Charcter Comparison, Hamlet Romeo, Juliet Ophilea

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Obedience: To be or not to be, is Death the Question? In life, every person is required in some way to obey or comply within in the jurisdiction of their reality. Whether that means to be obedient to your parents, the law of the land, or to conform to the norms of society, obedience on its grandest scale is tied in directly with life or death. Choosing when and when not to be obedient can have various results and is often not so cut dry as to say that being obedient will always reap the best results. In regards to Shakespeare’s plays Hamlet and Romeo & Juliet, the major female characters, Juliet and Ophelia are tasked with instructions from their fathers. Both are tasked with the role of obedience in which they take different courses of action that ultimately end to the same fate, death. This raises a rather intriguing question, is obedience truly a virtue? Will there be times when being obedient will reap the best rewards or is it line that can be bent or crossed with wisdom and moderation? Throughout this essay I will attempt to this question by analyzing and comparing and contrasting the situations of Juliet and Ophelia. Did Ophelia have liabilities that Juliet does not? Does Juliet have advantages that Ophelia lacks? Is it an advantage or a liability that Juliet’s parents have no idea what she is up to romantically and if the roles of these two where switch, would the outcome be different? I suspect not. In Juliet’s case, her inclination towards obedience is proclaimed within scene 3 of act 1. LADY CAPULET “What say you? can you love the gentleman? This night you shall behold him at our feast; Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face, And find delight writ there with beauty's pen; Examine every married lineament, And see how one another lends content And what obscured in this fair volume lies Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love?”
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