Unmasking Religious Rule In Shakespeare’s Measure For Measure

In this study, I investigate the historical context surrounding the first productions of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure and the present social and cultural climate that we live in today. Through this comparative analysis, I demonstrate how Measure for Measure is a product of the extreme uncertainties from the public during the time in which it was originally written, where James I’s ascension to the throne was a major catalyst in provoking questions towards the type of patriarchal and religious rule he would enforce after the death of Elizabeth I. Because we’re living in a similar cultural situation where Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election has resulted in heightened awareness and widespread magnification of issues concerning racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia, recent and future performances of this play have the ability to call upon these issues to critique and satirize current figures of political power who base their patriarchal rule in the manipulation of religion and the attempted control over women and their bodies. My thesis focuses on how women in Measure for Measure navigate such patriarchally dominant spaces within the play, and how current productions can base their performances within the #MeToo movement to make Shakespeare relevant in our society today.