33) Measure for Measure 34) Reflections: The Life and Writings of a Young Blind Woman in Post-Revolutionary France

I'm still catching up on my back-log, so expect multiple posts in the next few days :)


33 ) Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare

Out of the three problem plays that I've studied this year, Measure for Measure is my favourite. To have such a strictly moral man turn to the very vice that he condemns makes for a very interesting plot, and the disguised duke creates a pleasing, and sometimes amusing, dramatic irony. None of the characters are completely black or white; even Isabella, the most innocent of all, lies in order to achieve her ends. This play, like All's Well that Ends Well, presents is ethically problematic, as the bed-trick, which lacks informed consent, and would nowadays be considered as rape, is presented as a neat solution in order to make Angelo do his duty. While I definitely think that Angelo should be made to fulfill his betrothal, I don't agree with the way that Isabella and Mariana go about it, and yet I can see no other solution that would bind him to the latter and save the brother of the former. I can see why it's classed as a "problem play"...

On a side note, I think that the cover of the copy I have (see picture) is very clever, as it combines the sexual imagery of a keyhole (representing Isabella) and the Christian symbol of the cross (representing Angelo), and shows the problematic disparity that defines the play.




34) Reflections: The Life and Writings of a Young Blind Woman in Post-Revolutionary France by Thérèse- Adèle Husson 

This is another book I've been studying, this time for the module Blindness and Vision in French Culture (the first book we studied for that course, L'aveugle by Maupassant, was a really short story, so I didn't feel I could justify counting it as one of my 500 books). I have to admit that I was a bit pressed for time when I read it originally, and so read it in English (which language students definitely don't do...ever... ^^) However, I have since gone back and read it in French, so I don't feel quite so naughty.
This book gives us a really interesting, and unprecedented, perspective into the mind of a young blind woman in 1825. She writes on subjects such as clothing, animals, people and education, and how all of these are experienced by blind people. while seeming very pious, we do have to bear in mind that Husson wrote her Reflections with the aim of gaining a place at the prestigious Quinze-Vingts Hospital (a hospital for blind people founded in 1260 by Louis XI), and would therefore have been tailoring her writing to please the director. She also directly contravened her views expressed on the marrying of blind people, as she went on o marry a blind man herself, and have children with him. She may have pretended to be against it for the sake of gaining a place at the hospital (which strongly discouraged blind people from marrying), or she may have just changed her mind when she went to Paris and met her future-husband, we will sadly never know.

Overall a really interesting perspective on blindness and the role of both blind people and their friends and family; this text raises some intriguing questions on the appropriateness of the social model of disability, and our ocularcentric view of the world.