A novice, sister to Claudio. When she first appears, Isabella is about to enter the order of Saint Clare. Shakespeare portrays her as very pure and strictly moral. The audience first hears of her from her brother, who tells Lucio that she has "a prone and speechless dialect, / Such as move men; beside, she hath prosperous art / When she will play with reason and discourse, / And well she can persuade" (I. ii. 188-91). When Lucio asks her to turn this persuasion to her brother's good, he says to her:
I hold you as a thing ensky'd and sainted,
By your renouncement an immortal spirit,
And to be talk'd with in sincerity,
As with a saint.
(I. iv. 34-37)
The duke, after knowing her briefly, regards her highly enough to offer her marriage.
Critics have held diabolically opposed views of Isabella's character. One faction sees her as one of Shakespeare's strongest and best female characters, a woman of great virtue and magnificent purity. They point to her brilliant speeches with Angelo on Christianity, power, and mercy, and to her fiery denunciation of Angelo's treachery and her brother's cowardice. She is seen as the symbol of goodness and mercy set against a background of moral decay. The other faction sees her as self-righteous and hypocritical. They point out that she seems little concerned by her brother's crime but is too horrified of committing the same transgression herself--even to save her brother's life. She apparently suffers no qualms, however, in asking Mariana to share Angelo's bed.
