Gender and Love Confusion
Act 2 of The Twelfth Night is full of events in which the behaviors of both the male and female characters seem quite odd. It is strange enough that a love triangle between Viola (Cesario), Olivia, and Orsino exists where…
Women projected by men
In Act 2, Scene 2, we see Viola, who at the time is still disguised as a man, professing her worries about Olivia’s mistaken affections for her. In this long speech, we hear Viola, a woman, proclaiming how foolish women…
Chaos of Love and Identity in Twelfth Night
In 2:5, the joke Maria, Sir Toby, and Sir Andrew played on Malvolio gives full rise to the theme of “identity instability” because they are acting as though they are Olivia sending a love letter to him. This was present…
class 4-17-13
Agenda Discuss assignment Discuss plot/sentence questions Closing Remarks on Merry Wives Discussion of Twelfth Night Closing Remarks on Merry Wives Fenton: You would have married her most shamefully, Where there was no proportion held in love. The truth is,…
Metatheatricality in Shakespeare’s Time
Throughout the Merry Wives of Windsor, Mistress Page and Mistress Ford “act” quite often within the play. Even in Act IV, when Mistress Ford and Mistress Page dress Falstaff and make him appear to be Ford’s aunt and having him…
Mistress Quickly for Quick Judgement
Within the first scene of act four of the Merry Wives of Windsor, it shows that Mistress Quickly is a person who tends to judge everything she hears quickly. Not only does she end up hearing everyone’s problems since she’s…
class 4-15-13
Having Your Cake and Eating It Too Nearly all those surveyed (93%) agree, “a candidate’s demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems is more important than their undergraduate major.” More than nine in ten…
The Oblivious, Self-Centered Wives of Windsor
The final acts of the play reveal an overarching theme of self-serving agendas played out by characters who are too self-involved to notice what is right before there eyes. This can be seen with the deception of Falstaff, who is…
Anne Page Defies Women’s Roles
As the play approaches its climax as the Ford and Page families plan to publically humiliate Falstaff in Act Five, readers learn in Act Four Scene Six that Anne Page is devising her own scheme. In this scene Fenton reveals…
Differences of Marriage: The power of Trust
It is obvious through the first two acts of Shakespeare Merry Wives of Windsor that he is comparing to marriages. We see the Ford Marriage, which is full of distrust. Mr. Ford believes his wife is having an affair. He…