Characteristics of Shakespeare Plays - Essay Example

s the assignment was due Characteristics of Shakespeare plays Love theme or romantic interludes between thecharacters and the resultant marriages have been one of the pet subjects or characteristics of many great writers including the greatest them of all, William Shakespeare. Shakespeare has dealt with the characteristic of love and marriage in most of his 38 plays. Although these two characteristics are omnipresent in his works, the way he ends the love affair between the characters most of the time makes that work a comedy or a tragedy. At the same time, in the case of historical works, although historical events and political issues play a major part, Shakespeare has incorporated romance and marriages as a major plot movement tool and also in a subtle manner. Love and marriage are a natural process and even an institution, which is respected in societies across the world. The union of man and woman, which is necessary for the formation of family, is facilitated by love and marriage. The processes involved in romance and marriage may differ from one society to another but the notion behind them is the same throughout the world, and that notion is union of couples and conception of a family. Thus, the bottom line is, the human needs of love and affection are satisfied through marriage. In many of the plays, Shakespeare has given a happy and positive ending to the love affairs of the characters, thereby making the play a comedy and giving the readers a nice feeling at the end of the play. However, in other plays, to highlight the intensity of the love of these passionate lovers, many plots end in the tragic death of the lovers. Then in the historical works, as mentioned above, as part of plot movement, Shakespeare has used romance and marriage. Thus, this paper focusing on the Five plays of Shakespeare namely, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like it, Julius Caesar and Henry V will discuss about these key characteristics of love and marriage. In Twelfth Night The play Twelfth Night by Shakespeare deals with this theme of loves and marriage and presents its significance in the lives of the characters. The play revolves around several pairs of lovers, who are seeking affection of the person they are in love with. Duke Orsino loves Lady Olivia but she never reciprocates her love. Viola falls for Orsino and Lady Olivia falls for Cesario, thinking that Viola was a man. Their struggle to unite with their lovers, their feelings and thoughts shed light on the social, political and religious outlook of the society towards marriage. Each society lays down some rules regarding marriage and the members of the society are expected to follow these rules. The society depicted in the Shakespearean plays also follows certain rules concerning marriage, which are to be abided by its members. The social ideas regarding marriage are presented in the play Twelfth Night through the restraint of the characters. The union of a man and woman only, is permitted through marriage by this society. The love between same sex persons is not accepted by the society and this is evident from the struggles of the characters who find it difficult to cope with their feeling of attraction towards same sex persons. Viola loves Duke Orsino but as she is disguised as a man, she is unable to express her love for Orsino. The reason for her hesitation is the society which disapproves homosexual love. Orsino also admires Cesario but he never explicitly expresses his attraction towards Cesario. He praises Viola’s feminine beauty thinking that Viola is a man. “Diana’s lip is not more smooth and rubious; thy small pipe Is as the maiden’s organ, shrill in sound, And all is semblative a woman’s part.” (Shakespeare I.iv.14). Both of them are aware of the restrictions placed by the society on homosexual love, so they never express their attraction for each other openly. The other character who is attracted towards same sex person is Antonio. Antonio is the one who rescues Sebastian. Antonio is attracted to Sebastian and he expresses his feelings openly. “But come what may, I do adore thee so That danger shall seem sport, and I will go.” (Shakespeare II.i.41-42). When Sebastian tells Antonio to leave him to his fate, Antonio refuses to do so. “By your patience, no. My stars shine darkly over me: the malignancy of my fate might perhaps distemper yours; therefore I shall carve of you your leave that I may bear my evils alone: it were a bad recompense for your love, to lay any of them on you.” (Shakespeare II.i.31). Antonio knows that his love for Sebastian will never be approved by the society. But still he wants to be with Sebastian forever, so he asks Sebastian if he can live with him as his servant. “If you will not murder me for my love, let me be your servant” (Shakespeare II.i 32). Antonio realizes that he cannot be united with Sebastian by the ties of marriage, so to fulfill his desire of living with Sebastian, he thinks of taking on the role of a servant. His love for Sebastian is so strong that he is prepared to lead his life as a servant just for the sake of staying near Sebastian. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a romantic comedy, features the romantic adventures of two pairs of young Athenian lovers; with fairies, Duke and amateur actors, playing supporting roles, and taking the story to a logical conclusion. When they spend a night in the forest, the different couples get interchanged, due to the action of a magical flower called pansy or “love-in-idleness”. It consists or focuses on many different types of love including romantic love, unrequited love, forbidden love, and enchanted love. So, it is a play about many confused lovers, who fall in love with others at first sight, which is brought on by fantasy based concepts and because of that, appears conflicts. Even the conflicts between the characters, Lysander and Demetrius as well as Oberon and Titania, come up because of fantasy playing a crucial role. Even though, Shakespeare provides his views about imagination, he gives it from Theseus’ perspective. When the characters wake up, after the magical night in the forest, all of them suspect that their romantic experiences could merely be a dream, which was again suggested by Theseus in his speech. When the Duke Theseus hears about these ‘dreamy’ events from the Athenians, he does not believe them, and says that all the persons might have imagined those things. Theseus points out how poets like a lunatic or even a lover will create works based solely on imagination, without seeing reality. "The lunatic, the lover, and the poet/Are of imagination all compact.” (V.i.6-7). By spelling out how mentally ill people will hallucinate, how lovers will see even unattractive people as beautiful, Shakespeare through Theseus’ speech points how poets or writers will create their works ‘setting’ their imagination into action. The romance between the characters is true, but the difference is romance is brought on by external factors, with minimal intervention by the concerned central characters. This play by Shakespeare has a lot of fantasies with the love also bordering on imaginary relationships. Through the play, the outer representation of love in the form of physical aspects is often confused with the inner deep undertones, which the characters fail to notice. That is, the characters’ sight and their main focus on the physical aspects of the opposite sex, only forms the basis of their natural attraction and that only leads to characters falling in love. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the characters’ romantic conflict and the resultant suffering clearly shows that perception of true love is obscured by certain impediments. “The course of true love never did run smooth;” (1. 1, 1. 31). After all the changing of lovers, the play comes to an end with the expected pairs joining hands in marital bliss. In As You Like It In the play As You Like It, it seems that the characters of Rosalind and Celia share a bonding that is more intense than friendship and border mainly on romantic relationship, primarily due to cross-dressing by Rosalind and her transformation into a male. However, her true love for Orlando is what comes to the fore in the end, as she could not further suppress her femininity and had to express her love to Orlando in a more telling more. When Rosalind is banished, Celia also accompanies her, because for Celia, life without Rosalind is unimaginable and intolerable. When Rosalind dons the male costumes, Celia sees her as a protector and starts to view her/him in an all-new light. The gender roles that shaped the lives of woman brought them closer to be the same sex friends and as both of them shared the same feelings of dependency; their relation was more intense on romantic lines than plain friendship. Rosalind’s gender identity is a complex one because she enjoys the rights she was bestowed while she was playing Ganymede or a male character. However, as long as she wants to pursue it, then the love she has for Orlando has to naturally pull her back to play her natural female role, even suppressing and nullifying the subtle overtures expressed by Celia. Rosalind is one of the main female protagonists as well as strongest female character in the play, As you Like it. Throughout the play, she was well-known for her will power and at the same time for having an interesting character. However, her will power, her inner wishes and her true love gets tested, when she gets caught in a complex and intricate situation. That is, although she liked the masculine character she has donned, her love for Orlando creates doubts in her and with Celia also exhibiting overtures towards her, she gets further confused. However, her true love helps her to take a clear decision. That is, although Rosalind had the feeling that her masculine role give her with particular advantages, she also understood that it is in contravention with her desires of a normal woman. When Rosalind’s mind gets occupied with certain female specific characteristics and also desires, all her doubts about complex gender identity gets suppressed. This exhibition or uprising of womanly desires and nature comes to the fore, when she spent time with Orlando in the forest, continuing her disguise as a young man. She continued that disguise mainly with the intention to find more about Orlando particularly how he feels for her. Then, when she clearly understands how Orlando loves her and importantly her true love for him, she just wants to remove her male masquerade, return to her original female identity and as a logical conclusion wanted to marry him. The key turning point, which set into motion the above series of situations, was her reaction when she saw the blood of Orlando. Seeing the blood of Orlando, Rosalind just swoons, which is implied as normally a women’s reaction to blood. Although, she was in the male masquerade, her basic women characteristics came to the fore. “Dy'd in his blood, unto the shepherd youth; That he in sport doth call his Rosalind. [ROSALIND swoons]... Many will swoon when they do look on blood...There is more in it.” (IV.iii.2161-2166). Thus, this act of Rosalind not only brings the feminineness or women in her, but importantly revealed her strong love for Orlando. Although, she had liking for her male disguise and the perks it provided, she truly loved Orlando and that brought Rosalind to her original self, thereby restricting her relationship with Celia purely a friendship and evolve her love for Orlando into marriage. In Julius Caesar As mentioned above, with Julius Caesar being a historical novel, romance and marriage were not strongly featured in it, but still there was adequate does of romance particularly the one between Brutus and Portia, as well as Calphurnia's love for Caesar. Firstly, when one focuses on the relationship, which exists between Brutus and Portia, it is a romantic and caring relationship. Both Brutus and Portia love each other and care each other very much, and there are no inconsistencies in either end. Each expresses and shares their love equally. For example, when it comes to Portia, she speaks to Brutus both in a romantic as well as in a gentle manner, addressing Brutus in words like “gentle” human and “my dear lord”. This way of addressing or calling on the part of Portia exhibits how much Portia loves and also honors Brutus. Although, honoring is not a key component of love, according to Portia is another way to express her love to Brutus. In addition, when one considers the time in which they lived and the play was set, it was a natural process. It was not just a one way process, Brutus reciprocated Portia’s love for him in a equal and strong manner. For Brutus’ part, while replying to Portia, he also expressed in a gentle and loving manner. He exhibits his love for Portia in the lines like, “render me worthy of this noble wife” (II, i, 333) and “You are my true and honourable wife, as deere to me as are the ruddy drops” (II, i, 317-18). All these words of Brutus validate how much he is in love with Portia, and as both of them exhibit uninhibited love for each other, their relationship moves on happy lines. On the other hand, when one focuses on the romantic relationship between Calphurnia and Caesar, it provides different perspectives. Although, Calphurnia loves Caesar dearly, the way she communicates with him differs from the relationship of Brutus and Portia. That is, she mainly speaks with Caesar in an authoritative manner in a sort of commanding tone. Thus, it seems Calphurnia does not exhibit love plus gentleness like Portia did towards Brutus, and it is mostly love in a stronger tone. In Henry V Henry’s obduracy results in his conquest of the French army, and that is visible in her wooing of Katherine. Henry may not be as brave but he is smart and stubborn enough to accomplish his ambitions. When he sets a goal for himself he makes every effort to achieve it. His perseverance gives him the strength to accomplish the impossible. Although, he is stiff soldier without romantic mindset, he sets his mind on wooing Katherine, or Kate as he calls her. Like the other historical novels, romance is not a major part of Henry V as well, but this wooing scene brings out its share of romantic touch to this play. It takes place in a royal palace in Paris, when a negotiation was going on regarding a peace treaty. Although, the marriage between Henry and Katherine was almost a forgone conclusion, Henry decides to romance her and thereby woo her to be his queen. This romantic interlude starts off in a bad note, with Katherine painting all the men in a negative light particularly regarding their propensity to utter lies. She states, that “the tongues of men are full of deceits” (V.ii.117-118). She has that negative image about Henry that he is marrying her just for the land. Although, Henry tries to assuages her regarding these concerns, his original self particularly his love for the land comes to the fore. Overall, the role of love and marriage is not predominantly featured in the play, and even when it is featured, it was not deeply explored. Works Cited Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night. Forgotten Books. 1935 Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Planet, 28-Mar-2012 Shakespeare, William. “As You Like It.” Open Source, n. d. Web. 11 Dec 2013. Shakespeare, William. The Tragedie of Julius Caesar. Classic Books Company, 2001. Shakespeare, William. King Henry V: Third Series. Cengage Learning EMEA, 1995. Read More