We have focused on several of Shakespeare’s characters and seen how even minor ones like Salerio and Solanio have been given depth and interest, and how the major characters exhibit complexity that means they can be performed in multiple ways. Now is your chance to explore one of Shakespeare’s characters. You can choose any character from the plays we have studied, except Kate, Shylock or Prince Hal/Henry V. Larger characters like Portia or Falstaff of course give you lots of material to examine, but it can be just as interesting to examine a character like Jessica, who has relatively few lines, so you could look closely at all of them. If you do choose a larger character, focus your analysis on a single aspect of their character, or what the character does only in a few scenes, rather than a broad analysis that will wind up superficial. Ask yourself these questions about the character: –What does the character do and say? What motivation does the character have for his or her actions ands speeches? (That is, why does the character do and say these things?) –What do other characters say about this character? –What inconsistencies or complexities make this character more than one dimensional? –What role or function does this character have in the play? (Why should Shakespeare have created such a character? A particularly important question for minor characters, who may be one-dimensional, but have important functions. You might ask yourself how the play would be changed if your character were deleted.) Of course in a play it is principally what characters say that characterizes them, so use at least one or two of the character’s speeches to support your view of the character. –How do the ideas expressed in the speech characterize the speaker? –How does the diction (word choice: especially nouns, verbs and pronouns) and imagery (simile, metaphor, etc.) in the speech characterize the speaker? Your exploration of the character may involve examination of many different facets of the character, some at least apparently inconsistent with each other, but the paper should pull them all together with some kind of thesis or controlling idea. (That thesis may of course recognize the ambiguities or inconsistencies in the character.) Your answers to the questions above and questions which occur to you provide the support and illustrations for that thesis. (Don’t try to start with a thesis and then make the examples fit; doing that is more difficult—at least to do it well—and will usually result in a shallower picture of the character.) NOTE: The accepted documentation for Shakespeare plays is to give act, scene and line numbers in parentheses at the end of the quotation. Please indicate after your first quotation what edition you are using. Foot- or end-notes not required if you base your paper solely on your reading of the play text. If you use a performance on video to support your argument, identify which video. If you . make use of critical reading, you should of course document quotations or borrowed ideas using MLA format
