Shakespeare explores the theme of deception and self-deception in Twelfth Night by creating its characters to use deception in disguise to create comedy in the play, which is one of the major themes of the play, Twelfth Night. The characters go to the extremes of deception by deceiving everyone and even deceiving their own selves just to get what they want which is the love that they desire. From this we can even sometimes associate deception with their madness to get what they want.
An Understanding Evil Several of William Shakespeare’s plays focus on the presence of a characters public appearance in the eyes of spectatorship and observation, and the problems that result from misunderstandings. Although it is dark at times, Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy that exemplifies this theme. As spectatorship is an action characters engage in, it becomes a challenge to keep up with the motives and truthful appearances of identities throughout the play. Due to Claudio’s ability to be easily manipulated, his motives behind rejecting Hero are masked by Don John’s evil attempt to destroy him and his marriage. In Much Ado About Nothing, Claudio is viewed as a victim of spectatorship and Don John as the perpetrator.
William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is not simply a light-hearted comedy; it is a study of the abstract. Shakespeare shows that the divide between the dream world and reality is inconstant and oftentimes indefinable. Meanwhile, he writes about the power of the intangible emotions, jealousy and desire, to send the natural and supernatural worlds into chaos. Love and desire are the driving forces of this play’s plot, leaving the different characters and social classes to sort out the resulting pandemonium. While the overseeing nobles attack the predicament with poise and logic, the tradesmen and nobles stricken with love recede to foolishness.
The larger themes of King Lear revolves... ... middle of paper ... ...d of the play who goes against order, or their given role of society is deemed unnatural. This becomes problematic because of the constraints it places on the acceptable of any change in society. Forgiveness and love are not attainable within this worldview. The ideology of these men, and their interpretation of naturalness, is contrasted with the children’s, which is one of fluidity. Edgar believes the working of the universe to be just, throughout the story’s despair.
The unarguable theme in Shakespeare’s “A midsummer night’s dream” is love. Here the playwright explores how people fall in love and that the pursuit of love can make people irrational and foolish. By using the cliché that “the course of true love never did run smooth” Shakespeare suggests that love is “really an obstacle course with the capacity to turn us all into madmen.” (Shmoop Editorial Team, 2008). Furthermore the love represented in this play is far from true and by placing his characters in the fairy realm Shakespeare suggests that love is simply an illusion. The idea of difficult love is very often explored through the motif of” love out of balance”.
(I,i,86) which ironically means everything, Shakespeare cleverly reveals this to the reader through an aside from Cordelia "I am sure my love's more ponderous than my tongue." (I,i,76-77) Though the reader feels Codelia's love Lear, blinded by vanity banishes his "sometime daughter" (I,i,118) failing to realize the meaning of "nothing." Lear's ignorance of his daughter's true love due to his vanity is a key flaw , captured by Shakespeare, in human nature. This flaw, is revealed through a tragic mistake incidentally, Sh... ... middle of paper ... ...ght is an atrocity of nature be it human or overall kings are meant to be wise and rule justly, yet Lear is foolish and vain—ironically—the exact opposite to a king. The ultimate irony in the play was "nothing" nothing meant everything when Cordelia spoke of it, yet Lear scorned that nothing.
Humans are unable to recognize that jealousy is an incurable disease that can cause manipulative false realities. In the play Othello, written by William Shakespeare, it is a clear indication of how one's inherent fears and uncertainties can be exploited and manipulated by a corrupted mind to conquer personal motives. To annihilate Iago’s personal jealousy towards certain characters Iago completely understands his victim’s nature and needs and uses this to completely destroy them. To add to this, Iago does not have any core beliefs or morals easily allowing him to play with others emotions without regret. Therefore Iago’s hate for jealousy leads to Iago manipulating others and playing with their feelings to benefit himself.
As false appearance or, alternatively, illusion recurs throughout the play, Shakespeare reveals how misleading others and oneself is not the way to get ahead. It is evident that deceptive skills cannot be relied upon as guilt becomes overwhelming, causing insanity. The idea of deception is portrayed in the paradox, “Fair is foul, and foul is fair” (1.1.11). Through Macbeth’s rise to power, this play is full of vague knowledge, uncertainties and half-truths. Donalbain, able to distinguish those with true loyalty from those of mere flattery, states “There’s daggers in men’s smiles” (2.3.143), which greatly exemplifies the struggle between false appearance and true intentions in the play.
The concepts of drama, chronological plot, logical language, themes, and recognizable settings are features of drama that a play from the Theatre of Absurd does not have. We see how the characters of Vladimir and Estrago... ... middle of paper ... ...s with their incoherent colloquy. And above than all, its theme is unexplained meaning that the play does not only have a single theme like adventure or action. “Waiting for Godot” is an absurd play for it is devoid of characterization and motivation. Though characters are present but are not recognizable for whatever they do and whatever they present is purposeless.
Iago constructs a false impression of his loyalty to Othello through ... ... middle of paper ... ... as it unfolds. It is saddening to see these characters fail again and again to understand each other, and themselves. Within our own lives however, we are not so different from the characters of the play. Many things are beyond our comprehension, and it is easy for suffering to arise when people are without understanding. Alas, Shakespeare has given us fair warning of the tragedy that could spring from incomprehension.