Identity in Shakespeare

Jay L Halio

doi:10.14198/raei.2012.25.03

Abstract

This paper surveys the problems of identity in a number of Shakespeare’s plays, such as The Taming of the Shrew, The Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Othello. In these plays as in many others, Shakespeare explores the complexity of identity, not only through the use of disguise, as in the major comedies, but also through the problems of self-knowledge. The latter issue is prominent and explicit in King Lear when, for example, Lear asks “Who is it that can tell me who I am?” The opening words of Hamlet, “Who’s there?” introduce the problem from the outset, and much of the play is given over to characters trying to discover who the others in the play really are. Is the Ghost an honest ghost, or “a goblin damned?” Is Hamlet really mad or just putting on an “antic disposition” as he struggles to discover his proper course of action as his father’s avenger? Is Kate really a shrew, or just made to act like one by her family and others?

Highlights

In act 1, scene 4, King Lear asks: Does anyone here know me? This is not Lear
For example, he begins to take pity on his poor shivering Fool, who has tried to get him to take some shelter. He begins to realize what kind of king he has been, pondering the plight of the “Poor naked wretches” of whom he has failed to take proper care (3.4). Before he confesses to Cordelia that he is “a very foolish fond old man” (4.7), he must endure the fiery crucible of madness, which burns away many of the delusions he has hitherto entertained about himself, his family, and his kingdom
While in The Comedy of Errors, one of his first plays, he borrowed his plot from Plautus’s Menaechmi, he further complicated his version by adding a second set of twins, confusing all the characters on stage and, at times —depending on how it is staged— even the audience

Summary

Introduction

In act 1, scene 4, King Lear asks: Does anyone here know me? This is not Lear. Does Lear walk ? speak ? Where are his eyes? Either his notion weakens, his discernings Are lethargied —Ha! waking? ‘Tis not so. Everyone recognizes that boys played women’s roles, and it was partly for this reason, perhaps, that Shakespeare resorted to disguising his heroines. Shakespeare compounds the irony when Olivia falls madly in love with Viola as Cesario.

Results

Conclusion