Signora
by F.R.R. Mallory
March 29, 2007

In 1884, Rosa Cavalleri, was ordered by her abusive husband to join him in the United States. She had been born in a silk-making region of Lombardy, Italy into a life of great poverty and hardship. She was a good Catholic. Her mother told her that if she didn't obey her husband she would be disregarding God's will. So Rosa left her child behind and came to the United States. Her husband was just as brutal and violent as she remembered him to be, but the new country she encountered was very different from rural Italy. The citizens did not recognize her in the class distinction to which she had been born. Instead she was treated like a Signora, a lady, and this profoundly changed her life. For the first time she realized she could be Rosa, not Rosa the perpetual peasant who must endure brutality and oppression. Rosa could have a voice, and a choice, and she did. She went back to Italy, claimed her child, returned to the United States, and left her husband for good. She became Rosa Cavalleri, Italian immigrant, Italian woman, Italian-American storyteller. She no longer honored or respected the etiquette of class difference which had ruled Italy for centuries. (Eta).

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, Italian political philosopher, musician, poet, and romantic comedic playwright is most widely known for his treatises on realist political theory and republicanism. Machiavelli's theories and ideas were part of the Elizabethan perspective on governing, and the maintenance of class distinctions. Machiavelli wrote about the strength of a tripartite governing structure "In fact, when there is combined under the same constitution a prince, a nobility, and the power of the people, then these three powers will watch and keep each other reciprocally in check." (Machiavelli, Book I Chapter II). Yet he goes on to say, "For government consists mainly in so keeping your subjects that they shall be neither able nor disposed to injure you...." (Machiavelli, Book II Chapter XXIII).

William Shakespeare in Merchant of Venice, presents three Italian female characters; Portia, (as monarch), Nerissa, (as nobility) and Jessica, as Jewess pressed to Christian conversion (fulfilling the role of the people or those acted upon.) These three women form the classic Machiavellian governing triangle, allowing each aspect to be represented.

Portia's (monarchy's) initial description by Bassanio during his romancing of funds from Antonio, includes identifying Portia as a lady (Signora) and she is "richly left; and ...fair and, fairer than that word." (1.1.161-2). Merriam-Webster tells me that fair not only means pleasing to the eye or attractive, it also informs me that fair means, "marked by impartiality and honesty: free from self-interest, prejudice, or favoritism." (Merriam-Webster). The very first things Shakespeare wants the audience to know about Portia is that she is a lady, rich and fair.

As the play unfolds Portia's situation and character are further revealed; she is being courted by princes, dukes and lords and these attentions support her role as a representative of monarchy since she is the only active character within the play who is interacting directly with other members of this class. Yet Shakespeare makes the audience immediately aware that Portia is not impartial, nor free from self-interest or prejudice such as when she describes a suitor as, "God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker, but he! Why, he hath a horse better than the Neapolitan's, a better bad habit of frowning than the Count Palatine; he is every man in no man." (1.2.54-8).

Portia disdainfully comments about another suitor, "Thus has the candle singed the moth. Oh, these deliberate fools." (3.79-80). Portia offers these suitors no quarter even when she later reveals that she has the knowledge and ability to assist the 'right' suitor in selecting the 'right' casket when she counsels Bassanio "I could teach you how to choose right" (3.2.10-11). This demonstrates her ongoing self-interest, and favoritism. Her racial prejudice is exposed after she dismisses Morocco, a tawny Moor, saying, "Let all of his complexion choose me so." (2.7.79). These demonstrations of her character expose her innate lack of fairness and reduce and clarify Bassanio's initial description to mean that Portia is not fair in terms of impartiality of judgment; she is merely attractive to look at. As 'monarch' this perspective suggests the terrifying power of despotic rule when it is clothed in the decorative splendor of wealth. Fairness of countenance does not equate to fairness of character.

Nerissa, for her part, is shown to acquiesce to Portia. Her role, as nobility, informs the audience that the nobility aspect supports Portia and disregards the consequences of Portia's actions on the lives of her discarded suitors. Jessica, the third female in this play, wishes to move from her outsider position of Jewess to an insider moneyed position of wealthy Christian woman. To achieve this desire Jessica betrays her father, her faith and her morality. She is willing to steal everything she can from her father and to give this wealth to her new Christian husband. Lorenzo, Jessica's new husband's, sudden wealth (since he was formerly an employee of Shylock) and rise in status goes unchallenged by the cast of 'nobles' and in fact Portia chooses Jessica and her new husband to watch over her estate during the legal issues involving Jessica's Jew father and Bassanio's benefactor, Antonio. This demonstrates an ongoing acceptance of stealing by the noble/monarchy classes from those in society unable to defend themselves such as the Jews and the poor. Portia's action is a reward by 'the monarchy aspect', reflecting the truism that monarchies profit directly from taking money from the people they 'govern.' This also positions the aspect of 'noble' as nothing more than a Christian with money or to say there is no nobility in being a noble.

To understand Portia's character as so carefully described and demonstrated by Shakespeare in this play, it becomes helpful to apply Machiavelli's ideas when considering the motivations of Portia's actions. Portia, throughout the play, is in the business of managing and manipulating others for her personal benefit. She manages her suitors much as she later 'manages' the law. Neither are handled fairly in terms of impartiality. As monarch in archetype her actions are centered purely in personal gain which is perhaps why her father created the casket lottery in the first place, to leaven her power. By creating a lottery favoring success by a man of wisdom and discernment, it suggests that her father considered her nature and determined it would be beneficial for his distant heirs (global perspective) if his daughter's nature was balanced by a man not solely motivated by greed for her wealth and infatuation of her personal beauty. He could not, of course, preclude the trickery of a grifter such as Bassanio.

Portia's artificial assumption of authority through the taking on of legal robes, is indeed nothing more than a light masking of the true authority of 'monarch' acting against the law by producing a quibble (an artificial means of subverting justice) in order to 'keep the Jew (women, the poor and the othered) in a position unable to injure the monarch or nobles.' This is a demonstration of oppressive power under the guise of justice. It exposes the fallacy of investing belief in the governing ethics of an office or role (such as that of monarch) rather than in the demonstrated behaviors or actions of those chosen as leaders. Portia did not earn or achieve her role of moneyed power, it was an accident of birth and extended to her no inherent quality of character or investment in those she could take power over.

Portia, in this play, is not a woman empowered because she takes no actions against corruption, greed, theft and betrayal. In fact, Portia endorses these disempowering states being used against people. Portia, is the class of empowered monarch, sustained and supported by a conditioned belief or investment in a monarchs inalienable right to exist and oppress others.

In this way Shakespeare examines the human desire to elevate and support a figurehead who, through no efforts of their own, is positioned to impose direction and to oppress other people. He looks at the artificial and/or criminal ways in which status is created as an act upon the very people forced to support it. Wealth is frequently, as in this play, gained through some mechanism of theft from an individual or group who are unable to adequately defend themselves from the thieves. This makes Portia little more than an opportunistic predator. She certainly doesn't rise to the level of an empowered woman.

By looking at Portia in comparison to the real life Rosa Cavalleri it becomes clear that Rosa's struggles against violence, brutality and lifelong oppression by persons of community agreed to status (such as: her husband, her Italian culture of status support, and her church) are the actions, behaviors and character of a real woman who fights for her personal power and innate right of self governance. Portia confronts no consequences for her actions and she reflects no substance of character through those actions. When Rosa Cavalleri ceased to respect the etiquette of class differences she challenged the institutionalized oppression of her culture and overcame those in artificial authority over her life, freeing herself from the bondage of Machiavelli's governing tripartite structure. She said, "No. No more." That is an empowered woman of character.

Works Cited or Referenced

Ets, Marie Hall, Rosa: The Life of an Italian Immigrant. 2nd ed. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. 1999.

Shakespeare, William, David Bevington, Ed., "The Merchant Of Venice". The Necessary Shakespeare. 2nd ed. New York: Pearson Longman. 2005.

Machiavelli, Niccolò di Bernardo dei, Discourses On Livy.
<http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Machiavelli0156/Writings/HTMLs/0076-
02_Pt02_Disc.html> 2007.

Merriam Webster Online. < http://www.m-w.com/>. 2007.

Rosa Cavalleri
in the only photo known to exist

Rosa Cavalleri's story resonated with me when I first heard it. I could almost feel her obstacles and it allowed me to examine my own life and place into perspective the great strides that have been made by women in the last 100 years. The yoke of tyranny over women still exists all over the world and now it takes many forms and disguises itself in places where it shouldn't exist, yet, in spite of men's fear to relinquish their overt controls, women are rising, both in their own spirits as well as in their communities to share their voice and their knowledge in ways they simply could not do in the past.

For me, this process is about fear as much as it is about conditioning. Women as well as men perpetuate the very systems that enslave them often feeling safer within a known prison than they do unfettered. Raw potential is that force wielded by mother nature, the force that inspires awe and terror and in our souls we fear our own potentials for those same reasons.

A play, such as Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, offers a glimpse into these same dynamics 400 years ago and it is through such glimpses that we can truly see how slow progress is to confront and overcome traditions and judgments. Some say that Portia, in this play, is one of the most powerful women depicted in literature and for me that is a travesty. By comparing the fictional yet plausible life of Portia to the real and shocking life of Rosa it becomes possible to consider the mechanisms we use to evaluate success and the travesties of humanity who are elevated through the accident of fate when they are born with money or title and pretty much nothing else. Would these same individuals rise to reflect quality of character had they not become oppressed by the restraints of their position? That remains possible and in that consideration the world can grieve the loss of what was possible as it endures the vacuous veneer of socialites parading like conquering heros across our lives.

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