Shakespeare’s Characters.
oct. 17th, 2011 by jobasfer
William Shakespeare had stock characters as many other classical writers. Stock characters means that you have the same type of character in many works. These characters in William Shakespeare are: the young couple, the clever servant, the drunk and the fool. These types of characters were stereotypes and also recognized by the Elizabethan audiences.
Shakespeare also uses the same character’s name many times. He uses a name in many of his works, but he gives a different personality and a different development for each one. For example: We can see Antonio’s name in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, in The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothingand in Twelfth Night. Another name that we can see repeated is Helena, we can see it in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and in All’s Well That Ends Well.
The character of Caliban from The Tempest and Jaques from As You Like It are similar characters. They are from the stock character of Shakespeare, they are the fool. Caliban is one of the most ambiguous and intriguing characters by Shakespeare, he is a sensitive monster who allows him to be transformed into a fool. Jaques believes that his melancholy makes him a perfect candidate to be the fool of the Duke Senior. This type of character are the nearest character to the audience, it is because is the type of character that speaks more to the audience and take in account the spectators, it makes the audience to laugh or emotion them.
The characters of Beatrice and Benedick both from Much Ado About Nothing are similar, both are intelligent, outsmart and witty. They are a mirror of each other; they are the same in women and in man version. They are constantly in a competition to outwit and out-insult the other. Finally they assume that they are in love one to each other. These two characters have an accurately speech and Shakespeare with them uses puns and word games. The structure of the sentences is also very studied by Shakespeare, and all those things help to the development of the characters through the play.
Rosalind is a character from the play As You Like It. She is similar to Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing because she also thinks in the possibility to be a man and she defends the female behavior in that time. Both are very intelligent and it is reflected in the speeches. They uses specific words and high structures to express their opinions.
Katherine and Petruchio are characters from Taming of the Shrew. Their relationship is similar to the Beatrice and Benedick’s ones in Much Ado About Nothing. They are also dialogue with word games and their relationship is reflected in the way that they speak one to each other. Benedick creates scenes where the audience knows better the character and trough his soliloquies he approximates more to the audience of the play and to the character and Petruchio is a comic figure who makes the audience laugh and this is a convention for the same objective, implicates the audience to the play.