Essay on the Vengeful and the Virtuous in William Shakespeare :: Biography Biographies Essays

The Vengeful and the Virtuous in Shakespeare Whether you shun your female monarch, your Christian bear upon or a neighboring foe, if youre in a Shakespeare solve whence you will be punished. In the first act of each play Shakespeare shows a conflict between cardinal groups of people, one is vengeful the other virtuous. After the conflict is introduced, the malignant characters have important parts of their lives interpreted away and in the end the ultimate penalties of each are inflicted. wholly of the antagonists are left desolate in the end of the plays by two lost fortunes or their lives. Shakespeare takes good care to give the protagonists of the plays much advantage for being on the right side of the spectrum. As the characters hate increases throughout the play they begin to loose what is precious to them, first in refined amounts, but in the end, they are stripped of both they love and value. The origination for the hate is introduced to the earshot very early on in all three plays. The Capulets and the Montagues were neighboring feuding families. Shakespeare never states the reason for the dispute between the two but he does clearly show the plague from the beginning. Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our movie, From ancient score break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands maculate (I i 1-4). These first few lines of the play clearly describe the hatred between the two families and at the same time foreshadow an awful end. In The Merchant of Venice, Shylock more boldly states, I hate him for he is a Christian (I trinity 39). This cry of hate is alike early on in the play, which clearly helps show the reader that he is the antagonist of the play. In Henry IV it is revealed in the first scene that a young Hotspur has kept prisoners of war away from the King. He calls the King Bolingbroke behind his back out of disrespect. All studies here I solemnly defy, save how to gall and pinch thi s Bolingbroke. And that same sword and buckler Prince of Wales (I iii 227-229). In Shakespearean plays, a character who hates or plots against the King is mechanically the villain of the play. The first act in all three plays revealed the characters for the audience to root against throughout the play.