Question

character of Isabela 300 words

Answer 1

From the very beginning of Christopher Marlowe’s drama, Edward II none can identify the true fathom of the character of Queen Isabella. At first she appears as a deeply devoted and loving wife. She is ready to sacrifice everything for the shake of her husband. She wants to leave the court and live in the forest in order to secure  the happiness of her husband with Gaveston. Though she is ill treated by her husband, she is found to be much conscious about her husband’s safety. The ill treatment that Queen Isabella has received from Edward-II is beyond common endurance. However she bears it for the shake of peace and to avoid civil war. She agrees for the repeal of banishment order of Gaveston. She requests the barons not to revolt against the king. She succeeds in bringing back Gaveston but she fails to bring back the love of Edward-II for her. All her womanly zeal is crushed. She is stricken out and perhaps this 'cause' is in working ofMarlowe to bring forth the aspect of her character.


            Isabella is a split personality to an extend. She is the first real woman character of Marlowe.  She is more alive, at any rate than the corpse of Zenocrate or the Wrath of Helen. Isabella cherishes a soft corner for younger Mortimer. The king accuses her for her adulteress. She meets Mortimer secretly and tells him about the king’s suspicions. She vividly expresses in a soliloquy her love for younger Mortimer:

                   “so well hathst thou deserve sweet Mortimer

                       as Isabella could live with the forever”.

 She is a dissembler. She assumes the role of the Machiavelli and displays her marked characteristic of dissembling – she knows what to say and what to do and in what time and in what place. The change in her character can easily bring out her split personality. It is clear from the soliloquy of the Earl of Kent:

                                     “Dissemble, or thou diest; for Mortimer

                                    And Isabel do kiss while they conspire;

                                    And yet she bears a face of love forsooth”.

Her hypocrisy is a marked one. She wants to kills two birds with one stone. In one hand, to please her husband, she pleads the barons to bring back Gaveston, on the other hand she conspired with the barons to kill Gaveston. She was sent to France by Edward-II to ease the situation but she returns England with force and defeats the king and even imprisons him. She asks Mortimer to make her son the king of England and yet she likes to control all over the kingdom.
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