Essays on Plays

1502

Shakespeare's Use of The Power of The Sea in "Twelfth Night"

2 pages / 1201 words

The character of Sebastian in "Twelfth Night" represents the dynamic factor in an otherwise static equation. Illyria is an immutable place, and the people who live and visit the land become ensnared in a stasis. Shakespeare uses the device of twins to resolve the static...

Twelfth Night William Shakespeare

1503

Misconceptions and Deceit: The Crisis of Half-perceived Reality in Twelfth Night

2 pages / 1177 words

It has often been said that “the clothes make the man.” It could never seem truer than in Twelfth Night where disguises and mistaken identities run the gamut of use. The identity of people, things and ideas are swept away under the facade of something...

Twelfth Night William Shakespeare

1504

Malvolio as a Victim of Comedy in Twelfth Night

3 pages / 1530 words

Initially, the salient fool in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night appears to be Feste — a licensed jester. Yet upon further examination, we see that Shakespeare merely uses Feste as a critic of the comedic disarray in Illyria, which parallels the festival Twelfth Night. The nature of...

Character Twelfth Night William Shakespeare

1505

Twelfth Night’s Swerving Women: Conformity Vs. Individuality

4 pages / 1713 words

When Lady Olivia first beseeches Viola, a girl disguised as the male page Cesario, to love her, the two share a repartee that seems to question Cesario’s affection for the countess. But as Viola responds to Olivia, “you do think you are not what you...

Twelfth Night William Shakespeare

1506

Lovers Or Friends: The Mystery of Viola and Orsino’s Relationship in Twelfth Night

4 pages / 1912 words

Shakespeare’s classic play, Twelfth Night, tells the story of Viola, a woman who dresses like a man to find a place in Duke Orsino’s court. While working for Orsino, however, Viola falls in love with him, but must hide her feelings in order to protect...

Film Analysis Twelfth Night William Shakespeare

1507

Feste as a Representation of Medieval Fool Figure in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

6 pages / 2686 words

Feste, the fool character in Twelfth Night, in many ways represents a playwright figure, and embodies the reach and tools of the theater. He criticizes, manipulates and entertains the other characters while causing them to reflect on their life situations, which is similar to the...

Character Twelfth Night William Shakespeare

1508

Dismantling The Blazon in Astrophel and Stella and Twelfth Night

5 pages / 2180 words

Originally used to signify a shield or a coat of arms, the term ‘blazon’ transformed it meaning through the description of virtues or positive attributes, usually of a woman, in late sixteenth century poetry. ‘Blazon’ can either denote a noun, signifying the actual list of...

Twelfth Night William Shakespeare

1509

Dark and Upsetting Characters in Twelfth Night

4 pages / 1886 words

In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare creates a duality between the worlds of the nobility and its associates and the said “outsiders.” There is a great element of selfishness involved in the actions of the characters deemed “in” as they peruse through the play drunk on love...

Character Twelfth Night William Shakespeare

1510

Love as Comedic Energy in Twelfth Night: Viola and Orsino

5 pages / 2385 words

In Twelfth Night, it is love’s revolutionary potential to inspire awareness, question authority, and disrupt the anti-comic balance that makes love so powerful allows it to be such an agent of change. Robert Maslen, in Shakespeare and Comedy, describes this as love’s “energy”, comparing love...

Twelfth Night William Shakespeare

1511

Layers of Significance in Susan Glaspell's Trifles

2 pages / 928 words

Susan Glaspell’s decision to change the title from “Trifles” to “A Jury of Her Peers” when converting it from stage play to short story ironically robs readers of a metaphor that not only mirrors the female characters’ use of coded words and symbols (Lanser 414-15),...

Trifles

1512

Trifles by Susan Glaspell: from Courthouse to a Stage Setting

2 pages / 1003 words

Susan Glaspell was only twenty-four-years-old when she covered the Hossack murder in Indianola, Iowa as a journalist. It would be many years before Glaspell would write her breakout play Trifles, a play that bears remarkable similarities to the real-life murder of farmer John Hossack. Inside...

Trifles

1513

How Mrs. Peters Breaks Away from The Traditions in Trifles

3 pages / 1319 words

Protest is defined as “a statement or action expressing disapproval of or objection to someone or something.” On first instinct, most consider a protest to be a physical act, like marching through the streets towards a noble goal. A monumental event, such as the women’s...

Trifles

1514

What Happened on The Night John Wright Died: Critical Objects and Settings in Trifles

2 pages / 1290 words

Introduction Looking over the course of time, women in every society have been expected to maintain the household living up to the old adage that they, like children, should be seen and not heard. In the play “Trifles” written by Susan Glaspell, this is clearly...

Trifles

1515

Analysis of Susan Glaspell’s Novel Trifles from a Historical Point of View

3 pages / 1486 words

The play Trifles by Susan Glaspell depicts the repressed roles of women in 1916 and holds underlying tones of the feminist movement shown through the two female lead characters, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale. This play paved the way for female writers in many areas,...

Trifles

1516

Trifles: Analysis of Mrs. Wright’s Criminal Psychology

4 pages / 1759 words

The Criminal Psychology of Mrs. Wright Murder in human history dates back to the biblical story of Cain and Abel, the first descendants of Adam and Eve. Cain killed Abel out of jealousy, and since then countless amounts of feuds have lead to the extreme...

Trifles

1517

"Trifles" and "The Importance of Being Earnest": The Institution of Marriage

3 pages / 1366 words

Oscar Wilde vigorously attacks the institution of heterosexual marriage in his play “The Importance of Being Earnest” by employing light comedy in order to portray characters that are shallow, immature, and oblivious about the commitment into which they are about to enter. Marriage is also...

The Importance of Being Earnest Trifles

1518

Susan Glaspell's Use of Symbolism and Characterization in Trifles

2 pages / 998 words

In the one-act play “Trifles,” there are countless examples of symbolism and characterization through the use of strong female roles. By showcasing the women as leads in this play, it was able to take on a more feministic essence to it, which is something the...

Trifles

1519

Trifles: The Liberation of Women in Male-dominated Society

3 pages / 1303 words

The male-dominated society of the early 1900’s was thriving during the time that Susan Glaspell was writing ‘Trifles’, her one-act play. Women did not have the right to vote and had severely limited opportunities in the professional arena. They were expected to remain autonomous, subservient...

Trifles

1520

How Susan Glaspell Portrays Women in Her Play, Trifles

2 pages / 866 words

In 1916, Susan Glaspell chose to publish a controversial play entitled Trifles. The play investigates the murder of a man with the main suspect being his wife. This piece of literature, like others at the time, was ridiculed for its feminism. What makes the play...

Trifles