Rigidity Of Social Class In The Play example essay topic

In Shakespeare's time, the English lived with a strong sense of social class -- of belonging to a particular group because of occupation, wealth, and ancestry. Elizabethan Society had a very strict social code at the time that Shakespeare was writing his plays. Social class could determine all sorts of things, from what a person could wear to where he could live to what jobs his children could get. Some families moved from one class to another, but most people were born into a particular class and stayed there. There was a chance of being granted a title by the crown. This was uncommon at the time and a relatively new thing for Europe where ancestry always defined nobility.

Shakespeare's plays show the different social statuses throughout England because of his audience. He had a variety of social classes that would attend his plays and go to the theater. Most of his plays have a way of identifying with whoever would be in the audience watching. Each different social class has a chance to relate to one of the characters in his plays.

In Alls Well That Ends Well, it is the working class that would be able to relate to Helen's problem. She is the product of a working class family, and therefore thought to be below the nobility. She wasn't born from a great titled family that has had its name for centuries therefore she is not equal to Bertram. The play, As You Like It, deals with the Elizabethan social status among the nobility. This play has a lot to do with the act of primogeniture. This play shows that even if people were born of the nobility there was still the chance that they weren't as good as the rest of the nobility.

The second born sons and daughters of the nobility weren't as important as the first born sons. It was the first born sons that inherited the titles, or they would have to be given to the husband of the daughter. The general audience was that of gentler born younger sons, adults as well as the youths that were still apprentices or students in school. This play opens up with a fight between siblings because of social hierarchy causing them to be put at odds.

Primogeniture was not a binding law but rather a flexible social custom in which the propertied sough to perpetuate themselves by preserving their estates intact through successive generations. His play shows that even if they are born within the nobility they are still beneath those that come before them. Orlando is alienated from the life of being a landed gentleman. This then intensifies the conflicts between siblings, older and younger brother. This also shows the major division in society between the landed and the un landed, also known as the gentry and the commoners. I also believe that primogeniture complicates not only sibling rivalry, but the relationships between father and sons.

The eldest son is impatient to get his rightful inheritance, while the younger sons are resentful that they are receiving nothing from their fathers. Shakespeare's plays are loaded with subjects, sons and younger brothers who are undecided as to how they should feel about their role in life. They are bound to the people that are better than them on a socio-economic level, but resent the fact. This play gave people a chance to see someone that had sunk in social class get a chance to rise up, which never really happened during this time. Shakespeare used this ploy to really captivate his audience's attention, while also I believe making fun of society as it was.

The working class in, Alls Well That Ends Well, and the second born son of, As You Like It, isn't very different. The second born sons are sent off to schools to become apprentices, clergymen, or merchants in the working class. The second born sons aren't viewed with the same amount of disdain because they are still of noble birth, but they are left to do the same jobs as the people born into the working class. It is the plight of both of these characters, Helen and Orlando, which calls to the audience. The members of the audience can relate in some way to what both of these characters are going through. Shakespeare's plays explore the difficulty or impossibility of establishing or authenticating a self in a rigorously hierarchical and patriarchal society.

The fact that the people were born into what social class they had to live in leaves them from exploring themselves and potential. They are only allowed to aspire so high, and that defeats the purpose of find oneself because they are told what they are going to be. Shakespeare questions the rigidity of social class in the play, Alls Well That Ends Well, because he portrays Helen as being equal to Bertram because of deed and not birth. The King sees nothing wrong with Helen picking someone to marry that is high above her in social standing.

He's even willing to grant her a title to make her equal to Bertram. The King says it is just Helen's status that Bertram disdains, but I'm not sure if it is. I think in this case that Bertram is more worried about tainted blood entering his family. The nobility only married the nobility because of the fact that their blood was considered to be more pure and clean. In the case of Helen she was of the working class which meant her blood wasn't of the pure and clean type that she was a base commoner.

Nobility didn't like to think that their blood should be mixed with that of the commoners and the lower classes. At least not in the case of the first born sons or the daughters of the nobility. In the case of social identities being formed in Shakespeare's plays I feel as though he's just portraying what society was like. He dramatizes the truth so that people actually take the time to look as it and see that what he's saying is true. We consider these plays comedies, but in truth they were a reenactment of what people were living everyday. Elizabethan society was a rigid society based on customs passed down from century to century.

The characters in all of Shakespeare's plays represented different social identities that were in the audience of his plays. People were born into their place in society and that was the end of it. Shakespeare's plays show the Elizabethan society in a way that we find comical, but if actually looked into true. In, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hermia is being forced to wed against her will because of her father.

Society's rules states that Hermia isn't allowed to choose her own husband because she is female. Females in the Elizabethan society were the lowest people no matter what class they were in. The nobility gave their daughters no choice as to what their futures would entail. They were raised to make good marriages that would benefit their family and hopefully social standing. Hermia's father goes to the King asking for punishment to be made if his daughter disobeys him. Most likely during this time daughters could be sent to convents or distant relatives until it was time for them to come out in society and make their matches.

The match they would make more than likely had already been approved by their parents and contracts had been signed that couldn't be broken. Women had no social identity at this time. They were what society demanded them to be and that was an appendage to their husband. Women were supposed to be quiet and obedient to the men around them. This is shown in, The Taming of The Shrew, with Katherine's character. She is outspoken and demanding of her right to be heard by anybody that is around her.

She doesn't want to be just an appendage to her husband because she doesn't feel as though she should be below him. The title itself claims that women are to be tamed into what the men believe they are supposed to be. Petruchio doesn't want Katherine for who she is, but rather what he's going to make her into. This was the common acceptance of Elizabethan society towards women at the time. You can also get an idea of how trying the times were for women in reading, As You Like It, with the gender identity.

Rosalind dresses as a man when they go into the forest because she feels she " ll be safer. Yet once they reach the forest and safety she remains in her men's garb because of the feeling she has. She feels empowered dressed as a man because she is free to do whatever she wants. She isn't subjected to only acting in a certain manner because of her gender.

The forest in the play is the "greener world", but at the same time she is still a woman in society. The fact that she is cross-dressing gives her the freedom to explore society without the restraints of being a female. The difference between the nobility and the rest of society is portrayed in most of Shakespeare's plays. The one play that I believed really showed the difference was in, Henry the IV Part One, when Henry walks away from Falstaff.

Henry and Falstaff appear to be close friends and confidantes to one another. Falstaff giving Henry advice and just chumming around with him, but there is a difference between them from the beginning. You can get this mainly from the language use in the different scenarios. When Henry is at court his speech is very poetic and flows along nicely, but when he's in the bar with Falstaff his speech is rough.

Henry tries to blend in with Falstaff and the other people at the bar, but he's never really with them. He " ll always stand above them even when he's drinking back tankards and eating stew and bread with them. When Henry realizes that he has to take the thrown he's forced to walk away from Falstaff. He was a man that Henry had treated like an equal until the point where he had to take over the country. It is at this point where we see the huge gap between Falstaff and Henry.

Society demands that Henry be king and that he is better than the rest of the society, which means Falstaff and all those that he had been friends with. They are from different social backgrounds therefore they were never really supposed to interact in the way that they did. Elizabethan society demanded that the classes be separated, and that the boundaries set were not to be crossed. Your social class you were born into was where you were to remain and your family was to remain. People weren't supposed to look forward to bettering themselves in society's eyes because it was near impossible. Even the nobles that were granted titles were looked at as "new men" and not given the same credence as those of the regular nobility.

It was in Shakespeare's plays that these people could come together though. Shakespeare's theaters were open to all that could afford to come. His plays included every social class in some light. The audience couldn't help but be drawn into what Shakespeare was saying in his plays because they were all involved in them. The only people that really couldn't attend his plays were the lowest of laborers and that was because they couldn't afford it. The variety of people in the audience helped Shakespeare's plays really take off because of how they spoke to everyone instead of just one class in the social structure.

He made fun of the nobility in my eyes, but at the same time I see it as him telling the truth and what we really find funny is is that it really did happen that way.