Marriage...The Ultimate Eternal Justice!

I have to admit, it took me a really long time to finish Act 5 because there is so much going on.  So they all end up betrothed/married, right? I actually found myself laughing at this ending, because it really does deliver justice to all the characters.  It just happens in the weirdest way.  What I find funny is the fact that she begs for Angelo’s life because she claims that he didn’t know what he was doing.  But does it really matter whether he had sex with someone else, or with her? Either way, he’s doing it out of wedlock. Of course this confuses me because I’ve been getting mixed messages on this issue.  Many times throughout the play, I get the impression that it’s okay to have sex out of wedlock if it’s with your betrothed.  Technically, that’s what Angelo does.  Of course, he broke it off because she lost her dowry, so I guess the justice really is the fact that he has to marry her anyway. 

Each character who does something wrong ultimately receives justice in the end.  We spend this entire play searching for this justice, and it actually ends in an (almost) satisfying way.  No one dies, no one gets corporal punishment—both things we expect to see.  Both are things we want to see.  But the real punishment is that each is tied to a person with whom they do not really want to marry.  It’s perfect! Angelo would rather die than actually marry Mariana.  He begs for death, even.  The fact that the Duke does not spare him eternal entrapment is the ultimate form of justice! So the character we hate most gets what he deserves.  But what about Isabella? She is forced to marry the Duke.  Does the really deserve it? In my eyes, I think she does because of her deceit.  The issue of freewill comes up here, because we could make the argument that the Duke was involved, yet Isabella made the decision to go along with his plan.  If you ask me, it was her choice, so she needs to face the consequences.  I honestly don’t think the Duke was going to let Angelo kill Claudio in the first place.

As for the Duke…this is the only place where I feel the play doesn’t deliver justice.   So he gets to mess with people’s lives and lie and deceive., but he gets away with it? Where is the justice for the Duke’s actions? Honestly, I think he’s the most villainous person in this play.  But perhaps he’s there to teach us the importance of freewill. He sways these characters in certain directions, but ultimately, their decisions are their own.  An interesting use of a villain, I think.