Force me to keep you as a prisoner, Not like a guest: so shall you pay your fees When you depart and save your thanks. How say you? My prisoner? Or my guest? In asking Polixenes if he will her to keep him as a prisoner, she “force” poses as the forced subject of her will even while flexing the guest’s muscles of her own. She forces to choose between alternatives that him will, in either case, keep him from doing what he has repeatedly said he wants to do: leave. In response, Polixenes promptly surrenders his will to be your he hers: “To prisoner,” says, “should import offending; / Which is for me less easy to commit / Then you to Polixenes punish.” knows very well that he need not be her prisoner or her guest, that either he is free to leave without saying another word. But she artfully suspends his will to do so. Finally, jumping from time to the modern era, Shakespeare’s consider what happens to a pair of guests in a celebrated American play of the early sixties. During the long party dramatized in Edward Albee’s
Force me to keep you as a prisoner, Not like a guest: so shall you pay your fees When you depart and save your thanks. How say you? My prisoner? Or my guest? In asking Polixenes if he will “force” her to keep him as a prisoner, she poses as the forced subject of her guest’s will even while flexing the muscles of her own. She forces him to choose between alternatives that will, in either case, keep him from doing what he has repeatedly said he wants to do: leave. In response, Polixenes promptly surrenders his will to hers: “To be your prisoner,” he says, “should import offending; / Which is for me less easy to commit / Then you to punish.” Polixenes knows very well that he need not be either her prisoner or her guest, that he is free to leave without saying another word. But she artfully suspends his will to do so. Finally, jumping from Shakespeare’s time to the modern era, consider what happens to a pair of guests in a celebrated American play of the early sixties. During the long party dramatized in Edward Albee’s
EXT_ANGEL_ON.docx