The Importance of Family Relationships in As You Like It by William Shakespeare
‘As You Like It’ depends largely on the portrayal of relationships for
an array of purposes; the relationships provide comedy for the
audience, and induce empathy and various other emotions. There are
many family relationships in ‘As You Like It’, varying from parent and
child bonds to husband and wife commitments – there are many new such
commitments at the end of the play.
Firstly, I shall discuss the importance of the father-daughter
relationships between Duke Senior and Rosalind, and Duke Frederick and
Celia. The second scene of the play details Rosalind mourning her
banished father, which makes the audience realise the caring qualities
in her nature:
“Unless you could teach me to forget a banished father, you must not
learn me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure.”
However, her loss is soon forgotten when she meets Orlando. This
represents that young adults are attached to their parents to a
certain extent, but are often forgotten when other interests come into
play, for example love interests. Critics could argue that this
suggests that this family relationship is not particularly important
in ‘As You Like It’. However, this relationship allows the play to
progress, when Rosalind and Celia set out into the Forest of Arden to
search for Duke Senior. In addition, Rosalind only finds true
happiness with Orlando once she has found her father again, so it
seems that her happiness in love is dependent on her contentment with
her family relationships. Therefore, I personally think that this
conveys the importance of their relationship in ‘As You Like It’.
The relationship between Duke Frederick and Celia appears to be less
valued than that between Rosalind and her father, because when Duke
Frederick decides to banish Rosalind, Celia unhesitatingly joins her,
showing her strength of character to be able to leave her father:
“Duke Frederick: … Firm and irrevocable is my doom
Which I have pass’d upon her; she is banish’d.
Family loyalty refers to the feelings of mutual obligation, commitment, and closeness that exist among family members (e.g., parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren and siblings). A loyal per¬son is ready to sacrifice even his own life for the sake of his master, friend, relative or the country. The significance of loyalty in family relationship is an integral part in both Macleod’s novel No Great Mischief and Shakespeare’s play King Lear. However, the characters in No great Mischief have demonstrated true devotion towards every family member whereas Lear’s stubbornness prevents him from being faithful which is shown by the characters.
How Two Shakespearean Couples Resolve Conflict in Their Relationships in A Midsummer Night's Dream and As You Like It
The nurse has raised Juliet since she was a baby. She plays more of a
We can argue that Shakespeare uses ‘family’ as a catalyst to King Lear and Hamlets madness. Family by definition means “any group of persons closely related by blood, as parents, children, uncles, aunts, and cousins” but metaphorically family is used to define inclusive categories such as community, friendship and humanism. The humanist movement influenced the production of Hamlet and King Lear in the Elizabethan era. It was the belief in the worth of all humans and that truth can be found through introspection. The Ancient Greek influence on Shakespeare and the play meant that most events were based on hard determinism, this belief makes Shakespeare form the play in a fashion that deprives the characters of free will and therefore a descend into tragedy. A family is perceived as the pillar that holds everyone within the bloodline together however it is the family that lead to the madness of the protagonists in each of the plays.
The Conflict Between Two Families in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet The play ‘Romeo And Juliet’ is a very dramatic one. The conflict between the two families is key to the play as a whole. If they’re where no. conflict. They would just be allowed to be together.
"Love is whatever you can still betray. Betrayal can only happen if you love." (John LeCarre) In William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of King Lear, characters are betrayed by the closest people to them. The parents betray their children, mostly unintentionally. The children deceive their parents because of their greed and power hunger. Their parents were eventually forgiven, but the greedy children were not. Parents and their children betray one and other, and are only able to do so because they are family, however, the children betray for greed while the parents betray through the credulity caused by their children's greed.
Different Aspects of Familial Love in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet At the time Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, familial love was very different to what we know it as today. Parents did not have a close relationship with their children. A nurse was often hired by the upper classes to breast feed their children because it was not accepted in polite society. Fathers often arranged marriages for their daughters, who would usually only be about twelve or thirteen years old, Marriages often lacked love.
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.
Ever since you had left Venice, your home, I had came to a realisation that I, your loving father should always accept you and your decisions after all you are my loving daughter. Your mother and I had been blessed by the gods with a gift much more valuable than any riches and when I first laid eyes on you I knew that you would always be like your mother, you inherited her beauty, personality and all of her other unique qualities that she possessed and from me you inherited my spirit, stubbornness and to always follow your heart. I did not see it back then and I was only thinking about the future of the family name and in doing so I forgot about your happiness. I had believed that I had failed as a father and sought for advice from my dear brother, Gratiano, I informed him of the courses of events that had taken place in our household and that his niece has left for Cyprus with her newly wedded husband that I did not approve of. I had hoped that Gratiano would take part in my side but your uncle had reminded me of what I had done to protect and to preserve my love for you beloved mother. So I write to you to ask for forgiveness for the disappointing father that failed to accept you and to tell you the story that you had long requested for.
Anna Freud, the founder of child psychoanalysis, once said, “It is only when parental feelings are ineffective or too ambivalent or when the mother's emotions are temporarily engaged elsewhere that children feel lost” (“Anna Freud”). In this case, the children, Romeo and Juliet, get lost and confused, leading to their ultimate deaths. While they cannot live without each other, they also cannot live with each other either, since they end up dying together from all the conflicts piling on top on each other. Since Romeo and Juliet do not really have any parental influence in their lives, they do not know how resolve their conflict of star-crossed love. Due to miscommunication, conflicting viewpoints between parents and adolescents, and a lack of involvement in their children’s lives, Shakespeare shows through Romeo and Juliet that adults are ineffective in saving their children’s lives.
William Shakespeare and the new millennium seem to be diametrically opposed, yet his works are having a renaissance of their own after 400 years in the public domain. Why have some major film producers revisited his works when their language and staging would seem to be hopelessly outdated in our society?Perhaps because unlike modern writers, who struggle with political correctness, Shakespeare speaks his mind with an uncompromising directness that has kept its relevance in this otherwise jaded world.
First and foremost, the married couples in As You Like It all have similar social statuses in the society. Shepherd Silvius married shepherdess Phebe, nobleman Orlando married mistress Rosalind, and Touchstone the clown married goatherd Audery. Not only did all the couples share the same social status, but their ideology and actions in the play conformed to the social convention as well. Right after Rosalind met Orlando, Celia asks Rosalind about why she had been silent for so long. Rosalind responded Celia with “Some of it is for my child’s father” (1634: 09-10). Then Celia asks why Rosalind suddenly fell in love with Orlando, to which Rosalind replies “The Duke my father loved his father dearly” (1634: 24). It is clear that Rosalind’s affection towards Orlando stems from his father’s affection to Orlando’s father. It was a convention for parents to arrange their children’s marriages, especially for aristocracy. Therefore, Rosalind knew that she was to marry Orlando and that became the rationale for her further affection towards Orlando. Another example of a character in the play conforming to social convention is Phebe. As a native of the forest of Arden, Phebe was straightforward and somewhat arrogant. She was very clear about her feelings to Ganymede and Silvius. However, in the ending scene, when she realizes that the man of her dream was actually a noble woman, and that she was set up into the marriage with Silvius, Phebe conforms to the arrangement and marries Silvius. With a comedy one might expect Shakespeare to make happen something unconventional. However, the marriage part seems to be very conventional as everything was socially expected. But the title of the play somehow conveys an ironic
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.
The androgyne is a strong figure that mentally joins the female and male characteristics together as one (American Heritage). Androgyny does not only refer to the physical senses it also refers to the cultural and social aspects of daily life. There are two main types of androgyny that were applied during the Renaissance which are referred to as mythic and satiric androgyny (Orgel, 38). Satiric androgyny mainly deals with "feminized male figures and unfixed, unstable individual identities, and is essentially negative," (Hermaphrodites, 1). Mythic androgyny consists of "cross-dressers, water imagery and the fluid individual identity, and is essentially positive," (Hermaphrodites, 2).
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.