feminist theories of Elaine Showalter and Susan Gubar. Both Showalter's “Wild Zone” and Dinesen's “The Blank Page” discuss how women are able to disrupt, symbolically at least, the oppressions of the patriarchal power and order. In these symbolic dynamic dimensions, women can possess their own voices and autonomies. Although Isabella partly controls her voice by way of using her intelligence and tactful discourses, the author makes her an unsettling character because of her virtuous ethos. The self-definition of female sexuality has been denied by the constant confrontations of the male authority in Measure for Measure. Women in this play must endure the silence and emotional restraints enforced by the male authority. Furthermore, Isabella is missing from the stage at the end of the play, which prevents her from replying to the Duke's proposal. Therefore, few would disagree that there is an absence of women's measure for men's measure, after all.