📘 L’art du débat — II & III : Plaidoyers et langage au théâtre

Dialogues in fiction and theatre are tools for presenting clashing views and teaching audiences to form their own opinions. Suffragettes argue for their rights (Gavron’s Suffragette), Atticus Finch pleads for justice (To Kill a Mockingbird), and Shakespeare’s characters use language as their most powerful weapon (Much Ado, Measure for Measure, Shylock’s soliloquy, Kate’s speech, Lady Macbeth, Queen Anne vs Richard III).

📐 II — Pleading

Sarah Gavron, Suffragette (2015): Maud Watts vs Inspector Steed → Maud argues that women resort to violence because it is “the only language men listen to.” She discredits the inspector by turning his every argument against him: “What gave you the right to stand in the middle of a riot, watch women beaten and do nothing?!” The inspector has only threats; she has logic.

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960): Atticus Finch → uses simple, clear language; defending Tom Robinson is a matter of personal ethics and self-respect (“If I didn’t, I couldn’t hold my head up in town”). He is not just a lawyer — he is a champion of a just cause, turning the courtroom into a stage.

📐 III — Language in Shakespeare’s plays

Much Ado About Nothing (Beatrice & Benedick): “battle of wits” — they prove perfect complementarity by proving they can’t stand each other. Humour from comparisons, metaphors, hyperboles.

Measure for Measure (Isabella & Angelo): Angelo tries to trade Isabella’s chastity for her brother’s life. Angelo reasons: “measure for measure” (law of retaliation, bargaining). Isabella: “Ignominy in ransom and free pardon / Are of two houses.” Shakespeare shows that laws and morals don’t always align.

The Merchant of Venice (Shylock’s soliloquy, Act III): “Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands…?” — reasoning ad absurdo: if a Jew is different from a Christian, he shouldn’t die when poisoned, but he does → Jews and Christians are equal → Jews are entitled to revenge as Christians would be. Portia counters: flesh comes with blood, which is more than Shylock’s due.

The Taming of the Shrew (Kate’s speech): Kate enumerates all gender stereotypes to perfection → the audience suspects she is being ironic. Her power lies in her tongue, not Petruchio’s who couldn’t have won without her. “A woman mov’d is like a fountain troubled.”

Macbeth (Lady Macbeth, Act I, scene 5): demands supernatural forces to “unsex me here” and “fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty” → rejects femininity but is not as evil as she would like: uses periphrases and hyperboles to avoid naming murder directly.

Richard III (Queen Anne vs Richard): incremental repetitions — “Vouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman” // “Vouchsafe, defused infection of a man” → they are on equal footing. Richard uses absurd but logical reasoning (“Let him thank me, that help to send him thither; / For he was fitter for that place than earth”). Queen Anne is as capable of sarcasm as Richard is of irony.

💡 Key takeaway

Dialogues and monologues are the stage for arguments, persuasion and pleading. Language can be a weapon (Maud Watts), a moral statement (Atticus Finch), or a form of ironic subversion (Kate’s submission speech). Shakespeare’s characters are masterclasses in rhetoric: logic, irony, sarcasm, and ad absurdo reasoning.