As with the dismissal of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, the punishment of Malvolio's presumption in Twelfth Night has seemed too harsh to many modern viewers and readers. But that should not prevent us from seeing that Twelfth Night is also a play about other forms of self-indulgence (Count Orsino's infatuation with the pose of a courtly lover, and Olivia's excessively long period of mourning for her deceased brother) and the means by which characters "sick of self-love" or self-deception are eventually restored to mental and emotional sanity. Through the ministrations of the wise fool, Feste, and the providential Viola, who arrives in Illyria after a shipwreck in which she mistakenly believes her brother Sebastian to have died, we witness a sequence of coincidences and interventions that seems too nearly miraculous to have been brought about by blind chance. By taking another series of potentially tragic situations and turning them to comic ends, Shakespeare reminds us once again that harmony and romantic fulfillment are at the root of what Northrop Frye calls the "argument of comedy."
All's Well that Ends Well
Modern in another sense may be a good way to describe All's Well That Ends Well. After a long history of neglect, this tragicomedy has recently enjoyed a good deal of success in the theater and on television, and one of the explanations that have been given is that it features a heroine who, refusing to accept a preordained place in a hierarchical man's world, does what she has to do to win her own way.
Orphaned at an early age and reared as a waiting-gentlewoman to the elegant and sensitive Countess of Rossillion, Helena presumes to fall in love with the Countess's snobbish son Bertram. Using a cure she learned from her dead father, who had been a prominent physician, Helena saves the life of the ailing King of France, whereupon she is rewarded with marriage to the man of her choice among all the eligible bachelors in the land. She astonishes Bertram by selecting him. Reluctantly, Bertram consents to matrimony, but before the marriage can be consummated he leaves the country with his disreputable friend Parolles, telling Helena in a note that he will be hers only when she has fulfilled two presumably impossible conditions: won back the ring from his finger and borne a childe to him. Disguised as a pilgrim, Helena follows Bertram to Florence. There she substitutes herself for a woman named Diana, with whom Bertram has made an assignation, and satisfies the despicable Bertram's demands.
One of the "problems" that have troubled critics of All's Well That Ends Well is the device of the "bed trick." But we now know that Shakespeare had biblical precedent for such a plot (Genesis 35) and that it was associated in the Old Testament with providential intervention. Which may be of some value to us in dealing with the other major issues: why should Helena want so vain and selfish a man as Bertram in the first place, and how can we accept at face value his reformation at the end? If we suspend our disbelief enough to grant the fairy-tale premises of the plot (which derived from a story in Boccaccio's Decameron,) we should be able to grant as well that in a providentially ordered world, the end may not only justify the means but sanctify them. And if the end that Helena has in view is not only to win Bertram but to make him "love her dearly ever, ever dearly," we must grant the playwright the final miracle of a Bertram who can be brought to see his evil ways for what they are and repent of them.
Measure for Measure
A similar miracle would seem to be the final cause of Measure for Measure. At the beginning of the play, Duke Vincentio, noting that he has been too lenient in his administration of the laws of Venice, appoints as deputy an icy-veined puritan named Angelo, whom he expects to be more severe for a season of much-needed civic discipline. Almost immediately upon the Duke's departure, Angelo finds himself confronted with a novitiate, Isabella, who, in pleading for the life of a brother condemned for fornification, unwittingly arouses the new deputy's lust. Angelo offers her an exchange: her brother's life for her chastity. Astonished by the deputy's disregard for both God's laws and man's, Isabella refuses. Later, as she tries to prepare Claudio for his execution and discovers that he is less shocked by the deputy's offer than his sister had been, Isabella upbraids him, too, as a reprobate.
At this point the Duke, who has been disguised as a friar, persuades Isabella to "accept" Angelo's offer on the understanding that his former betrothed, Mariana, will sleep with him instead. Once again the bed trick proves effectual and "providential." In the "trial" that takes place at the entrance to the city upon the Duke's return, Isabella accuses Angelo of having corrupted his office and executed her brother despite an agreement to spare him (an order of the deputy's that, unknown to Isabella, has been forestalled by the "friar"). But then, in response to Mariana's pleas for her assistance, she decides not to press her claim for justice and instead kneels before the Duke to beg that Angelo's life be spared. The Duke grants her request, and Angelo--illustrating Mariana's statement that "best men are molded out of faults"--repents and accepts the Duke's mercy.
Measure for Measure qualifies as a tragicomedy because the questions it raises are serious (how to balance law and grace, justice and mercy, in human society) and the issue (whether or not Angelo will be executed for his evil intentions with respect to Claudio) is in doubt until the moment when, by kneeling beside Mariana, Isabella prevents what might have been a kind of revenge tragedy. (The Duke tells Mariana, "Against all sense you do importune her./Should she kneel down in mercy of this fact,/Her brother's ghost his paved bed would break,/And take her hence in horror.") In Shakespearean comedy, of course, all's well that ends well. Revenge gives way to forgiveness or repentance, and characters who might have died in self-deception or guilt are given a second chance. As for Isabella, she too gains insight and sensitivity as a consequence of her trials, and at the conclusion of the play she finds herself the recipient of a marriage proposal from her previously disguised counselor, the Duke. Whether she accepts it, and if so how, has become one of the chief "problems" to be solved by directors and actors in modern productions.
The Empowerment of Women in Shakespearean Comedy Based on: Richard Laws Dutiful Daughters, Willful Nieces: The Empowerment of Women in Shakespearean Comedy Washington University Press 2000 p.45-50
In Shakespeare's comedies, many - possibly even most - of the female characters are portrayed as being manipulated, if not controlled outright, by the men in their lives: fathers, uncles, suitors, husbands. And yet, there are women inhabiting Shakespeare's comedic world who seem to enjoy a greater degree of autonomy and personal power than one would expect in a patriarchal society. Superficially, therefore, Shakespeare's comedies appear to send mixed signals regarding the notion of female empowerment. Some women are strong and independent, others are completely submissive, and the behavior of either seems to be influenced more by theme or plot than by any qualities within the characters themselves.
A closer look, though, should make it evident that this is not the case; as in many of Shakespeare's plays, appearances can be deceiving. In some cases, the exterior behavior is a deliberate faзade to mask the character's real feelings; in others, it is an acculturated veneer that is burned away as a result of the play's events. Despite their outward appearances, though, most of these comedic women belong to one of two opposing archetypes. An examination of these archetypes allows the reader to see past such deceptions to the real personality beneath.
The “Daughter” and “Niece” Archetypes
Within Shakespeare's comedies, many of the female characters are portrayed as submissive and easily controlled. Like dutiful daughters, these women submit to patriarchal repression with little complaint.
Perhaps the best example of a “daughter” character in Shakespearean comedy is the role of Hero in Much Ado About Nothing. Hero is completely under the control of her father Leonato, especially with regard to courtship. When, in Act Two, Leonato believes that Don Pedro may seek Hero's hand in marriage, he orders Hero to welcome the prince's advances despite the difference in their ages:
“Daughter, remember what I told you.
If the Prince do solicit you in that kind,
you know your answer” (II.i.61-3).
Thus we see that Leonato controls not only Hero's actions, but even her words as well.
In fact, Hero is so thoroughly repressed by the male-dominated society in which she lives that she submits not only to her father's will, but to that of nearly every other man in the play. She is easily wooed and won by Don Pedro posing as Claudio (II.i.80-93). She is just as easily undone in a single speech when Claudio pronounces her an adulteress (IV.i.30-41). Even Don John, through his nefarious schemes, is able to manipulate Hero, very nearly to her death. Despite the influence of the more liberated Beatrice in her life, Hero shows no sign of acting under her own volition anywhere in the play.
Unlike Hero, however, other female characters in Shakespeare's comedies do not submit easily to the will of a patriarchal character, or indeed, that of any man. Just as Much Ado About Nothing presents us, in Hero, with the very model of a dutiful “daughter” character, so it delineates the archetypical “niece” character, the quick-witted Beatrice. The “merry war” (I.i.58) she wages with Benedick may showcase her character to best advantage, but it is clear from the first scene of the play that Beatrice does not easily submit to the commands or beliefs of any man.
In fact, it often seems that Beatrice would liberate her cousin Hero from patriarchal repression as well. While virtually every main character in the play is conspiring to arrange Hero's marriage, Beatrice counsels Hero to follow her own desires, despite contemporary custom:
[I]t is my cousin's duty to make curtsy and say, “Father, as it please you.” But yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy and say, “Father, as it please me” (II.i.49-52).
Beatrice's willfulness continues even through the final scene of the play. Despite her earlier vows to requite Benedick's love (III.i.109-16), when he at last proposes, she makes sure to emphasize that they are to be married only because she agrees, not because he wills it (V.iv.72-95).
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