Isabella: The Woman Who Refuses

Isabella is about to take her vows as a nun when Lucio arrives to tell her that her brother Claudio has been condemned to death for getting his fiancée pregnant. She goes to Angelo. Her argument in Act 2 Scene 2 is one of the best pieces of legal rhetoric in Shakespeare: she attacks the idea that a person in temporary authority should use that authority as if it were absolute: 'but man, proud man, drest in a little brief authority, most ignorant of what he's most assured.'

Angelo makes his proposition and she refuses. She will not trade her chastity for Claudio's life. When she tells Claudio this in Act 3 Scene 1, he begs her to reconsider. She refuses that too, with real fury. The play does not make the refusal simple to judge. Both her position and Claudio's desperation are presented without editorial.

The ending gives her no say in her own resolution. The Duke proposes marriage to her in Act 5. She does not respond. Whether her silence is acceptance, refusal, or something the play is deliberately not resolving has been a point of debate in every production since the nineteenth century.