Twelfth Night Argumentative Essay

I chose to write a news article about the double suicide in William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” in order to touch on the main themes expressed in the play and illustrate their perpetual relevance. Shakespeare’s work is fascinating to me as it is timeless and distinctive in the way it addresses universal themes. In my assignment, I aim to portray the lessons one can take away from the play and discuss the correlation of love and hate.  I chose to do this by reflecting on the double suicide, 420 years later. At first I describe the situation, emphasising the roles love and hate played in the tragic affair, and then I link the past with the present through a statement made by Prince Escalus in commemoration of the suicides.

After reading the tragedy of Antigone by Sophocles, one is left to wonder who the protagonist of this play is. Is it Creon or is it Antigone? To answer this question, one must define what a protagonist is. By definition, a protagonist is a leading actor or a character. Creon fits this description because not only do his actions lead into the whole tragedy, but his character shows a great development and the values he teaches to the readers.

Romeo and Juliet might as well be a litmus test for your level of cynicism. Romeo and Juliet are some of the most beautiful and most passionate love poetry ever written in English. The theme of love is portrayed by Shakespeare throughout the play through the characterization of Romeo and Juliet. Initially, the dialogue in act 3 scene 2 when Juliet still continues to stand up for her newly wedded husband, Romeo even though he had killed her own cousin, this show and demonstrates the theme of love as she will continue to stand up for her husband even though he killed her cousin that establishes the notion of Juliet’s unconditional love for

Hamlet the Necrophile Hamlet's soliloquy "To be, or not to be", is arguably the most famous in the history of English literature and theater. The first line is the source of everyday expressions, ornate speeches and newspaper editorials, but without accordance to the rest of the monologue or the play. In this speech, Hamlet’s contemplates suicide and its consequences, either to suffer the hardships of life or to trust the ambiguity of the afterlife. This develops the play’s and Hamlet’s fascination with death as an intrinsic theme and his uncertainty of the afterlife. Shakespeare captures the reader’s attention regarding death in the initial scene when the ghost of his dead father visits Hamlet.

Throughout generations in history, it is said that one is in full control of their fate from the decisions and mistakes they make. However, there are more factors to the outcome of one’s destiny. One’s fate is not inevitable and is decided by multiple events and various other people in their life. William Shakespeare, the author of the play Romeo and Juliet, demonstrates his perspective of fate through the power of unconditional love and the overall plot of the famous play. Shakespeare’s concept of fatal flaws found in the supporting characters, and imperfections in love, allows one to understand how the environment that surround love can impact the fate of two lovers.

Everyone has to deal with loss and Shakespeare understood that within his play Hamlet. Throughout the play Hamlet is dealing with the loss of his father, in fact he gives several soliloquies about it. Perhaps the most famous soliloquy given is the one from Act III, scene i. Hamlet begins with the famous line, “To be, or not to be, that is the question:”(1). Although there are many literary devices used within this excerpt, the most prominent are syntax, diction, and imagery, and Shakespeare creatively uses each to portray Hamlet’s state of mind. At first the sentences are short and contradicting, hinting towards instability, just within the use of syntax.

Although throughout the play the usage of the word heaven does not change, the meanings slightly differ between the usages. Shakespeare utilizes the word heaven well to show both afterlife and and almighty power that go hand in hand in deciding a person’s fate once they have died. Overall the word heaven in the beginning is used to show the fearlessness of both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth, but in the end it shows how everyone knows what they have done and how they will be greatly judged in the afterlife for what they have done, yet in both parts it is used in the same

In the book Oedipus the King by Sophocles, a person 's fate and a person 's free will both influence his or her life, and is a common theme which is clearly demonstrated through different incidents that take place in the play. For example, while speaking of Oedipus the article “Encyclopedia of Themes in Literature” states,¨Regarding his contradictory attitude toward the oracle, he believes in the oracle enough to react to its admonition, but not enough to realize that he cannot evade his foreknown destiny¨ (Langis n.pag.). For this reason, Oedipus does everything he can to ensure the oracles will not come true. Which, is unquestionably displayed when he moves out of Corinth away from his parents, based solely on the fear of the oracle’s

However, after the death of Polonius, Ophelia can no longer hold onto her sanity. In his tragic play, Hamlet, William Shakespeare uses Ophelia to display to us the devoted love of a parent, and how the loss of a parent can lead to a sickness of the mind. Polonius was a devoted father to Ophelia, he loves her with all of his heart.

This paper explores the question of whether Shakespeare and his works are still relevant to the culture of today. Shakespeare remains relevant through the themes of love, identity, and death, and relate to the issues and feelings of the modern world. Love can be related to how people act with their partners, mainly regarding sexual love, and can be seen in the innuendoes and scenes Shakespeare used and those used today. Identity can be related to modern times by how Shakespeare used the plot device of having his characters present as either a different person or a different gender. Death can be related to today by how Shakespeare portrayed his characters feelings of death and the afterlife to how people today view death and the afterlife.

Including these elements into his writing Shakespeare pulled at the sympathy and grief of his audience. However, sadly, the occurrence of love, hate, and death in Sonu and Vishal’s story did not cause as much sympathy and grief even though the stories are equally tragic. In the end, while the two stories are vastly different, the similarities between the two have crossed generations and geographical boundaries. If prejudice continue to appear throughout history, sadly many more tragic events like in Romeo and Juliet and the teen couple article may occur.

Shakespeare uses the concept of mistake identities in each of these plays to show that although you make look one way on the outside, it is impossible to hide your true identity from the world. Twelfth Night shows this in Viola dressing up as Ceasario and the eventual confusion it causes when her twin brother comes into the picture. The audience is also gifted to a confusing set of mistaken identities in The Comedy of Errors as each of the Antipholuses and Dromios are mistaken for each other. In both plays the error of mistaking a character for another leads to conflict but in the end in leads to love. Viola ends up with Orsino, Sebastian with Olivia, and Antipholus of Syracuse with Luciana, Adriana’s sister.

3. From one angle the play is about the relationship between fathers and sons. Compare the relationships of Hamlet, Fortinbras and Laertes. Use textual support. All three characters react differently when their fathers are murdered.