The character of Theseus from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” as the Duke of Athens, is constantly in the light of power. He is closely associated with love and the law, and is meant to keep the characters in line. He is arguably one of the most powerful characters in all the work, though only present for the beginning and the closing acts of the play. His morals and character is questioned because of his relationship with Hippolyta and the reader is left to see if he is actually a man in love and innocence or if he has an obstructed view of reality.
By having the opening lines of a Shakespeare play, you are immediately drawn to assume his character is pure and of importance- Opening a Shakespeare play is of great honor. He immediately introduced the theme of love in the play, saying how he cannot wait to spend the night with his pending bride, Hippolyta.
Act 1, however is not where we see the biggest conflicting views of his character. The biggest contradictory characteristics are present in in Act V.
“More strange than true: I never may believe, These antic fables, nor these fairy toys. Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, the lover and the poet Are of imagination all compact: One sees more devils than vast hell can hold, That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic, Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt: The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. Such tricks hath strong imagination, That if it would but appr...
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...best but makes light of it and applauds them. While Hippolyta joked and laughed about how poor the play was, Theseus defended them and urged everyone to take it lightly.
By being able to be patient with his people, he shows that he is not only a ruler for the ruling aspect. He does genuinely care about those around them and is trying his best to make them happy. We also see this when he allows Hermia to marry Lysander after all of his beginning opposition because he wants her to be happy. He is easily persuaded because of his actual kind-heartedness that he tried to hide in the beginning of the play.
Theseus is a character of two extremes and contradictions. In one aspect, he is a negative person denying the usage of imagination, but on the other, he is a caring ruler who cares to make the people happy. He is proven to be a likeable character with flaws.
It can be tempting to look at myth and think of it in historical terms. There’s an amount of intuitive plausibility to their myths where it could be argued that it’s capturing an element of history and transmitting it through oral narratives. This could be seen in a great number of myths, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and the myth of Theseus included. But there is too much “other” going on in these myths to make them strictly historical. With the myth of Theseus, this “other” is too politically motivated for propaganda not to be part of its function. By analyzing the myth itself and how myth can be used as propaganda and applying that to this myth, it’s clear that the myth of Theseus is more than just an entertaining story, or a snapshot of history.
There is no perfect character. Even the strongest character who seems invincible have a flaw. Whether it be a minor flaw or a major flaw. Sometimes, that flaw alone is can contribute towards a happy ending, or in other cases, it can lead to the character’s sorrow. Major character flaws are often seen in tragedies. In “Theseus’s Habitual Letter Entries” is my creative work directly inspired by Theseus by Edith Hamilton. It summarizes Theseus in a satirical way. Instead of illustrating the story from a third person point of view, it takes on a first person point of view by having the story formatted as a diary. The story includes what Theseus is thinking throughout his journey. And his thoughts follow a more contemporary language. This work reveals
Nevertheless, until he ultimately arrives on Ithaca, Odysseus displays some fairly reckless overall leadership. His actions, words and deeds endanger both himself and his crew. He angers the gods, burns bridges with people throughout his journey, and is responsible for the deaths of a lot of his men. But back home on Ithaca, he shows that he is a worthy and invaluable leader as king. Administratively and tactically, Odysseus is an extremely flawed leader, but he possesses other sometimes intangible leadership abilities that make him stand out as a decent overall leader.
Opening the performance is the chorus who, uncommonly, explains the whole plot in just 14 lines before the play has even properly started. This is not commonplace in a play as it leaves no suspence. However, it would intrigue the audience who will want to stay and find out how and why the events told in the prologue happen.
It is an universal acknowledge that Theseus is a Greek hero, mentioned in myths by people. Which he volunteered to be a tribute and sacrifice to the Minotaur, in order to kill the Minotaur . At the end he successfully slew it with Ariadne's help who fell in love with him and promised to marry him.
In Homer’s The Odyssey, there are a lot of traits displayed that are considered important in ancient Greek culture. These are shown by many different characters, but mostly by Odysseus (he is, after all, the main character in the epic poem). Odysseus is the epitome of a Greek ruler: he has a lot of admirable traits. His only fault is his hubris, but that is overcome and taken care of. Throughout Homer’s The Odyssey, Odysseus displays wisdom combined with strong loyalty and inspiring leadership through the evident trust of his men and the ability to conquer any challenges that he may face along his journey back to Ithaka.
Thucydides credits Athens early success to Pericles and blames his inferior political successors for Athens ultimate defeat. These successors did not follow Periclean policy in and put their own private interests and good before the common good of the state. Sophocles uses Theseus as a didactic example of the ideal Athenian ruler. The final scene between Theseus and Oedipus, offers hope to the people of Athens that restoration is possible and with the guidance of honorable figures of authority, logos will once again prevail within their land.
He lets his action prove how loyal and trustworthy he really is. He is also the first person to grant Oedipus and his daughter’s citizenship of Colonus. When Creon kidnapped Antigone and Ismene, he went to retrieve them from Thebes because he gave Oedipus his word. Theseus doesn’t mind challenges.
Theseus and Oberon are both compassionate and understanding towards the young lovers, Hermia and Lysander, and Helena and Demetrius. They are involved in a love triangle that encompasses matters of the law and love. Demetrius intends to marry Hermia, although, she shares a mutual love with Lysander; Helena loves Demetrius, although, he no longer loves her. Theseus, as the Duke of Athens, maintains the laws and standards of Athenian society. He acknowledges “the Ancient privilege of Athens” (I.1.41) that allows Egeus to “dispose of” (I.1.42) Hermia. This law permits Egeus to give his daughter to Demetrius or “to death, according to [the] law” (I.1.44). However, Theseus takes pity on Hermia and gives he...
Theseus was a very important Greek hero who combined strength, power and wisdom. He was also the mythical founder of Athens, Greece. In comparison to Oedipus, they were very much similar. Theseus and Oedipus were both faced with hardships as adolescents and adulthood as well and they were both unknowingly born into royalty. Not only is Theseus a hero in his own realm of mythology, but he is also a hero in this story. From the moment he learned of Oedipus and Antigone’s presence, he had been nothing less than kind and
The Gothic dimensions of Poe’s fictional world offered him a way to explore the human mind in extreme situations, and so arriving at an essential truth. The Gothic theme of the importance of the intuitive and emotional and the rejection of the rational and intellectual is prevalent throughout The Raven, The Black Cat, and The Tell-Tale Heart. This is coupled with the convention of transgressive, encroaching insanity, ubiquitous in Gothic literature. In The Tell-Tale Heart, a kind of psychological doubling is achieved by the narrator- an identification with the old man at the time of disturbing him in the middle of the night, and a psychopathic detachment, evidenced by the feeling of triumph and elation that precedes the murder in the extract “..so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror”. Hysteria is pertinent in Gothic texts, an...
From the opening dialogue we sense the character of Oedipus. When confronted by his subjects praying for relief of the plague he reacts kingly and graciously, saying, “I am king, I had to come....How can I help?...Ask me anything. Anything at all.” He obviously cares for the people in his kingdom, but he goes on to say how he pities “these poor shattered people of [his].” The pity he feels is rooted not only in his love and sympathy, but his arrogance as well. Perhaps this attitude is duly deserved, for Oedipus had solved the Sphinx’s riddle, an apparently heroic feat, and was seen to be “greater than any man”, but the leader that he had become still possessed the hubristic tendencies which doomed him from the time he fled Corinth.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, penned by the acclaimed author William Shakespeare, demonstrates erratic relationships in the form of a romantic comedy. The play takes place in ancient Athens where Theseus, duke of Athens, and his fiancé, Hippolyta, prepare for their grand wedding. During the preparations, Theseus must settle a dispute between a man named Eugeus and his daughter, Hermia. Hermia desires to marry a charming young man by the name of Lysander, however, her father forces her to wed Demetrius. Throughout the story, Hermia and many other women, battle with their love affairs. Through these chaotic love affairs, the predominant female characters show their strengths as well as their weaknesses through various events in the play. Two
As Herodotus develops his History he diverges from the main aspect of his narrative many times throughout the text. Many wonder why Herodotus diverges from the main point by introducing minor characters who do not seem relevant to the central theme. Some consider this method of narrative confusing and pointless but I believe that Herodotus has a purpose for including these minor figures and that these characters help express Herodotus ideology towards proper moral and political systems. These minor figures are developed and manipulated by Herodotus in order to express his ideas and he is able to accomplish this because these characters are flexible in the sense that the readers (and listeners) do not have a predisposition when introduced to these characters. By closely analyzing the minor characters throughout book seven we realize Herodotus’ purpose behind the inclusion of these characters is to demonstrate his beliefs on the proper morals people should exhibit and to show how Tyranny is a poor form of government.
There were two principle views concerning imagination, the Victorians and the Romantics, who didn’t accept each other’s ideas about imagination. But, despite their clashes on the status and views of imagination, the Romantics and Victorians share similar ideas through different angles of perspective, which we could assume are linked in part to their era. The long poem, named Goblin Market, written by Christina Rossetti shows the contrast between the ideas of Romanticism and the Victorian image of imagination while utilizing the same motifs. Goblin Market centralizes its theme on the Victorian approach towards Imagination as being a destructive, alien force that leads to grave and fatal consequences. Nature is seen as a demonic force that leads to death, as well as the clear distinction of the imaginative creatures, consisting of the goblins, being portrayed as satanic and evil. In addition, throughout this tale we see how the imagination is constantly blamed for leading to unfortunate situations, while the Romantics would consider the imagination to be doing the person good even if it leads the person astray on a path of death and destruction. Thus, Rossetti’s text demonstrates the Imagination having satanic nature, which portrays imagination as intoxicating and deadly. Also, the author displays her disapproval of nature by demonstrating Laura’s rejection of nature as her enlightenment, whereas the Romantics would do otherwise. The Romantics have different views of the imagination than the Victorians. They consider imagination as a divine force and a pathway to a higher experience and spiritual truth in any form. The Romantics consider that their perc...