Family can be a very strong, leading force in one’s life. They’re who you are meant to rely on for support and love. However, when a family is broken, that can have lasting negative impacts on the members. William shakespeare’s, The Comedy of Errors raises the central question: how does the need for a sense of belonging and stable family influence people’s lives? His treatment of this through the characters of Antipholus of Syracuse, Egeon, and Luciana reveals how people will sacrifice their well being in search of sense of belonging and stable family structure.
Antipholus of Syracuse has been on a continual search for his separated brother since he was merely 18 years old. Although the twins were separated as infants, Antipholus’s longing
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During a conversation between Antipholus of Syracuse and Luciana, he begs her to teach him about himself when he believes she is otherworldly. “Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak/… Are you a god? Would you create me new?/ Transform me, then, and to your power I'll yield,” (129). This not only reveals how confused and lost Antipholus is in his identity and how his need for his family has caused him to sacrifice that, but how he is desperate to overcome his feelings of longing and is willing to turn to sources of magic he would never otherwise consider. Sorcery in this time period was universally seen as a dangerous and cunning activity in which those of higher society would never partake. Therefore the concept of Antipholus begging for a “creature” with “power” to teach him about himself can be viewed as an act of anguish in his time of separation from his family. Thankfully, when Antipholus of Syracuse is finally introduced to Antipholus of Ephesus at the end of the play, there is a joyous moment where he experiences the sense of belonging and love he has spent his life searching for and returns to his right state of mind. He is finally able to stop sacrificing himself when he is reunited with his family and discovers his newfound involvement in the community which provides a sense of belonging he has craved for so
A person’s family may influence them substantially as they grow, from young children to love-struck teenagers. These family members might do so unintentually, but bad traits will rub off just as often as good ones, so will opinions and ideas. Lord Capulet is a character in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet who tries to make the best out of bad situations, but rarely succeeds and is coloured as quite a hypocrite. He attempts to not be blinded by hate but evidently this leads to many mistakes, usually ones he himself doesn’t end up making, but ones he leads others into. Lord Capulet’s bad parenting leads to the death of his daughter and her lover.
Antigone, as a character, is extremely strong-willed and loyal to her faith. Creon is similarly loyal, but rather to his homeland, the city of Thebes, instead of the gods. Both characters are dedicated to a fault, a certain stubbornness that effectively blinds them from the repercussions of their actions. Preceding the story, Antigone has been left to deal with the burden of her parents’ and both her brothers’ deaths. Merely a young child, intense grief is to be expected; however, Antigone’s emotional state is portrayed as frivolous when it leads her to directly disobey Creon’s orders. She buries her brother Polynices because of her obedience to family and to the gods, claiming to follow “the gods’ unfailing, unwritten laws” (Sophocles 456-457). CONTINUE
not only a family but a society. In a play riddled with greed, manipulation and dishonesty,
Amussen, Susan. "The Family and the Household" in A Companion to Shakespeare. Ed. David Kastan. Malden Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1999. 85-99.
Web. The Web. The Web. 3 March 2014. The “Family Life in Shakespeare’s Time.”
In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the audience witnesses a great amount of familial pride when Tybalt shouts to an opposing family member, “What, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word, as I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee. Have at thee, coward,” (Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act 1.1 pg 12). In the play Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare depicts two feuding families who once had a legitimate reason to be mad at one another, but now continuously fight each other fueled purely by family pride. This everlasting conflict between the Montagues and the Capulets illustrate to the audience how having too much family pride places a restriction on familial unity.
Sushma Karki P English 1302 October 10, 2017 Antigone “Antigone” is a Greek tragedy by Sophocles. The story is about a young woman who has a brother by breaking the king’s decree, and now she is punished for obeying God’s law. In the classic model of dramatic structure, two characters move the action of the play from introduction to climax to resolution with their conflict. One of these characters is the protagonist, and the other is the antagonist. The protagonist is a “good guy” and the antagonist is the “bad guy”.
In the awe-inspiring play of Antigone, Sophocles introduces two remarkable characters, Antigone and Creon. A conflict between these two obstinate characters leads to fatal consequences for themselves and their kindred. The firm stances of Creon and Antigone stem from two great imperatives: his loyalty to the state and her dedication to her family, her religion but most of all her conscience. The identity of the tragic hero of this play is still heavily debated. This tragedy could have been prevented if it had not been for Creon's pitiful mistakes.
Sophocles demonstrates a very important and serious idea throughout the play: Love can be extremely dangerous if it is left uncontrolled. Antigone and Creon meet
The idea of the family has gone through dynamic changes throughout time. Fortunately, literary works have been the constant reporter on this capricious idea. When hearing family, the majority of the populace might say it is defined as the typical, “mom, dad, brother, sister” default setup, however, this “accepted” precedent has been, respectfully, impugned. The reality is that it might not matter who makes up the family. How the “family” functions is what supersedes in importance. In some cases, friends can be more of a family than an actual family. Sometimes people wish they had a different family altogether. These people want to gravitate toward their perfect, "emotionally-formed family", which has most likely been engendered
In the Antigone, unlike the Oedipus Tyrannus, paradoxically, the hero who is left in agony at the end of the play is not the title role. Instead King Creon, the newly appointed and tyrannical ruler, is left all alone in his empty palace with his wife's corpse in his hands, having just seen the suicide of his son. However, despite this pitiable fate for the character, his actions and behavior earlier in the play leave the final scene evoking more satisfaction than pity at his torment. The way the martyr Antigone went against the King and the city of Thebes was not entirely honorable or without ulterior motives of fulfilling pious concerns but it is difficult to lose sight of the fact that this passionate and pious young woman was condemned to living imprisonment.
Brad Moore, a famous athlete once said, “Pride would be a lot easier to swallow if it didn’t taste so bad.” In Sophocles’ well known Greek tragedy, Antigone, the main character undergoes immense character development. Antigone transforms from being stubborn and underestimated to courageous and open-minded. In reality, it is Antigone’s insular persistence that leads to her ultimate decline in the play as well as others around her. After the death of her two brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, Creon becomes the new ruler of Thebes. With this, he grants Eteocles an honorable funeral service for his brave fighting. Claiming that Polynices was a traitor, he shows complete refusal to grant Polynices a respectable and worthy service. Clearly disagreeing with Creon’s inexcusable demands, Antigone declares she will bury Polynices herself so that his soul can be at peace. Entirely aware of the consequences and dangers of this action, which include death, she goes forward vowing her love for her family. Antigone shows strength and determination towards her brother. However, her growing sense of pride leads to her downfall as she sacrifices everything for her family. Antigone develops into an admirable character in which she portrays her defiance and courage, pride and open mindedness, and sense of moral righteousness to show vital character growth as the play progresses.
The Shakespearean Era, also referred to as the Elizabethan Era, took place during the mid 1500’s throughout 1600. Family structure at the time had a norm, "... each nuclear family was made up of a mother, father, and unmarried children,” (Young). Fathers were considered the master of the family, below, the mother, then followed by the children. “…with the father at the head, assisted by the mother, and with children and servants accepting the father and mother as ‘governors’ and themselves as subjects,” (Young). Families had to work as one unit, not separate beings, in order to thrive in their community. While the members in a nuclear family midst Shakespeare's time are similar to today’s, their roles and structure
Families are more than just a place for biologically related people to gather and relate, but are places that symbolize all the things that they stand for – such as love, hope, unity, and much more. In some families however, they are defined by the lack of these characteristics and the prevalence of other, less welcoming characteristics – such as conflict, resentment, and anger. While these other, less welcoming characteristics have the ability to damage and destroy relationships, they also have the ability to assist others in identifying areas in which the relationships are both strong and weak. The lack of family-like characteristics is prevalent in two classic American plays, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Death of a Salesman, where they play a critical role in advancing the plot and defining the character’s relationships.
Though not the first relationship that is brought to light in Othello, familial relationships - the relationship shared between family members - are the ones that people are first exposed to in their own personal lives. In Shakespeare’s tragedy, there is only one depiction of a familial relationship: the one between Desdemona and her father, Brabantio. Most of the interaction the audience sees from the two is during the time when the legitimacy of Desdemona and Othello’s marriage is called into question. Similar to what is expressed in other families, it is suggested that, prior to the start of the play, Desdemona and Brabantio shared a companionate love, one characterized by intimacy and commitment (Sternberg). This explains his shock when