REFUSAL IN MEASURE FOR MEASURE

Abstract

Much critical attention has been given to Isabella’s non-answer to Duke Vincentio’s marriage proposal at the conclusion of Measure for Measure. What critics have failed to notice is that Isabella’s non-answer is not a unique or singular moment in the play. In fact, this paper will apply the theories of Slavoj Žižek to argue that the logic of subtraction, the negative gesture of non-compliance to which Isabella gives especially pronounced form, is fundamental to the structure of the play in its entirety. Two characters in particular, Isabella and Barnardine, demonstrate the possibility of occupying a subjective orientation that is at once under the sway of the law and aware of the law’s incomplete hold on the subject. Ultimately, I will show that the logic of subtraction and refusal has important implications for how the play understands the potential political power of various forms of labor, especially sexual labor.

Keywords:

• Žižek
• Shakespeare
• refusal
• law
• labor
• enjoyment

disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Marcia Reifer exemplifies the former, concluding that Isabella ends the play “a baffled actress who has run out of lines” (167). For readings of Isabella’s subversion of patriarchy, see Caroline Asp and Jerald Spotswood.

2 Jessica Apolloni complicates the play’s dichotomy between common and equity notions of the law, to the extent that the “illusion of English principles tying community forces to legal affairs in Measure for Measure reveals that such ideals grant royal, centralized legal authority even greater control over communities” (135).