is laid upon your hate That heaven finds means to kills yours joys with love” (V, iii, 291-293) “For there never was a story of more woe, then this of Juliet and her Romeo” (V, iii, 309-310) Tragedy- Reinforced by the death of Mercutio as it is seen by Levin as quite an ironic end, as he has been the satirist- “represents the play moving from Romantic comedy to Romantic tragedy.” Comparing Comedy & Tragedy- Tragedy tends to isolate where comedy bring together, to reveal the uniqueness of individuals rather than what they have in common with others. Examples have been shown with the progression of Juliet whom begun in tragic settings as an only child mother “But one, poor one, one poor, and loving child” (IV, v. 46) whilst Romeo friar reflects on then as “two in one” (II.iv.37) yet again when taking the potion “my dismal scene I needs must act alone.” (IV.iii. 19) reflected in the setting of each of them dying
Orsino depicts love as an “appetite” that he cannot feed. At another point of the play he names his desires for love “fell and cruel hounds”. In act 1, scene 5 Olivia says “Even so quickly may one catch the plague?” She’s using this metaphor to relate love to a disease saying if you have too much of it, it can make you sick. Love throws the characters and the play out of order, however that order is quickly put back into place when Shakespeare creates a Deus Ex Machina by making the character Sebastian turn up and fix everything. This reflects the times in Elizabethan society when they had divine order and a strict hierarchy.
It becomes clear that Hamlet did truly love Ophelia, yet hid it because he was a coward. The “ White Lie” is not only depicted through Hamlet denying his love but also putting a front up for the selfish betterment of his life style. After his outrageous lecture on self worth that Hamlet gives Ophelia, she grows incredibly mad, which ultimately leads to her death. Although the intentions of his lecture were clearly to hurt Ophelia and gain power over her, once he realizes she is dead he feels the need to express his actual love for her. His change of attitude grows confusing as he professes his dear love after her awful death, “ I loved Ophelia.
Iago feels that the best way to do so is by manipulating Othello telling him that his wife is cheating on him with Cassio, who Iago coincidently hates as well. Iago reveals, “That thinks men honest that but seem to be so, and will as tenderly be led by the nose as asses are. I have ‘t. it is sengender’d. Hell and night must bring this monstrous birth to the worlds light” (Shakespeare 1.
A great amount of this sexual imagery comes as a result of Claudius’s and Gertrude’s union. Pretty much the remainder of Hamlet’s tension comes as a direct result of Ophelia. The idea of this incest between Hamlets mom and Hamlets uncle and the unstable relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia drives Hamlet insane, almost even to suicide. “To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?—To die,—to sleep,— No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to…” (Act 3, Scene 1, Lines 58-90) The sexual Imagery between the characters Hamlet and Ophelia are omnipresent throughout the play. Throughout the play many references to sex are made when Hamlet speaks to or refers to Ophelia.
When Romeo first appears, Shakespeare uses a variety of oxymorons to portray him as a confused Petrarchan lover. Amidst an infatuated speech describing his confusion as to the unrequited ‘love’ he feels for Rosaline, Romeo lists a number of nouns with contrasting adjectives, including ‘bright smoke’ and ‘cold fire’. Shakespeare’s use of oxymorons parallels what appears to be a completely unstable state of mind, to show the audience the level of pain which a romantic non-reciprocal lover feels. Despite this, it is clear that Shakespeare included this technique to divide audience members in their interpretation of Romeo’s speech. Many audience members could interpret this in a slightly mocking way, scorning at Romeo’s exaggerative behaviour and perceiving it to be somewhat sardonic humour.
‘Was the hope drunk, Wherein you dress’d yourself?’ ‘When you durst do it, then you were a man.’ She questions if he is a man or a mouse, if he loves her and says that she is stronger than him. She doesn’t stop there though. When Macbeth tried to get out of killing the King. She says, ‘ I have given suck, and know How tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums, And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn As you done to this.’ Macbeth could not take all this so decides to agree, but he won’t fully commit. If Lady Macbeth had not been so vulgar and questioned him about being a man and if he loved her, Macbeth would not have gone through with killing the
Shakespeare had to make recourse to a wholly artificial device in order to show Hamlet in action, or inaction – the soliloquy. Another strain that goes through Hamlet, and a disturbing one, is the abuse by Hamlet of his former beloved and his mother, Ophelia and Gertrude. In his scenes with Ophelia, Hamlet is relentlessly cruel, charging her with a lustful nature, a dishonest heart, a dissembling appearance, and so on. He builds up, in scene three, to an utterly misogynistic rant, beginning, “I have heard of your paintings well enough.” Men in the English Renaissance were obsessed with women’s make-up, which they took to be a symbol of feminine wiles, excuses, manipulations, artifices, and hypocrisies. Shakespeare, especially, has a long rhetorical history with this line of vitriol; it shows up in many of his plays and features strongly in his Sonnets.
In the play king Lear, mercy is an insatiable trait which is surrounded by so much hate and malice every time love is given it makes those moments so much more enjoyable. In the begging of the Play King Lear, Cordelia the king’s daughter, is outcast, cheated of her inheritance accused of being a wicked child and one that nature is a shamed of (I,i,215-219). Even though at the beginning of the play king Lear disowns his daughter and she has every right to be unloving to him; when they are reunited King Lear offers to harm himself but Cordelia turns that idea away and forgives him when she asks to take a walk with her father (4,VII,83). People want to see mercy, they want to see those that deserve worse receive compassion and mercy Lear deserved to be turned away but Cordelia showed tenderness to her aging father and
These show differences as Romeo value more at immediate promises, and at the opposite, persona in Sonnet 18values more in eternal love. On the other hand, they express their love in different way although using similar or even same kinds of metaphor. Romeo expresses his love directly by expressing Juliet is more beautiful than the nature. The persona although using nature as metaphor, the tenor, however, is bout the love of himself towards his lover. Romeo is praising Juliet directly while persona in Sonnet 18is praising his love to his lover.