As most of you probably picked up from my opinions voiced in class, I think most of Shakespeare's great tragic heroes were complete jerks. Lets do a rundown on the great characters and why they are definitely not role models for young men of any generation:
- Hamlet- Five acts of a possible nuts guy ruining the lives of everyone around him by not doing anything.
- Romeo- He is nineteen, which could explain away some of his impulsive behavior. Does it make him getting it on with a thirteen-year-old redeemable? Not so much. Think about who you were in "love" with when you were thirteen. Was getting married really the best idea?
- Othello- All he would have to do is ask Cassio where he got the handkerchief. Then he would not have been driven insane and thus Desdemona wouldn't have had to die.
- King Lear- Please. He asks his children to go on about how much they love him. It is like a six-year old demanding attention.
- Macbeth- All I can say: he admits to everything he does. No trying to blame fate or someone else.
1 comment:
I am not going to oppose what you have said, but I believe I have a good idea why these men are glorified.
They could be glorified because these are people that we could be meeting on the street, with their own terrible secrets to carry and hideous flaws that cause damage to other people. They don't deserve a gold medal on their own right but their flaws do MAKE the tragedies.
So yeah, Hamlet's selfish act of revenge cost the lives around him and Romeo could have been the equivalent of a love-stricken player who takes advantage of a younger girl. They are definately not role models and I for one would not be following in their footsteps because I have known many guys around me who do objectify women and other things in their sight.
But if they were "perfect" heroes, the plays themselves would not have the depth and power they would have today, and no thought would be given of how far a male character will go to achieve his ends. These characters and their works would perish in the annals of obscurity because they would have paper-thin character development.
Popular culture as we know it would be very different. Lessons would not be learned from the past on how greed, revenge and manipulation can destroy lives.
There are men who are equivalents of Hamlet, Othello, Lear and other folks, that cannot be denied. If you want characters who know how to solve their problems, look into a comedy. Tragedies bring out the worst in people and are very good for illustrating the ugly truth.
I think Shakespeare liked to play with circumstances to make tragedy, and even the most "perfect" individual is capable of suffering from it. By having these men with flaws of treating other characters like garbage, the ugly side of human nature in real life is illustrated.
- Kristopher
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