Politics, Power, and Purpose in Shakespeares Measure for Measure Essay

Politics, Power, and Purpose in Shakespeares footfall for MeasureIn Shakespeares Measure for Measure, Vincentio, Duke of Vienna, observing that his Dukedom has fallen into diarrhoea and chaos through his neglectful government, has pretended to leave Vienna and has turned over the government to Angelo, his upright and up-tight Deputy and that the Duke has resolved to remain in Vienna, in disguise, so that he may observe how Angelos character is revealed or transformed in the crucible of the indicator with which he has been invested. The Duke tells Friar Thomas, who is party to the plot master copy Angelo is precise,Stands at a guard with envy, scarce confessesThat his blood flows, or that his appetiteIs more to bread than stone. Hence shall we seeIf power change purpose, what our seemers be. (1.3.5-54) My subject is how power changes--or at least influences--purpose. But the purpose in question is not, as in the run away, the government of a city or of a state, nor even (as in the case of Angelo) the government of ones psychological and physical appetites, but the creation of a work of art, of a theatrical performance. Talking about Angelo, the Duke poses his assertion as a conditional he wishes to test if power change purpose. My hypothesis is that, in the theatre, power does indeed change purpose. I base this hypothesis upon several premise that the theatre, as a complex collaborative art form, depends upon the coordination of the talents and temperaments of a wide range of individuals that, in the theatre, these individuals must be organized into a process which ineluctably involves the establishment and articulation of power that theatrical artists are, by their very nature, sensitive, e... ...ulates the other characters and, like a playwright, creates scenarios for them to play etc., etc. I am, I believe, arguing something else altogether. The play is not alluding to its mode of performance to tell its story. The play and the performance are simply telling the comparable story a story about the same power relationships that informed the process by which the performance was created. Its not that life is like the theatre. Its that the play and the performance and the theatre in general are construct upon the raw materials of life upon wayward human beings struggling to work together to live with one another in the world. The story that any production of Measure for Measure tells is that power, in the theatre as in life, changes purpose. Just as the Duke tests Angelo, when we go to the theatre, we go to see, If power change purpose, what our seemers be.