Feminist performance and silence of Isabelle in measure for measureIn a chapter entitled “When is a character not a character? Alan Sinfield presents the argument that the female figures in Shakespeare's plays are not "characters" at all, since they do not possess a continuous, psychologically coherent inner life. Although roles like Desdemona, Olivia, and Lady Macbeth are written in such a way as to suggest the presence of an unbroken inner consciousness, this impression collapses under the pressure of the plot's closing movement, which reveals that the characters represent nothing more than a “disjointed sequence of positions that women are expected to occupy” (53). In order to preserve a textual organization that supports a particular gender hierarchy, female characters abruptly move from one stereotypical version of femininity to another without coherent connections between them. For example, despite their volubility throughout the early acts, by the end of the plays, as Sinfield notes, Shakespeare's women "often fall silent at moments when their speech could only undermine the play's attempt at ideological coherence." » (73). Thus, “the point where the text is silent is the point where its ideological project is revealed” (74). One of the most striking silences appears at the end of Measure for Measure, where Isabelle, "the bold woman most spectacularly silenced when marriage is proposed" (74), does not react verbally to either Duke's marriage offers. According to Sinfield, this lack of response occurs because Isabelle is suspended between two conventional feminine roles, and the disjunction between them makes manifest the agenda of the text "...... middle of paper ...... The Stratford Season, 1992." Shakespeare Quarterly 44 (1993): 477-83. Riefer, Marcia. “The Instruments of a More Powerful Member: The Restriction of Female Power Measure by Measure.” » Shakespeare Quarterly 35 (1984): 157-69.Shakespeare, William. The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Ed. David Bevington. 4th ed. New York: Harper Collins, 1992.-----. Measure for measure. The Arden Shakespeare. Ed. JW lever. London: Routledge, 1965. Sinfield, Alan. Fault lines: cultural materialism and the politics of dissident reading. Berkeley: University of California P, 1992. Sundelson, David. “Misogyny and the ruler measure for measure.” Women's Studies 9 (1981): 83-91. Weil, Herbert S., Jr. "Stratford Festival Canada." Shakespeare Quarterly 37 (1986): 245-50. Williamsson, Marilyn L. The patriarchy of Shakespeare's comedies. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1986.