“The family is like a body. Just as the organs and limbs of a body are connected and interdependent, family members are physically connected and are also linked together by bonds of emotional and practical interdependence” Bruce W. Young.Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayFamily is one of the major themes exploited by William Shakespeare in his plays. As Bruce W. Young once stated, families in Shakespeare's plays are compared to a proper human body with all kinds of connections. Shakespeare imitates the behavior of the families in his play to those of the Elizabethan era, and thus applies the social rules of the time. Whether in Romeo and Juliet or in King Lear, we find the social expectations of the 16th century, with high patriarchal power, or even in As You Like It and Twelfth Night, the differences in behavior of children wishing to emancipate themselves of this patriarchy. In Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, As You Like It and Twelfth Night, there is a strong desire to exploit the relationship between parents and children, because it is the key to the house. As we will demonstrate in this essay, Shakespeare actually used the expectations and social codes present in his society to manipulate character construction and audience perceptions of the relationship between father and children. Through the use of criticism, this essay will first explore the role of the mother. Then I will discuss the relationship between fathers and daughters and finally the relationship between fathers and sons. One of the striking common elements within these four plays is the role of the mother figure and its weak presence in the stories. The only mothers physically present in the four plays studied are Lady Capulet and Lady Montague in Romeo and Juliet. Both Montague and Capulet belong to high society, as the prologue says “two households, both alike in dignity”. It is therefore understood that the two families would have the same social criteria in terms of behavior and education of the children. These two mothers are as similar as they are different. Both do not know the whereabouts of their only child, while Lady Montague asks Benvolio: “O, where is Romeo? have you seen him today? » (II 107), And Lady Capulet also wonders about the fate of her daughter “Nurse, where is my daughter? Call her to me” (I.ii. 1). However, where they differ is the reason for this wonder. Lady Montague shows genuine concern for her son (Ii108), knowing that he has been ill recently and fearing leaving him alone, but she and her husband have been aware of his recent actions, analyzing his behavior (Ii122-133) . Lady Capulet, on the other hand, is more concerned with the well-being of her future thinker, and this disinterest in her daughter is manifested through Juliet's response "Madam, I am here." » (I.iii.7), Juliet was raised by her nurse, and this lack of maternal affection is shown through Juliet's response. As Lisa Jardine stated, children at this time in prominent families were a guarantee for the continuation of the family name, to ensure a linear future, and they therefore had a public identity from birth, making children a less appropriate object of affection. or even “maternal love” of our modern times. Lady Capulet is more present in the play than Lady Montague, and this constant presence could be linked to the gender of the children. Juliet being a woman, she was supposed to be obedient and Lady Capulet, having already experienced this, knows how to go about preparing her daughter. This relationship between mother and children is codified by the social norms ofthe time, but this absence of physical affection does not mean the absence of love, because the two mothers suffer upon learning of the death of their children. In King Lear, As You Like It and Twelfth Night, there are some mentions of the mother figure, but never a full description of it. This ignorance around the maternal figure is explained by Oliver Davis as "A deceased or absent mother leaves a young daughter or son without the support of the adults who largely raised and understood them." In King Lear, the absence of the mother is used to reinforce the idea of ​​illegitimacy. As Janet Adelman argues, Lear's plot reproduces the logic of the illegitimacy of the Gloucester plot. Indeed, in Lear's mind, if Gloucester's wicked son is literally illegitimate, then it is obvious that his own disobedient daughters are also illegitimate, produced from an "adulterous womb" (II.iv.133). , the relationship with the mother is a little more complex. In both plays the mother is only mentioned once, and in both cases this mention is used in a process of identification (II. I. 36), but never for a complete understanding of the character. According to Kahn, the major difference between the initial separation of a male child from his mother and that of a girl produces an important difference between the development of the girl's sense of identity and that of the boy's. Shakespeare's use of the mother figure is either to reinforce the authority of the father and criticize the social norms of the time, or to make the children more independent but also more dependent on their father, who is the only parental figure who remains. As Jennifer Higginbotham argues, most of Shakespeare's daughters are used as a key to understanding their father's life. They are pawns in their father's game rather than the character in their own lives. The relationships between fathers and daughters in Shakespeare's tragedies are generally centered on authority, and the daughters are divided into two categories: the "rebellious daughters" and the "acquiescent daughters." The relationship between Lear and his daughters is complicated, coming from the fact that he is a king and a father, behaving like both towards his daughters. The girl who nods is the perfect girl: a silent and obedient woman. Following this logic, Goneril and Regan are the perfect girls, they behave like subjects obeying his orders. However, Lear sees in Cordelia the perfect daughter, the one who loves him most, and the wording of his question "Which of you shall we say: 'He who loves us most' (Ii51) makes the question depend of his own will. He has already made his judgment and imagined what their responses will be. King Lear is blind to everything that happens before him, and this idea of ​​"sight" is present throughout the play: the repetition of the word "eye" reinforces this idea of ​​blindness, of Lear incapable of recognizing true love FALSE. Cordelia is, in this case, the “girl who rebels”, but in a silent way. Goneril and Regan and the vocally “nodding girl” but Cordelia is the silently rebelling girl. By answering “nothing” and repeating it throughout the first act, she is not mute, she speaks more than her sisters. Her language is concrete, she makes physical her difficulty in carrying out her father's orders (Ii 77-78) when Gonerille assures in a perfect voice "a love which makes breath poor and speech" (Ii60). The relationship between Lear, Goneril and Regan is false, based on power and greed, while Lear saw a nurturing side in Cordelia, and it is she who loves him and forgives him at the end by returning to his side . As Elizabeth Finn argues, "rebellion and voice are not causal: one does not createnecessarily the other. Shakespeare uses this dynamic to create a girl who would entertain the audience. This is the case with Juliette, she is first of all an obedient little daddy's girl, too young to have seen the world. Being an only child, her father is initially hesitant to marry her: “And too soon they are married.” (II.I 15). Juliette's father takes care of his daughter but then asserts his authority because he is tired and his behavior marks a decisive turning point in the play. He is no longer calm, he is “mad” (III.v.176), telling Juliet that she can “hang, beg, starve, die in the street” (III.v.192). The urgency that his wife had about the marriage had come to him, and this would result in the breakup between him and Juliette. The model of Twelfth Night and As You Like It is different. In these two plays, the girls do not seek to escape their father, but to seek him. In Twelfth Night and As You Like It, the girl, lacking a parental supervisor, became more independent and identified with a male figure. In Twelfth Night, they are not a nuclear family, the comedy begins with the mention of the death of Olivia's father (I.ii. 37). As Suzanne Penuel explains, the absence of a father and the position of power that Olivia finds herself in frees the intrigue of the older generation controlling the libido of the young. Like Olivia, Viola also lost a father and presumably a brother, but mention of her father's death is not made until she meets her brother (Vi216-218). The use of "such a Sebastian" implies that her brother and father are more similar than just in name, and this resemblance can also apply to Viola, whose twin is Sebastian. She identifies as her father's daughter and her cross-dressing is a way to carry on her father's name and lineage. Both Viola and Olivia have suffered from the physical loss of their father and are trying to find this loving masculine figure. A completely different situation in As You Like It. Rosalind is not looking for a father figure but just her father. Like Viola, Rosalind is identified with her father, as she is banished because she is the daughter of the senior Duke (I.iii.10-11). However, Rosalind's attitude towards her father is less fundamental to her identity, and more based on duty and respect, but also on emotion. His words to his father and Orlando “To thee I give myself, for I am thine” (V.4.116-17) echo the wedding speech “who gave this woman to this man to wife.” She gave herself to her father and her husband. This desire to reject the old father-daughter relationship, Rosalind and Celia find a new and more complete relationship, in which the father figure lives in harmony with his daughter and his chosen one. Shakespearean fathers and daughters who experience tragedy usually end up seeing their daughters' deaths as the ultimate punishment for their father's behavior. In comedies, however, girls are not presented as their father's punishment, but rather as independent women. As Louis Montrose argues, Shakespeare's plays are primarily composed by sons and brothers related to their fathers or older siblings. In these four plays, the family ties between the father figure and the male child can be divided into two: the situation with an only child and brothers. When dealing with an only child, the first relationship to explore is that between Romeo and his father. Being the sole heir of House Montage, Romeo's behavior towards his father is that of an adolescent. However, Lord Montague's behavior shows genuine concern for his son. He notices that something is wrong but is also aware that Romeo would refuse to speak to him "I don't know and I don'tcan learn nothing from him” (II130). This is a very common relationship between a worried father and a carefree teenage son, reluctant to talk about his grief to his parents but quicker to confess to Brother Lawrence. The situation is quite different from that of Sebastian in Twelfth Night. As Bruce Young explains, family in the sense of lineage was an essential factor in establishing a person's identity, especially if the family was wealthy, and because surnames generally come from the father, the most identified with the father's lineage. His confession of his identity (II.i.10-13), underlines the importance of the father figure in Sebastian's identity, he identifies himself mainly by his father, speaking a little about himself, besides the fact that 'he is a son. Also the fact that he declared that "which I know you have heard of" (II.i.10) is a clue to understanding Sébastien's social rank, and as Suzanne Penuel explains, "Sébastien's conscience of rank and its heritability reinforces its idealization. of his father.” After the death of the father figure, the difference in the relationship between the older brother and the younger brother increases: the older son must assume a paternal relationship with his brother, which can lead to potential conflict between them. This is the case in As You Like It. The death of Sir Rowland de Bois increases the rivalry between his sons, as Oliver becomes a father figure to his own brother and cares for him, as Orlando reminds us at the beginning of the play (I. i. 1 –5).Orlando does not name his father, there is an implicit resentment against him, who left his son a small part of the inheritance and condemned him to indefinite and socially degrading dependence on his own brother. As Montrose says, "the father endures in the power exercised by his memory", Orlando's rebellion against Olivier is motivated by "the spirit of my father, which I think is in me" and refuses to be seen as a “prodigal”. (line 38). There is again a biblical reference, according to which the prodigal son was the son who had not lived up to his family's hopes and who then had to return home. But in the end, it is Olivier the prodigal son returned to paternal grace. As Montrose argues, "the main factor affecting all property-owning families was primogeniture." This rule complicated relationships between brothers and sisters but also relationships between generations. In King Lear, the relationship between Gloucester and his sons mimics that of King Lear and his daughters. Gloucester is blind to Edmund's behavior and rejects his only true loving son. Even though Gloucester loves his sons equally (Ii17-18), society does not view them as equals, because one is natural and the other is a bastard. The relationship between Gloucester and his sons is based on the law of nature and the denial of it: the play presents family ties as natural, and violations of love and loyalty within the family are described as “unnatural”. Gloucester calls Edmund “the loyal and natural boy” (II.i.84), so the natural filial relationship is destroyed by blindness. Edgar is reduced to nothing by his father (II.i.78). He suffers the same denial that Lear attempted with Cordelia. But just like her, Edgar is Gloucester's true son, the one who loves him and who will be back for him. Ultimately, these two brothers reflect two sides of their father, and when Edgar defeats his younger brother, he resolves the opposition created by their father. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized paper from our expert now. William Shakespeare's treatment of the family theme differs depending on the type of plays he writes: in tragedy, families are often the victims and sources of despair, of,.