SOURCE: Baines, Barbara J. “Assaying the Power of Chastity in Measure for Measure.” Studies in English Literature: 1500-1900 30, no. 2 (Spring 1990): 283-301.

In the following essay, Baines studies Shakespeare's depiction of Isabella's sexual purity as a means of garnering social power in the world of Measure for Measure.

For many readers of Measure for Measure, Isabella illustrates better than Angelo the paradox that “Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall” (II.i.38).¹ Critics have, in fact, argued that the primary question of the play is whether Isabella is an embodiment of Christian virtue or pagan pride.² Recently Marcia Riefer has defended Isabella as a victim of sexual subjugation who changes in the course of the play “from an articulate, compassionate, woman during her first encounter with Angelo (II.ii) to a stunned, angry, defensive woman in her later confrontations with Angelo and with her imprisoned brother (II...