Punch Line of Characters in Plays
Ruskin begins with Shakespearean plays and how it has no heroes or entirely heroic figure except Henry V who was overexaggerated and Valentine in the two gentle men on vernona. Othello is the only character that would fit the heroic type if he wasn’t shown to be oversimplified and a prey. Coriolanus, Caesar and Anthony had flawed strength and eventually fell due to their pride. Hamlet was lazy, Romeo was impatient, The Merchant of Venice gave in too submissively to bad luck, Kent, from King Lear,had a noble heart, but was too clumsy to be useful when he was really needed,Orlando was also noble, but a hopeless victim of circumstances.
Rosalind who followed, comforted and saved him.
But almost every one of his plays has a matchless woman: a woman who is steadfast even when hope looks lost, and has unmovable purpose. Cordelia, Desdemona, Isabella, Hermione, Imogen, Queen Catherine, Perdita, Sylvia, Viola, Rosalind, Helena, and last, and perhaps loveliest, Virgilia, are all faultless, illustrating the highest heroic type of humanity.
The catastrophies caused in all the plays are always due to the faults of the man and there are any solutions to it than it is the woman;’s wisdom that helps or notthing at all. King Lear’s tragedy is due to his own lack of good sense, his childish vanity, and his failure to understand his daughters. His only loving daughter’s goodness could have saved him from the other two, but he casts her away. Othello with the one flaw in his strong love he wasn’t even as perceptive as the second female character, Emilia, who dies revealing him for misguided error, saying, ‘You murderous show-off! A fool like you doesn’t know what to do with such a worthy wife!’
In Romeo and Juliet, the wife’s brave plan is ruined by the impatient recklessness of Romeo.
In Winter’s Tale and Cymbeline, two royal families that were lost and in danger through the folly and stubbornness of the husbands are finally redeemed by the noble patience and wisdom of their wives. In Measure for Measure, the injustice of the judge and the cowardice of the brothers stand in bold contrast with the victorious truth and purity of a woman. In Coriolanus, a mother’s advice would have saved her son if he had heeded it in time. His forgetfulness is his ruin. Her prayers are the only thing that save him from a life of regret, since he destroyed his country. And how about Julia, who remained faithful even when her beloved was fickle, wicked and childish? Or Helena, who was faithful to a sulky youth who insulted her? Or patient Hero and passionate Beatrice? Or Portia, who may have been ‘unlessoned’ but was still calm and devoted, seeming like a gentle angel bringing courage and help by her very presence and defeating the ugliest sins by her precise and accurate thinking (which women aren’t supposed to be capable of doing) among men who are helpless, blind and vindictive?
