Isabella Quotes

Question 1

What does Isabella say about restraint?

Answer 1

‘wishing a more strict restraint’

Question 2

When Isabella finds out Claudio has got Julietta pregnant what does she say?

Answer 2

‘O let him marry her!’

Isabella is willing to put aside her views about sex before marriage for her brother. She feels marriage will correct this

Question 3

What does Isabella abhor? this is the first thing she says to Angelo

Answer 3

‘there is a vice that most I do abhor’

sexual stuff

Question 4

How does Isabella describe the law when talking to Angelo?

Answer 4

‘O just but severe law!’

Question 5

How does Lucio encourage Isabella be warmer to Angelo?

Answer 5

‘kneel down before him, hang upon his gown. You are too cold.’

Question 6

How does Isabella suggest that her brother should be pardoned by Angelo?

Answer 6

‘I do think that you might pardon him, And neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy.’

Question 7

when Isabella starts to argue well with Angelo, what does Lucio say?

Answer 7

‘Ay, touch him, there’s the vein.’

Question 8

How does Isabella argue to Angelo that her brother is not prepared for death?

Answer 8

‘He’s not prepared for death. Even for our kitchens We kill the foul of the season; shall we serve heaven with less respect than we do minister to our gross selves?’

Question 9

How does Isabella compare Angelo to a giant?

Answer 9

‘O, it is excellent to have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.’

Question 10

How does Isabella accidentally make a sexual reference when leaving Angelo for the first time?

Answer 10

‘Hark how I’ll bribe you.’

she speaks of bribing him with prayers but could of been interpreted sexually in angelo’s mind and this is remarked upon by Lucio.

Question 11

How does Isabella make an accidental sexual reference the second time she meets Angelo?

Answer 11

‘I am come to know your pleasure.’

sexual connotations are unknown to Isabella

Question 12

How does Isabella initially refuse Angelo?

Answer 12

Angelo: ‘to redeem him, give up your body to such sweet uncleanness as she that he hath stained?’

Isabella: ‘Sir, believe this, I had rather give my body than my soul.’

oxymoronic sweet uncleanness. She would rather die that have sex

Question 13

How does Isabella express that she would rather be tortured than lose her virtue?

Answer 13

‘were I under the terms of death, the impression of keen whips I’d wear as rubies, And strip myself to death as to a bed that longing have been sick for.’

she compares herself to saints that have experienced martyrdom rather than lose their virtue. She would like to be tortured over losing her virtue. This also has unintentional sexual connotations as it involves bed and whips

Question 14

How does Isabella’s religious views justify her opinion?

Answer 14

‘better it were a brother died once Than that a sister by redeeming him should die for ever.’

she truly believes she would go to hell if she agreed

Question 15

How does Isabella express Angelo’s hypocrisy?

Answer 15

Angelo: ‘plainly concieve I love you.’

Isabella: ‘My brother did love Juliet, And you tell me he shall die for it.’

Question 16

How does Isabella threaten to expose Angelo as corrupt? What is Angelo’s response?

Answer 16

Isabella: ‘sign me a present pardon for my brother, Or with an outstretched throat I’ll tell the world aloud What man thou art.’

Angelo: ‘Who will believe thee Isabel? My unsoiled name, the austereness of my life, My vouch against you, and my place i’the state, will so your accusation overweigh.’

Question 17

What is the important part of Isabella’s speech and rejection of Angelo in Act 2 scene 4?

Answer 17

‘had he twenty heads to tender down on twenty bloody blocks, he’s yield them up before his sister should her body stoop To such abhorred pollution. Then Isabel, live chaste, and brother, die; More than our brother is our chastity.’

suggests that she feels Claudio would rather die than her her do this.
sex is pollution
she tries to weigh her chastity with her brother’s life but this is immeasurable. She says

Question 18

How does Isabella inform Claudio that he will die?

Answer 18

‘Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven, Intends you for his swift ambassador.’

suggests she feels Claudio will go to heaven?? but she feels she will be dammed for the same crime

Question 19

How does Isabella describe Angelo’s idea of mercy to Claudio?

Answer 19

‘There is a devilish mercy in the judge.’

Question 20

How does Isabella use a metaphor of Claudio as a tree when speaking to him in prison?

Answer 20

‘consenting to’t (her sleeping with Angelo) Would bark your honour from the that trunk you bear, And leave you naked.’

-idea of stripping bark from a tree. The tree is Claudio’s body but also has links to a family tree. The idea of nakedness shows the way he would be dishonoured and exposed to a hostile view.

Question 21

How does Isabella try to reassure Claudio by saying the fear of death is worse than death itself? And that death is the same for all beings?

Answer 21

‘The sense of death is most in apprehension, And the poor beetle that we tread upon In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great as when a giant dies.’

suggests all creatures great and small feel the same death, in Isabella’s mind as little pain as a beetle stamped upon. However, the ‘pang as great as’ invites alternative interpretations that all creatures feel a big pain. Isabella is trying to console him but it’s not totally working.

Question 22

How does Isabella express she would die for Claudio but not lose her virtue?

Answer 22

‘O, were it but my life, I’d throw it down for deliverance as frankly as a pin.’

dying would be no big deal for her

Question 23

How does Isabella react to Claudio suggesting she should sleep with Angelo|? What does she call him?

Answer 23

‘O you beast! O faithless coward, O dishonest wretch!’

‘Heaven shield my mother played my father fair, For such a warped slip of wilderness Ne’er issued from his blood.’
-hopes he was born out of wedlock because she can’t believe he is her brother. She is repulsed by him says he is a bastard. ‘warped’ shows she think he has a corrupt warped mind.

‘die, perish!’

‘I’ll pray a thousand prayers for thy death, No word to save thee.’
- as a religious woman this is a big deal to her

Question 24

What does Isabella say to the friar about children born out of wedlock?

Answer 24

’ I had rather my brother die by the law than my son should be unlawfully born.’

Question 25

When does Isabella say she has said she will call upon Angelo?

Answer 25

‘I made my promise, Upon the heavy middle of the night to call upon him.’

Heavy- sleep inducing, gloomy, slow moving. Infers he will be confused

she is breaking a promise, unholy?

Question 26

How does Isabella react when the Duke tells her Claudio is dead?

Answer 26

‘O, I will to him and pluck out his eyes.’

‘Unhappy Claudio, wretched Isabella, Injurious world, most damned Angelo.’

Question 27

How does Isabella describe her feelings about speaking out against Angelo?

Answer 27

’ ‘tis a physic that’s bitter to sweet end.’

a bitter pill to swallow but will have a good effect

Question 28

How does Isabella get the Duke’s attention when he comes back?

Answer 28

‘dishonour not your eye By throwing it on any other subject Till you have heard me in my true complaint and given me justice, justice, justice, justice!’

repetition of justice shows her emotional vigour and intensity

Question 29

When the Duke tells Isabella to tell her complaint to Angelo in Act 5 what does she say?

Answer 29

‘O worthy Duke, you bid me seek reception from the devil.’

Question 30

When Angelo suggests Isabella is crazy over her brothers dead saying she ‘will speak most bitterly and strange’ What does Isabella call Angelo?

Answer 30

‘That Angelo is an adulterous thief, An hypocrite, a virgin-violator, Is it not strange and strange?’

virgin-violator alliteration emphasises this

strange and strange mocks his words whilst also conveying a sense of measure for measure

‘adulterous’ shows that Isabella regards Angelo as married to Mariana

Question 31

How does Isabella convince the Duke she is speaking the truth?

Answer 31

Isabella: ‘one the wickedest caitiff on the ground May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute, As Angelo. Even so may Angelo, In all his dressings, carats, titles, forms, Be an arch-villian. Believe it, royal prince. If he be less, he’s nothing; but he’s more, Had I more name for badness.’

Duke: By mine honesty, If she be mad, as I believe no other, Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense.’

She describes his external attributes but suggests that even villains can appear these things. She says that if she had a better vocabulary she could describe him as far more evil.

Question 32

How does Isabella describe Angelo’s lust for her to the Duke? How does the Duke react?

Answer 32

‘He would not but by gift of my chaste body To his concupiscible intemperate lust Release my brother.’

Duke: ‘By heaven, fond wretch, thou know’st not what thou speak’st.’

concuspiscible- burning with desire

she gets called a wretch, even thought the Duke knows what happened, women’s place in society, not believed, unheard and abused.

Question 33

How does Isabella suggests she thinks Angelo should be saved?

Answer 33

‘I partly think A due sincerity governed his deeds Till he did look on me; since it is so, Let him not die.’

She thinks he was genuinely a good judge and person until his sexuality was stirred by her. She thinks he should be saved for Mariana’s sake. This is Isabella showing charity!!!

Question 34

What does the Duke say about the idea of Isabella forgiving Angelo?

Answer 34

‘Her brother’s ghost his paved bed would break And take her hence in horror.’

-Claudio would break through the stones of his grave in anger

‘He dies for Claudio’s death.’