Comparing My Last Duchess 'And A Room Of One's Own'

There is a general understanding that appearances can be deceiving. This is one of the most fundamental questions in philosophy, appearance vs. reality. When we meet people and get to know them throughout our lives, we soon discover that there is a genuine side to everyone behind the appearance they show. In the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, the characters Polonius, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Claudius use appearance vs. reality to manipulate and deceive, which ultimately leads to their downfall.

the personality of his duchess, he is shown to be a heartless, arrogant man. His complete

Claudius is not the only fraudulent character in the first two scenes where the theme of appearance verses reality is prevalent. When Hamlet’s mother tries to get Hamlet to accept the fact that all things in nature die she asks him, “If it be, Why seems it so particular to thee?” (I, II, 79) Hamlet responds with, “ “Seems,” madam? Nay, it is I know not “seems.” ” (I, II, 79) Hamlet accepts the fact that all things in nature eventually die, yet he refuses to believe the appearance of how his father dies. The queen is again applied to this theme when she addresses Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on Hamlet:

The effect of this was that it allowed the emphasis of the contrast between truth and pretence, reality and illusion. The plays and fictions of Hamlet fit inside one another until the boundaries between reality and illusion become incredibly blurred. The major themes that therefore arise from this blurring are the conflicts between truth and illusion, honesty and pretence, reality and appearance and the boundaries between youth and age, audience and actor, and most importantly the inescapable boundary between death and life. The play itself constantly hovers between reality and pretence, and at the zenith of its dramatic tension; during the performance of The murder of Gonzago, the boundaries of identity between Gertrude and the Player Queen and Claudius and the Player King creates the merging of pretence and reality, momentarily, into one confused

Jealousy took over the Duke. He never openly accused the Duchess nb of cheating but, in a way, insinuated it. He was under the impression that many man were impressed by her: "The bough of cherries some officious fool/ Broke in the orchard for her" (27-28). This sounded as if men often gave her gifts and it made the Duke furious because he thought that men were attracted to her. I interpreted this as meaning that he thought she was a little to flirtatious: "All and each would draw from her alike the approving speech,/ or blush at least" (29-31). Duke found these faults in her to be too hard to bare so it seems he arranged her death: "Oh sir, she smiled no doubt,/ when're I passed her, but who passed without,/ much the same smile?...all smiles stopped (43-46). These lines definitely show his jealousy and rage and give us the idea that he arranged her death.

In fact, some philosophers have stated that there is no objective external reality, and our perceptions define the world (Berkeley) - while Shakespeare's view is not so extreme, it comes close. This is best exhibited in the oracular nature of certain characters, namely the couple of Hamlet and Ophelia. We can examine the dialogue between Polonius and Hamlet in Act II, Scene ii (171-219). Hamlet's speech here consists of only loosely connected ideas. His speech is full of non sequiturs and facts that are clearly wrong, as we see here:

Indeed, it quickly becomes clear that the Duke disliked many things about his dead wife. The Duke dislikes how the Duchess liked everything that she saw, believing that she was “too easily impressed; she liked whate’er she looked on”. It disappoints him because he wanted to impress her with his marriage to her and also with his money and lifestyle. What annoyed the Duke most was that:

In Shakespeare’s famous tragedy Hamlet there is a dominant and overwhelming theme that is amplified throughout the entire play. Things are not always what they seem. Many of Shakespeare’s most complex characters hide behind multiple masks of lies and deceit. The American Heritage Student Dictionary defines illusion as “an unreal or misleading appearance or image” and reality as “the state of things as they actually exist”. The focus of this essay is the struggle between illusion and reality in Hamlet. The theme of illusion versus reality outlines the great play due to the fact that various characters portray themselves as different people on the outside than they really are on the inside. Because illusions

In today’s society, appearance is everything. What brand do you wear? What hairstyle do you have? What color is your skin? Are you fat? Are you “cool”? However, appearances are often deceiving, and sometimes first impressions are anything but accurate. The deceptive quality of appearance plays a major role in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. Throughout the entire play, Shakespeare addresses the theme of appearance versus reality through plot and characterization.

My Last Duchess My Last Duchess is a thrilling poem authored by Robert Browning and is set as a psychopathology that is based on an Italian Renaissance Duke, who unfortunately lost his wife via a murder that involved efficient utilization of dramatic monolog. In this poem, Browning explores various styles such as the use of figurative language so as to manifest a real nature of the Duke. Browning also captures literary elements so as to boost woman representation. At the onset of the poem, the Duke admires a well-painted portrait of his wife as he says, “That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall” (Browning & Imtiaz, 1).

     As appearances play an important role in today's society, so they also play an important role in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. From the first scene to the last, Shakespeare elaborates on the theme of appearance versus reality through plot and character.

Shakespeare examines the theme of appearance and reality in his book-Hamlet. The dilemma of what is "real" is established at the very beginning of the play. Hamlet doesn’t know what to believe and devises a plan to find out. The old king Hamlet appears to be bitten by a snake, but in reality he was poisoned, the ghost appears as an apparition, but it’s actually real, and the play-with-in-a-play strongly depicts the theme of appearance vs. reality.

The Duke takes control of the situation entirely as he is the only speaker throughout the poem and his way of speaking leaves no scope for interruption, by the listener. The way he addresses his listener, “That’s my last duchess”, calls attention to the peculiarity of his designation which he indicates in a very proud manner. The apparent pauses throughout the poem, shown by dashes, indicate hesitation as the Duke considers what to say. This clearly suggests his manipulative attitude. As soon as he points towards the standing portrait of his last wife, he asks his listener to sit down –“Will’t please you sit and look at her?” His way of asking is not very polite and is more of a command which shows the psychology of a man with power.

“For most of history, Anonymous was a woman,” Virginia Woolf once boldly stated. Though she was from a privileged background and was well educated, Woolf still felt she was faced with the oppression that women have been treated with for as far as history goes back. Her education allowed her to explore the works of the most celebrated authors, but one who she had a long and complicated relationship with was the Bard of Avon himself, William Shakespeare. As one of the most highly regarded and well studied authors of all time, Shakespeare has been elevated from mere playwright to a pillar of the British Empire, instrumental to the institutions that boasted British superiority. It is evident throughout Woolf’s writing that Shakespeare’s works were highly influential. Her novels frequently allude to his plays, most notably Orlando, Mrs. Dalloway, and also in her famous essay, A Room of One’s Own. Though Woolf admires Shakespeare’s androgyny (specifically in A Room of One’s Own), she also makes the case that his treatment of female characters does not allow for the women to be three-dimensional, therefore leaving them flat and lacking in depth. Even though for the most part Woolf’s assertion is correct, there are several examples in Shakespeare’s plays that suggest otherwise, namely in the play Othello. Additionally, in a similar vain, one could explore Shakespeare’s treatment of other minority groups in his works, such as Jews and anyone who is not English. Though it is easy to

The persona of the poem is Ulysses himself. Just like the Duke in My Last Duchess, he uses dramatic monologue. This is demonstrated when he talks to his soldiers during his past years as an energetic youth. Using the stylistic feature of flashback, he takes readers through his past life, connoting the excitement it brought him. He then brings one back to the present that immensely shows the contrast and equal discontent that Ulysses feels. The flashback also aids in building the image of the poem, in order to identify oneself with the persona. Furthermore, he uses a mixture of archaic and simple words, which is also seen in Browning’s