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Discuss the themes of love and friendship in two gentle men in verona
Gender roles of men during the Renaissance
Character analysis romeo and juliet
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Characters Embodying Features of the Antithesis of the Renaissance Concept of the Masculine Ideal in Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Two Gentlemen of Verona deals with the debate over the relative merits of love and friendship between two young courtiers Valentine and Proteus. One of the great debates of the Renaissance was the discussion of whether the love of a woman was a sentiment more noble than the friendship that might exist between men. We also see the first instances of later female heroines in the qualities of Julia and Silvia.
The plays starts with the two friends together, Valentine is getting ready to leave for the court of Milan, and is chastening his friend Proteus to accompany him, and leave Julia the girl he loves, and the dull life of home "Than, living dully sluggardiz'd at home" (1.1.7). Proteus being love struck is willing at this point to stay at home, and let his friend leave alone. Showing at this point that love does outweigh friendship. After Valentine leaves, Proteus's father is persuaded to make his son seek out his future away from home also.
When we next catch up with Valentine he is in the court of Milan, and is trying to woe the Dukes daughter Silvia, who has been promised to Thurio who is a pompous, rich gentlemen, and like the rich snob of modern times will not get the lady's hand. On the other hand Valentine seems so immature and naïve, in that the Dukes daughter Silvia, plays him for the fool that he's acting like. Speed the page to Valentine, has seen this, and when he tries to tell his master it is to complicated for the love struck hero to follow. "What needs she, when she has made you write to yourself? Why, do you not perceive the jest?" (2.1.152-15...
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...s did not have a lot of options. The two women in the end of the play are shown to be almost puppet like, and controlled by the will of the men around, and do not have a say in the outcome at all. The debate of love over friendship is placed back in a balance when Valentine says that they will all marry on the same day and live in the same place "Our day of marriage shall be yours, one feast, one house, one mutual happiness."
The play shows Proteus to be a false friend, a sly trickster, a liar, a coward, a slanderer and a ruffian, and this is the same person whom Valentine had described as having spent his youth in putting on an "angel like perfection" but in turn love drives this perfection out, and a devilish attitude in. Only the gentleman Valentine can put things back into order, which he does at the end, and love and friendship live together hand in hand.
In equation with the Elizabethan era, Shakespeare offers us a male dominated society in his renowned tragedy, Othello. Consequently, this definitely persuades a negative attitude and demeanor towards the women of the times. The female characters in the play: Desdemona, Emilia, and Bianca; play relevant roles in contributing to one’s understanding of this exhausted Elizabethan view. In contrast to the larger portion of the play, Emilia, spouse to the scandalous Iago, takes an opinionated stand for Desdemona in relation to her wholesome gone sour relationship with the Moor of Venice, Othello. I recognize Emilia’s “Betrayal lecture” as a justified outlook in accordance with today’s period and events surrounding Desdemona’s and Othello’s fatal misunderstanding.
In the play The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, a quintessential pair of teens fall in love, but their fate ends in misfortune. The pair falls in love in a time where women are seen as unimportant and insignificant. In spite of this, Romeo breaks the boundaries of male dominance and shows a more feminine side. Throughout the play, there is an interesting depiction of gender roles that is contrary to the society of the time period.
Shakespeare’s play, The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, depicts an ancient feud ended by a pair of star-crossed lovers’ deaths. A lord and lady from warring families seek a forbidden love with guidance from a friar and nurse. Due to a tragic course of mischances and fateful errors, their attempt of eloping led the lovers to a tragic end. Because of rash decisions, the four characters are torn apart by miscalculating events and misunderstandings. Ultimately, the four characters encounter a heartbreaking ending, as a result of their hastiness.
Throughout Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare, there is an overlaying presence of the typical roles that men and women were supposed to play. During Elizabethan times there was a major difference between the way men and women were supposed to act. Men typically were supposed to be masculine and powerful, and defend the honor. Women, on the other hand, were supposed to be subservient to their men in their lives and do as ever they wished. In Romeo and Juliet the typical gender roles that men and women were supposed to play had an influence on the fate of their lives.
Shakespeare plays have fascinated audiences with their ability to seemingly portray the depth of the meanings and descriptions of each scene. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was for many years the world’s best love story and influenced readers and writers from around the world. Understanding the contrasting natures is one of the most important themes in this play and underpins the plot. Love and hate, life and death, lastly, missions and reality will only increase every reader’s sense of curiosity.
Novy, Marianne L. Love’s Argument: Gender Relations in Shakespeare. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984.
In the time of William Shakespeare where courtship and romance were often overshadowed by the need to marry for social betterment and to ensure inheritance, emerges a couple from Much Ado About Nothing, Hero and Claudio, who must not only grow as a couple, who faces deception and slander, but as individuals. Out of the couple, Claudio, a brave soldier respected by some of the highest ranked men during his time, Prince Don Pedro and the Governor of Messina, Leonato, has the most growing to do. Throughout the play, Claudio’s transformation from an immature, love-struck boy who believes gossip and allows himself to easily be manipulated is seen when he blossoms into a mature young man who admits to his mistakes and actually has the capacity to love the girl he has longed for.
A very brief summary of Polyeucte, begins in Act I, where Paulina, the wife of Polyeucte confesses she was in love with a man named Severus before she married Polyeucte. Paulina has since been convinced that Severus died in battle; however her father, Felix is introduced into the play and announces that Severus is alive and is frightful that he has come to seek revenge against him because he rejected Severus Paulina’s hand in marriage. Polyeucte and his friend Nearchus get baptized and become Christians and when Felix learns of this he immediately puts Nearchus to death in order to strike fear into Polyeucte and make him to recant. Paulina begs her father to not put Polyeucte to death but her father is scared that Severus is plotting something against him and executes Polyeucte. Right after the moment that Polyeucte becomes a martyr, Paulina converts to Christianity and Felix f...
Appelbaum, Robert. “’Standing to the Wall’: The Pressures of Masculinity in Romeo and Juliet.” Shakespeare Quarterly 48.3 (1997): 251-72. JSTOR. Web. 27 Oct. 2013.
In the beginning of the play, when Romeo and Juliet first meet, the timing is poor. At the time of him meeting Juliet, Romeo is heartbroken because the girl who he love, Rosaline, does not love him back. Juliet’s parents, at this time, have chosen a man th...
The portrayal of gender roles in William Shakespeare’s play Othello, demonstrates the inferior treatment of women and the certain stereotypes of men placed on them by society. Both the male and female characters in the play have these certain gender expectations placed on them. In a society dominated by men, it is understood that the women are to be seen rather than heard. The women are referred to and treated much like property. If indeed they do speak up, they are quickly silenced. One woman’s attempt to be the perfect wife is what ultimately led to her demise. The expectations of men are equally stereotypical. Men are to be leaders and to be in control and dominant especially over the women. The male characters compete for position and use the female characters in the play as leverage to manipulate each other. Shakespeare provides insight in understanding the outcomes of the men and women who are faced with the pressures of trying to live up to society’s expectations, not only in the workplace, but also in the home. The pressure creates jealousy issues amongst the men and they become blind to the voice of reason and are overtaken by jealous rage, leads to the death of many of the characters.
The basis of Shakespeare’s plays appears to focus mainly around the dominant male character and his conflicts, which tend to deal with a woman. There are only three women in the play Othello; Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca. The way in which these women behave and present themselves strongly reflects the ideological expectations of women within Shakespeare’s imagined Venetian society as well as the Elizabethan society in which he lived. This patriarchal Venetian society presented in the play depicts women as possessions of men who should remain submissive and meek at all times. The women are expected to unselfishly and unreservedly devote their lives to serve their fathers until they are of age to do so, their husbands. All three women love their respective partners; however, all three are also rejected by them because they each devote more to their men than their men are capable of returning. Desdemona and Emilia display genuine emotions toward each other that are not reflected in any of the male to male associations.
Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night revolves around a love triangle that continually makes twists and turns like a rollercoaster, throwing emotions here and there. The characters love each another, but the common love is absent throughout the play. Then, another character enters the scene and not only confuses everyone, bringing with him chaos that presents many different themes throughout the play. Along, with the emotional turmoil, each character has their own issues and difficulties that they must take care of, but that also affect other characters at same time. Richard Henze refers to the play as a “vindication of romance, a depreciation of romance…a ‘subtle portrayal of the psychology of love,’ a play about ‘unrequital in love’…a moral comedy about the surfeiting of the appetite…” (Henze 4) On the other hand, L. G. Salingar questions all of the remarks about Twelfth Night, asking if the remarks about the play are actually true. Shakespeare touches on the theme of love, but emphases the pain and suffering it causes a person, showing a dark and dismal side to a usually happy thought.
Lance’s excessive contrasting of Crab with each of the members of his house emphasizes Crab’s expressionless departure from them. Lance clearly does not seem to possess any misgivings about Crab’s indifference in relation to the fact that he is a dog, as Lance recounts the distress of his cat, who wrung her “hands” (2.3.7) which by her very nature, she cannot have done. Similarly, Crab likely does not weep because he cannot weep, a notion that Lance seems to overlook. Lance’s desire to see Crab weep is perhaps pertinent in that his speech occurs immediately following an exchange of vows between Proteus and Julia, before Proteus departs for Milan. Proteus remarks of the weeping (and now absent) Julia, “What, gone without a word? / Ay, so true love should do. It cannot speak” (2.2.16-7). That Proteus should make such a claim undermines his vows to Julia, as well as the Petrarchan mode of love, which aims to win the woman with words. Because of the proximity of the two scenes as well as a similar intent on weeping expressing true emotion, it is perhaps possible to read the interaction between man and dog as a mocking representation of the lovers and their separation. While neither Lance nor Crab seems to face detachment from a lover, Lance is nonetheless concerned with the manner in which one expresses a true emotion, such as sadness or regret.
Often times in society, people have a set image of what roles specific people should have, especially when it comes to men versus women. The love between men and women is often a complicated position to be in and the way society places gender roles on people does not make it any easier. In the play Twelfth Night, Shakespeare utilizes character’s romantic relationships in order to portray the standards that society places on gender roles. Shakespeare uses the characters Olivia and Viola to show how women are often given gender roles, showing that women can have power over men, and that women have the ability to be strong and fight for what they want even if it means breaking a few rules along the way.