Psychoanalysis of Isabella in Measure for Measure Essay

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intervene on behalf of her brother Claudio, Isabella is fully entrenched in the convent and the sets of norms and values it represents. She finds its rules and regulations comforting, and even finds herself "wishing for a more strict restraint," rather than for additional freedom (Act I, scene iv, line 352). It is as if the Mothers in the convent are substitutes for Isabella's mother, whose absence in the play signals the sort of distance that might prompt the daughter's transference of maternal power to the surrogate. The fact that Claudio is Isabella's brother is therefore meaningful on several levels. One, Isabella perceives Claudio's transgression as a sin as well as a legal transgression. Her rigid moral beliefs constrain her view of her brother and end up mirroring both her True Self and False Self in the process. Second, Claudio's sexual transgression allows the emergence of Isabella's Oedipal/Electral desires. As she stands poised to confirm herself to the nunnery, Isabella sublimates her sexual desires before those desires have even been awoken. She remains safely within the confines of the convent until she is called upon to act in the real world -- with her True Self. Third, Isabella is challenged by her responsibility to her brother. The familial connection between the two becomes a salient tie between Isabella and the mother she lacks. Isabella's maturation is the central focus of Measure for Measure, and represents the process of ego integration through a breakdown of False Self and emergence of True.

Isabella's virginity is the most precious commodity until she can symbolically kill her False Self, doing away with the selfishness and self-centeredness that False Self uses to perpetuate its own reality.

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Because Isabella is "yet unsworn" to the convent, though, the window remains open for her True Self to emerge (Act I, scene iv, line 358). Her initial refusal to help Claudio seems ironically appropriate given the fact that losing her virginity would be a "death" every bit as real as Claudio's death by execution, and there is no reason why Claudio's life should be spared and not that of his sister.

As the play progresses, though, the situational variables increase in complexity and enable Isabella to make the choices that either strengthen her True Self or her False Self, leading either to ego integration and psychological health or to dysfunction. Part of healthy development demands successful ego integration especially at the stage during which the id demands (in Isabella's case, the demands to remain pure at all costs) are integrated as "part of the self," and not viewed as something external (Winnicott, 1960, p. 141). Isabella essentially needs to shift towards a self-concept in which virginity is voluntary and something she embraces as an extension of her True Self. Virginity cannot be something that is meaningless; it cannot be a proscribed behavior or artificial way of life if Isabella is to experience ego integration. Because she has only identified with her surrogate "mothers" in the convent, Isabella has never formulated a healthy sexual identity vis-a-vis a maternal figure outside of the convent who lives a healthy sexual life.….....

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