Measure For Measure: Isabella And Heroics

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beginning of the story, Isabella is planning to become a nun, which demonstrates just how virtuous and pious she is. She does not approve of what her brother did, but she will stand beside him because of her love.
Angelo sentences Claudio to death to set an example to other Viennese citizens. Claudio and his fiancé had sex before they were married, and even though it was consensual, Angelo is determined that Claudio should die. He says, "Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus, another thing to fall" (Shakespeare II.i.17).
Isabella is the most sympathetic character in the play, partly because she has so many scenes with Angelo, where she argues passionately for her brother's life. "Because authority, though it err like others, / Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself / That skins the vice o' the top. Go to your bosom; / Knock there; and ask your heart what it doth know / That's like my brother's fault: if it confess / A natural guiltiness such as is his, / Let it not sound a ...

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