THEME OF SEXUALITY Flashcards
How does the play represent sexuality?
- The play is concerned with the intersextion of the law, religion and sexuality and whether or not the state has a role in monitoring sexual behaviour.
- Psychological exploration on how sexuality expressed or repressed can guide human behaviour
Angelo’s repressed emotions are violently realesed from the pressure of contraint
“I have begun. And now I give my sensual race the rein: Fit they consent to my sharp appetite.”
Isabella vehemently affirms the value of chastity as she asserts she would gladly endure beatings with whips and strip herself before she “yield her body to shame” revealing her self-flagellating tendencies as but also the gratuitous violence against women, as even in their imagination women suffer against an imagined patriarchal force.
“The impression of keen whips I’ld wear as rubies, And strip myself to death”
Lucio suggests that Angelo’s policies towards “lechery” are unjustifiable and excessive
“Why, what a ruthless thing is in him for the rebellion of a codpeice to take a way the life of a man.”
a flap or cover for the crotch in men’s hose or tight-fitting breeches.
Lucio uses “codpiece” as a metonymn for p**a flap or cover for the crotch in men’s hose or tight-fitting breeches.
Claudio compares his sexual appetite to a kind of gluttony and suggests that having sex is like drinking rat poison as it will lead to death. Suggesting Angelo’s decrees based on strict Chistian morality as had an ideological effect on the citizens who find themselves forsaking ideas of freedom and “liberty”.
“From too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty….Our natures do pursue, Like rats that ravin down their proper bane, A thirsty evil; and when we drink we die”
Lucio suggests that sexuality is a natural and normal part of the human experience and comparese sex to drinking and eating.
“It is impossiple to extrip it quite till eating and drinking be put down”
Pompey asks Escalus whether these cruel, authoratarian measures imposed by the powerful will be thrusted onto all of the youth in the city. In an attempt to supress the vitality, indepence or rebelliousness associated with youth
“Does your worship mean to geld and splay all the youth of the city”
Geld- castration of animals (especially male livestock)
Splay- spaying f
