Measure for Measure – The Ego Integration of Isabella

by Dwan Dunning

            According to Winnicott’s object relations theory, a good enough mother allows an individual to develop the ability to perceive objectively, understanding that others are separate from himself/herself.  At this mature stage, the individual can have genuine relationships, feel that he or she is real in the world, and feel that the world is real.  With a good enough mother, the external object (mother) has been successfully internalized, so that an individual can be alone – “Maturity and the capacity to be alone implies that the individual has had the chance through the good enough mother to build up the belief in a benign environment.”  This good enough mothering moves through three phases (holding, handling, and object presenting), which correspond to maturation processes (ego integration, personalization, and object relating).  The first stage, holding, is the stage in which the mother is very attentive to the infant and holds him or her; the main function of the holding environment is to keep to a minimum traumatic impingement on the developing child.  Without this, the child withdraws or feels annihilated, and suffers ego fragmentation or disintegration.  The individual often develops a “false self” to present to the world (and to him or herself); this false self often disintegrates, as a defense against complete unintegration.  This disintegration is preceded by a “fear of breakdown,” which is described aptly in Measure for Measure by Claudio, Isabella’s brother, when he verbalizes his fear of death:  “To be imprisoned in the viewless winds, and blown with restless violence round about the pendent world; or to be worse than worst of those that lawless and incertain thought imagine howling – ‘tis too horrible!”  But fear of breakdown is, in actuality, the fear caused by the trauma of the false self breaking down, exposing the pieces of the never-formed true ego.  This is a necessary step to achieve ego integration. 

            Isabella, the main female character in Measure for Measure, was obviously without a good enough mother in the crucial holding stage.  She has developed a false sense of self, which is busily planning to find a good enough mother in the convent.  She is willing to do anything for this good enough mother, wishing to return to a state of total dependence:  “I speak not as desiring more, but rather wishing a more strict restraint....”  She is dragged out of this potential holding environment due to her brother’s circumstance.  Upon pleading for his life, she encounters Angelo, who agrees to free her brother if Isabella will sleep with him.  Isabella’s false self has constructed a very rigid sense of appropriate and inappropriate behavior, and believes that sexual relationships are, truly, a fate worse than death.  She is unforgiving when Claudio, in a moment of understandable desperation, asks her to submit to Angelo.  At this critical juncture, Isabella’s fear of breakdown is realized, and she disintegrates rapidly; “splitting” her parents as a projection on her brother – good dad, bad mom equals good self, bad self.  “Heaven shield my mother played my father fair, for such a warped slip of wilderness ne’er issued from his blood.  Take my defiance, die, perish! ...I’ll pray a thousand prayers for thy death, no word to save thee.”  Following this splitting, which is a classic defense against the disintegration of the false self, Isabella finds the duke, rendered sexless by his disguise of friarhood, and in him finds a therapist who can provide a paternal image and move her through the process of ego development.  He, along with Mariana, provides Isabella with the holding container she needs.  He proposes the idea of presenting Mariana in her place to sleep with Angelo, and Isabella jumps at this chance, her false self responding obediently to environmental demands:  “The image of it gives me content already....”  The duke later guides Isabella in a cathartic scene in which she claims publicly that she has slept with Angelo, and her emerging true self is able to keep in perspective the prospect of sexuality.  She is able to work through her judgment of Angelo in this scene, understanding that, had she gone through with Angelo’s plan, it would have been Angelo, not Claudio or she, in the wrong.  It would not have been a fate worse than death, but rather a sister’s attempt to save her brother’s life, seemingly foiled by Angelo’s hypocrisy:  “...after much debatement, my sisterly remorse confutes mine honor, and I did yield to him; but the next morn betimes, his purpose surfeiting, he sends a warrant for my poor brother’s head.  Isabella seems to believe this story, becoming outraged when not believed.  Thus, her “therapist” (the friar) has guided her into experiencing an active connection with the world that has threatened her false self; she rapidly develops a healthy sense of true self, which allows her by the end of the play to respond to Angelo, at the urging of Mariana (who has perhaps, along with the “friar,” served as her good enough mother),in a way that reflects her capacity for concern:  “I partly think a due sincerity governed his deeds, till he did look on me.  Since it is so, let him not die.”  Winnicott believed that the capacity for concern was only possible in people with a considerable level of psychological maturity.  Isabella, in this scene, is responding to Angelo with objectivity, the opposite of splitting; she understands that Angelo is both bad and good, and is able to integrate this and objectively relate to him as being separate from her subjective concerns. 

            Shakespeare’s account of Isabella’s ego integration process seems too rapid, with Isabella experiencing breakdown, disintegration, integration, and the capacity for concern all within a couple of days.  However, it does afford us a microcosmic view of the ideals of Winnicott’s stages, the false self breaking down, and the true self emerging.  Again, Shakespeare’s apparent love for women shows itself in his eagerness to render Isabella healthy and whole.