Disguises And Homoerotism In Shakespeare's As You Like It

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Shakespeare has incorporated several important themes in “As You Like It”, some of which are gender disguise and homoerotism. The play revolves around some acts of deception, for example Rosalind and Celia disguising themselves as Ganymede and Aliena. Rosalind’s disguise remains more debatable because she dresses herself as a country man, Ganymede, while Celia maintains her sexual identity. By inventing new appearances, however, Rosalind and Celia sort of inspire their lovers. Orlando reveals to Ganymede about his extreme love for Rosalind which he couldn’t have if he knew that he was talking to Rosalind and not Ganymede. Moreover, Celia and Rosalind are extremely close friends and their intimacy seems to be more intense than that …show more content…

The play ridicules the traditional ideology of mature love. Instead, it follows several different forms of love including requiting love, lust driven love and romantic love. Orlando says in his poems that he should “live and die (Rosalind’s) slave”. The characters fall in love at first sight, which is exaggerated representation of love. As the play progresses, however, the several ridiculed forms of love conclude into more reasonable and mature form. Rosalind proves of herself being a fair judge of love at the end of the play as she concludes who shall marry …show more content…

Music represents the basic themes of the play; love, freedom, joy and romanticism. In the production, there were quite a lot of scenes where the old traditional music was replaced with some modern music of different genres. According to the director, many of the songs used in the play were written by students and one was a song in Spanish. Modern musical instruments like a guitar and electric guitar were also used. Some songs represented the love and romance between Rosalind and Orlando. The song in Spanish represented the new feelings of love and joy felt by the new lovers. I personally liked the acting of Lindsey Tindall, Rosalind, because she immersed herself completely in her role. Her pronunciation for every word was really careful. She changed her clothes in front of the audience which shows the respect she had for her performance; all she cared was to follow the character and forget the limitations of her own self. I could notice wrinkles forming around her lips and on forehead which proves that her gestures were parallel to her acting. Lindsey, therefore, did a great

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