A Parallel Between Isabella and Hamlet

Isabella is a woman with a ostensibly over pious regard to herself and her virginity, placing the alike over an individuals spirit and liberty. This is made evident in her statement Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, crony, swoon More than our pal is our chastity (Measure for government note 2.4.197-198).She thus relates how she finds her chastity to be worth more than her relations and certainly worth more than life itself. In the following lyric poem she further expresses what torment it would be to brood life with chastity and purity taken from her And twere the cheaper wayBetter it were a brother died at once, than that a sister, by redeeming him, should die for ever so (Measure for measure 2.4.114-117).She thus likens such life to dying each sidereal day that she woke up. However, she fails to take into account that this was the crime that her birth brother was jailed for. Should she then beg for his freedom thinking he was not liable for his ravish when she would thu s consider the act if committed to her to odorous to live with? Certainly, if her brother is to be justified on account of his love then she also would in the same way be absolved of any gap in acceding to Angelos request on account of her love for her own brother, her own flesh and blood.Isabellas decision is quite contrary to that of crossroadss. Hamlet having seen and heard of the unjust manner in which his fuss was remove puts aside his own self in evidence to take up the latters revenge. This is marked quite true in his wordsIll wipe away every last(predicate) trivial fond records, All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, That youth and observation copied there And thy commandment all alone shall live Within the book and volume of my brain. (Hamlet 1.5.104-108)With a focus on the monstrous crime that has been committed against his murdered father, Hamlet commits himself to right the same wrong at whatever cost it might bring upon himself. He throws aside the pu rity of a nephew bound to his uncle by kinship ties. He even discards the purity that is required of him as a prince and son, subservient to his nance and Queen mother.In both the cases of Isabella and Hamlet they are handed the power to set the fate of persons they confess to love. Isabella and Hamlet both are left to personnel casualty their brother and father respectively from chains that constrain them from freedom.In Isabellas case her brother was bound in jail and threatened with death epoch in Hamlets his fathers spirit was bound to hide out given to unrest for the spell of eternity. With Angelos confession of lust he relinquished all wisdom in deciding the conviction of Isabellas brother, redeem thy brother by yielding up thy body to my go forth or else he must not only die the death, exclusively thy unkindness shall his death draw out to lingering sufferance (Measure for measure 2.4.177-180).Hamlet is given the same sole power to achieve his fathers freedom given tha t he was the only one to whom the subtlety spoke regarding his murder.Both were required to commit acts wrong in themselves in order to accomplish the freedoms spoken of Isabella was required to submit to Angelos lust while Hamlet was required to commit murder. Whereas Hamlet readily acceded the fault that would be borne by his own hands, Isabella resolutely refused to do the same. Once again the finis that the loss of a womans chastity was more heinous an offense than the taking of a persons life was communicated in Shakespeares words.ReferencesShakespeare, W. (1997). Hamlet. In Greenblatt, S., Cohen, W., Howard, J. E., and Maus, K. E. (Ed.). The Norton Shakespeare Based On The Oxford Edition. New York W. W. Norton.Shakespeare, W. (1997). Measure for Measure. In Greenblatt, S., Cohen, W., Howard, J. E., and Maus, K. E. (Ed.). The Norton Shakespeare Based On The Oxford Edition. New York W. W. Norton.