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how does shakespeare present loyalty
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Loyalty in William Shakespeare's As You Like It
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.
Two characters, Celia and Rosalind are loyal to each other throughout the play, which is apparent through the decisions Celia makes. In this quotation, Celia defies her father to stay loyal to Rosalind.
"Which teacheth thee thou and I am one: Shall we be sunder'd? Shall we part, sweet girl? No: Let my father seek another heir. Therefore devise with me how we may fly" (Act 1, Scene 3).
Celia gives up her position as heir to the throne without hesitation so she can remain loyal to Rosalind. Celia even renounces the throne when Duke Fredrick declares Rosalind a traitor, as Celia says "If she be a traitor, Why so am I" (Act 1, Scene 3). Celia renounces the court, her family, and her valuables for loyalty.
Similar to the devotion shared between Celia and Rosalind, Adam, the servant for the De Bois Family shows a great degree of loyalty towards Sir Rowland. This is shown threw his generous acts towards Orlando. Adam's un-dying allegiance to Sir Rowland is shown through his response to Orlando's departure into the Forest of Arden: "Let me go with you; I'll do the service of a younger man in all you business and necessities" (Act 2, Scene 1). Adam did not allow Orlando to go alone into the forest and gives him all his life savings so that Orlando could survive. Orlando is a great model of loyalty and committed service. Orlando reciprocates the loyalty of Adam, who was at one point near death.
Contrary to the aforementioned, three of the most important relationships in As You Like It lack loyalty. Loyalty is necessary in all healthy relationships, in As You Like It. The lack of loyalty in certain character relationships emphasizes the need for loyalty in the relationships in the play. The behavior of some of the characters in the play proves that the lack of loyalty is detrimental to their relationships. These relationships are between Duke Fredrick and Celia, Oliver and Orlando, and Rosalind and Orlando.
“Look out for the people who look out for you. Loyalty is everything.” In the book, Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher, Ms. Lemry is loyal. Ms.Lemry is a teacher and a swim coach for a school. She is a teacher who stays loyal to her students. She is loyal because she cares for her students who are in her class. Ms. Lemry stands by Sarah at all times and is there for her. Sarah is a girl who got abused by her dad when she was younger. Sarah’s father when she was younger out her face on the stove. Sarah was always scared of her father and she still is because she is afraid of her dad coming back and killing her. Sarah was about to go on the train and Lemry was there to inform her to not get on the train. Her class is called CAT known
equal (Act II, Scene 6, Line 4) which is a very intelligent thing to say.
In the time of William Shakespeare where courtship and romance were often overshadowed by the need to marry for social betterment and to ensure inheritance, emerges a couple from Much Ado About Nothing, Hero and Claudio, who must not only grow as a couple, who faces deception and slander, but as individuals. Out of the couple, Claudio, a brave soldier respected by some of the highest ranked men during his time, Prince Don Pedro and the Governor of Messina, Leonato, has the most growing to do. Throughout the play, Claudio’s transformation from an immature, love-struck boy who believes gossip and allows himself to easily be manipulated is seen when he blossoms into a mature young man who admits to his mistakes and actually has the capacity to love the girl he has longed for.
The most obvious concern of As You Like It is love, and particularly the attitudes and the language appropriate to young romantic love. This is obvious from the relationships between Orlando and Rosalind, Silvius and Phoebe, Touchstone and Audrey, and Celia and Oliver. The action of the play moves back and forth among these couples, inviting us to compare the different styles and to recognize from those comparisons some important facts about young love. Here the role of Rosalind is decisive. Rosalind is Shakespeare's greatest and most vibrant comic female role. She is clearly the only character in the play who has throughout an intelligent, erotic, and fully anchored sense of love, and it becomes her task in the play to try to educate others out of their false notions of love, especially those notions which suggest that the real business of love is adopting an inflated Petrarchan language and the appropriate attitude that goes with it.
Examples of loyalty can be found in many pieces of classic literature such as _Don Quixote_, _The Odyssey_, and _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_. Many characters in the stories profess their loyalty to other characters. Some of them fail in their loyalty tests while others prevail. I found loyalty to be an underlying theme in all three pieces of literature covered in this paper. The examples provided should prove the theme of loyalty.
When the Count urges her, Viola agrees to try persuading Olivia of his love for her, but it is evident that she has feelings for Orsino herself when she says: "I'll do my best to woo your lady: [Aside] yet, a barful strife! Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife." This shows her devotion to him as she wants him to be happy, even if it is not with her. Viola's love is selfless and her feelings for Orsino are so strong that she will not leave when Olivia's servants tell her to. She is more determined than Orsino's previous messengers: "Make me a willow cabin at your gate and call upon my soul within the house, write loyal cantons of contemned love and sing them loud even in the dead of night...."
What is loyalty? Loyalty means being faithful to one’s own country, ideals, and friends. Loyalty is illustrated as Mark Antony in this The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. This play, which was set in 44 B.C., was written by William Shakespeare in 1599. “I shall remember: When Caesar says “Do this,” it is performed.” (l.ii.9-10). Mark Antony also changed his party and completely devoted himself to Caesar when Rome split into two factions; the aristocrats supporting Pompey or the republic and the populous or imperialist left seeking the help of Caesar. Mark Antony devoted and risked his own life for Julius Caesar. His loyalty might have blinded him from Julius Caesar’s perception of his being a party-going individual that would not betray him like a thinking man, such as Cassius would.
Loyalty and faithfulness are necessary in a marriage. If a person is not faithful to their spouses, in the relationship, then there is a very high percent that the marriage will work. According to the Dr. Becky Whetstone, the percentage that a marriage will work after a spouse has been unfaithful to the other is 75%, because they feel like life would be more complicated if they were to get a divorce (Dr. Becky Whetstone, “Marriage Crisis, Separation, Infidelity.”) In this remarkable play Othello, loyalty and faithfulness is the major storyline throughout this play. Othello starts off giving Desdemona a handkerchief as a gift that was part of Othello’s family heirloom. This handkerchief that Othello gave Desdemona was to symbolize her loyalty and faithfulness to the
As You Like It, one of Shakespeare’s comedies, follows a strong female lead as she adventures through the Forest of Arden. Rosalind, the play’s heroine, has been falsely charged with treason by her uncle, Duke Frederick. She decides to seek shelter from the court in the forest, where her previously exiled father, Duke Senior, has fled. Rosalind is intelligent and strong, and decides to disguise herself as a man by the name of Ganymede to ensure her safety. Celia, Rosalind’s good friend and the daughter of Duke Frederick, decides to join Rosalind and disguise herself as a shepherdess named Aliena. Meanwhile, Rosalind’s love interest, Orlando, is struggling after his father’s death. Orlando’s brother Oliver refuses to provide him with necessary
In the play, the characters play a critical role in showing the theme as the ones inflicted with the pain and suffering of love that Shakespeare highlighted. Attacked with pain from the rejection of the one they love, each of the characters suffers from the rejection, linking the characters to the theme that Shakespeare presented in the play. These links to the theme also link the characters to one another at the same time. Characters, like Duke Orsino, Lady Olivia, and Viola/Cesario, along with the minor characters of the play, were the main victims, but also the culprits, of the pain and suffering that Shakespeare stressed.
The heart of many of Shakespeare’s works is love and tumultuous relationships. It is not a difficult task to attempt to analyze the relationships of his protagonists. Many of his characters would fit into at least one of the “love-styles” presented by John Alan Lee. There are many different types of relationships and John Alan Lee aims to categorize them, or breaking them down into “different colors,” (Lee, 40). The love-styles can be applied to many relationships such as those in the works of Shakespeare. The love styles that John Alan Lee describes can also determine the successfulness of a relationship. He fits the love styles into a diagram and the location of one style of lover in relation to another can cause a relationship to succeed or fail. This phenomenon is known as the “theory of proximity” (Lee). Two people who share the same love style or who are close to each other on the diagram have a better chance at a successful relationship.
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.
During Shakespeare’s time, women lived in a patriarchal society where they were limited in power and dependent on men. Women in this society were expected to be submissive and to let men pave their path to a successful life by being passive. For Rosalind and Celia, the two main women in Shakespeare’s comedic play As You Like It, their identities through their disguises challenge this social construct by elevating their power as women rather than weakening them by allowing them to explore multiple facets of their behaviors that they could not do before. Despite being belittled by the male characters, such as Touchstone or Duke Ferdinand, Rosalind and Celia do not allow the men to suppress or influence their identities. These independent
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.
The family tension is created when the brother is deceived by another brother by usurping his kingdom and sending him in exile. It is the family conflict shown in The Tempest. Orlando takes help from the other people (Antonio) to retaliate and deceive his own brother. The same theme is also found in Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” in which the protagonist Rosalind’s father Senior Duke was expelled by his brother. The family crisis and the tensed relationship among the family members make the protagonist go through difficulties and