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Character of rosalind in as you like it
Meaning of as you like it by william shakespeare
Meaning of as you like it by william shakespeare
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As You Like It: The Importance of the Secondary Characters
As You Like It, by William Shakespeare, is a radiant blend of fantasy, romance, wit and humor. In this delightful romp, Rosalind stands out as the most robust, multidimensional and lovable character, so much so that she tends to overshadow the other characters in an audience's memory, making them seem, by comparison, just "stock dramatic types". Yet, As You Like It is not a stock romance that just happens to have Shakespeare's greatest female role. The other members of the cast provide a well-balanced supporting role, and are not just stereotypes. Characters whom Shakespeare uses to illustrate his main theme of the variations of love are all more than one-use cardboards, as they must be fully drawn to relate to life. Those characters most easily accused of having a stock one-dimensionality are those inessential to the theme but important to the plot and useful as convenient foils, such as Duke Frederick and Oliver de Boys. The assertion of the question deserves this quote: "You have said; but whether wisely or no, let the forest judge."
There is no doubt, either in the critical or play-going mind, that Rosalind is the "grandest of female roles" (Hazlitt). She encompasses a multitude of character brushstrokes, from the love struck maiden to the witty arch tongue to the steel-backboned princess to the fiery Wise One (Hazlitt). To add to the demands of the character Shakespeare adds in an exterior sex change and further makes Ganymede pretend to be Rosalind to Orlando. Though this kind of "boy acting a girl acting a boy acting a girl" kind of transmogrifications were not uncommon upon the Elizabethan stage, the kind of mind and acting portrayed ...
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...bits of character that are definitely not stock, as in Charles' original concern for Orlando and Sir Martext's refusal to be made a fool of by Touchstone. These make them more than stock, but they are still as cardboard when compared to Rosalind.
As You Like It contains as many characters as there are in life, but Rosalind is used as the vehicle for the Ideal. Her main supporting characters are full of life, and though not as much as Rosalind, it is still life for all of it. The less important characters have to be more one-sided to keep the plot uncluttered, but sometimes the one-dimensionality jars, as with Oliver. Rosalind's vibrancy would overshadow any other character, for to produce an Othello opposite her would create a conflict that this greatest of comedies does not need.
Works Cited:
Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. Bevington
Abrashoff begins the book by informing the reader of how his story begins; when he is given command of the USS Benfold. The Benfold was the Navy’s most advanced guided missile destroyer the Navy had in 1997 and its command was to be one of the Navy’s top innovators. Unfortunately, Abrashoff points out some flaws with the Navy’s personnel management that I found to be shocking. First, was that “nearly 35 percent of the people who joined the military annually, wouldn’t complete their enlistment contracts.” (p.2) Such turnover can be understood by many business managers in the service industry, but unlike the quick and cheap training process for them, the cost for the military (taxpayers) is astounding. Abrashoff estimates that it cost roughly “$35,000 to recruit a trainee and tens of thousands more in additional training costs to get new personnel to the basic level of proficiency.” (p.2) Curbing this trend on his own ship and eventually helping to achieve a decrease overall in the mil...
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Imagine being a woman in sixteenth century Europe. Females were raised to believe that they were subservient and that men knew better on any subject. Basically, women had no rights. They were considered property, first “owned” by their fathers and then control was “transferred” to the husband chosen for them. Marriage was not about love, but in most cases, it was a business deal that was mutually beneficial to both families – an interesting fact is that like young women, most young men had no choice in the selection of their future betrothed. These traditions and the gender roles assumed by men and women at that time had an impact on Shakespeare’s writing and performances and a great example of this is evident in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Thomas Lodge's Rosalynde is an unwieldy piece, the romance is thick, heavy, and conventional. Yet when Shakespeare took it in hand, to rework the tangled web of disguise and romance into As You Like It, he changed much of the emphasis, by both altering and adding characters. Rosalynde is a celebration of love; As You Like It, a philosophical discourse on love..
It is well known that Shakespeare’s comedies contain many marriages, some arranged, some spontaneous. During Queen Elizabeth's time, it was considered foolish to marry for love. However, in Shakespeare’s plays, people often marry for love. With a closer look into two of his most famous plays As You Like It and Twelfth Night or What You Will, I found that while marriages are defined and approached differently in these two plays, Shakespeare’s attitudes toward love in both plays share similarities. The marriages in As You Like It’s conform to social expectation, while the marriages are more rebellious in Twelfth Night. Love, in both plays, was defined as
Myopia, or nearsightedness, is the most common ocular disorder in the world and affects people of all ages. Nearly 30 percent of the US population is currently affected by myopia and based on the National Eye Institute’s latest projections, 39 million Americans will be affected by 2030 and over 44 million by 2050.
Many characters undergo a change in William Shakespeare’s play, “As You Like It”. Duke Senior goes from being a member of a court to being a member of a forest and Orlando changes from a bitter, younger brother, to a love-struck young man. The most obvious transformation undergone, is undoubtedly that of Rosalind. Her change from a woman to a man, not only alters her mood, candor, and gender, but also allows her to be the master of ceremonies.
Love is the central theme in the play ‘As You Like It’ by William Shakespeare, the author expressed many types of love in the play. Some of them are, brotherly love, lust for love, loyal, friendship love, unrequited love, but of course, romantic love is the focus of this play.
The essentially healthy emotional intelligence of Rosalind and Orlando and their suitability for each other emerge from their separate encounters with Jaques (in some editions Jacques), the melancholy ex-courtier who is part of Duke Senior's troupe in the forest. Both Rosalind and Orlando take an instant dislike to Jaques (which is mutual). And in that dislike we are invited to see something vitally right about the two of them.
As You Like It starts out in the court, where Rosalind in a female dressed as a female, and Orlando is a male dressed as a male. Rosalind is being treated like a woman and she clearly acts like one. She attends the wrestling match, where her uncle, Duke Frederick, asks her and Celia, her cousin, to try on talk Orlando out of participating in the match. This is the point when Rosalind and Orlando meet, coerce, and begin having feelings for each other. Orlando does in fact defeat Charles, the Duke's wrestler. In this situation, Rosalind is portraying a female with typical female characteristics and Orlando is carrying out his male characteristics. In the court, they are in there true societal roles, but once they enter the forest of Ardenne those roles are dramatically changed.
Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. Comp. Folger Shakespeare Library. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2009. Print.
Gender issues and social commentary are especially relevant in published criticism of Shakespeare's As You Like It since the beginning of the 1990's, as evidenced by the number of articles published in scholarly journals during the past twelve years. Janet Gupton's review in Theatre Journal, published in 2001as well as Louise Schleiner's article in the Shakespeare Quarterly in the fall of 1999, both deal with the treatment of gender-subjectivity.
It is easy enough to discount the presence of conflict within As You Like It, swept away as we are by the sparkling wit of the play, its numerous songs, and the use of stage spectacle (such as the masque of Hymen). But precisely what enables Arden to have such a profound effect on the visitors (Rosalind, Orlando, Duke Senior et al.) is the fact that it is a retreat from the "painted pomp" of the "envious court". The twisted morality of the court, where Duke Frederick hates Rosalind for her virtue, is very much necessary for the purpose of the drama of the play; it is only through the disparity between the court and the Forest of Arden that there is dramatic significance in the movement to Arden and the play of Arden. So while the world of As You Like It is one of reduced intensity (even while the cynic Jacques is loved by the Duke Senior, who loves to "cope him in his sullen fits"), it would be too glib to dismiss conflict from the play.
In Shakespeare's As You Like It loyalty is dominant theme. Each character possesses either a loyalty or disloyalty towards another. These disloyalties and loyalties are most apparent in the relationships of Celia and Rosalind, Celia and Duke Fredrick, Orlando and Rosalind, Adam and Orlando, and Oliver and Orlando. In these relationships, a conflict of loyalties causes characters to change homes, jobs, identities and families.