In the play of The Merchant of Venice, in Belmont there is a wealthy lady Portia who dead father still decides who her husband should be. There are three caskets; gold, silver and lead and one of them contain an image of Portia. Whoever chooses the correct casket with the image in it will marry Portia. Due to her father’s will Portia “cannot choose one, nor refuse none.” Although none of the princesses or duke candidates are not of Portia’s interest, Bassanio is. Moreover, whoever attempts to open these caskets and guesses wrong will never marry anyone.

The first one to be announced to choose his casket is prince Morocco who apologizes for his skin color. He chooses gold that reads, “who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.”

The second one to open one of the caskets and try its luck by opening one of the boxes is the suitor to Portia, The prince of Aragon. He said that he “will not choose what any man desires, because I will not jump with common spirits and rank me with the barbarous multitudes,” and decides to choose the silver that reads, “who cooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.”

Lastly Bassanio carefully chooses. He is concerned that if he chooses incorrectly he will not marry Portia who he loves. He refuses the gold and silver caskets and chooses the lead casket. He opens it and sees Portia image.

Shakespeare definitely toys with the audience whether or not Titus Andronicus is overall the best possible father figure he can be in a society like Rome, or still the worst father figure you can ever have. Just shown from Acts 1 and 3:

In Act 1, Scene 1, he stabs his own Mutius for possibly betraying Rome. When in the same Act, Tamora is pleading Titus not to kill one of her sons since the war’s over. But Titus denies her saying it’s to avenge his sons lost in the war. Why Titus hates that his sons died in battle, yet is okay killing one of his own just like that, to me, felt two-faced.

But in Act 3, Scene 1, Titus cries and pleads for the Tribunes to let go his two sons, who have been falsely accused for Saturnius’ death. “Be pitiful to my condemned sons, whose souls is not corrupted as ’tis thought. For two and twenty sons I never wept, because they died in honor’s lofty bed” (lines 8-11). The tribunes pass by him. “Let my tears staunch the earth’s dry appetite” (line 14) one example of his weeping for his sons.

Can anyone name other examples they thought of about Titus being a good/bad father figure?

– Charlton

P.S. I watched a little bit of the film adaptation to Titus starring Anthony Hopkins last week. Instead of feeding Tamora her sons in pie form, if Titus served her with some fava beans and a nice Chianti?

What I want to base this post off of, is the scene where Helena finally gets what she wants – love from Demetrius. The mood in the forest becomes a blatant frenzy.

To set a foundation, it is almost ridiculous that Oberon is frustrated with Puck that he had used the love potion on Lysander instead of Demetrius. Puck finds it amusing, but Oberon wants to rectify the situation and feels sorry for Helena being lovesick. For all of the mischief that these two have caused, what’s not a little more?

Helena has been conditioned to being treated poorly by Demetrius. She is too broken down to see what false, but possibly sincere love looks like. Helena believes that all the Athenian parties involved are mocking her affection in some sort of cruel and well-managed joke.

There is one thing that I do need to clear up. When they are all together after the potion took effect for the first time, does Hermia believe the two guys are joking as well? (I believe so.)

3.2.251 {Hermia} “Sweet, do not scorn her so.” [To Lysander, speaking of Helena]

It’s kind of awesome that the tables have turned.  Hermia begins to lash out on Helena. And there is almost a fistfight between the two girls! At this point I think that Hermia starts to realize that Demetrius and Lysander were never joking around.

Do we begin to feel bad for Hermia at the point when she is so easily rejected?

Does anyone wish that Oberon and Puck in the end, did not pair up the lovers?

Why does Egeus (Hermia’s father) seem like a crazy person – fixated on Demetrius?

4.1.144 {Egeus} “They would have stol’n away, they would, / Demetrius, / Thereby to have defeated you and me,”

Gannon

The mood in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is far from that of Titus Andronicus and, aside from the absence of beheading and cannibalism, is probably due to the egregious use of sexual puns (see examples below). Shakespeare uses the sexual connotation behind both flowers, as a vulvic symbol, and snakes, as a phallic symbol, to extrapolate an entire garden allegory, and lead his characters into its physical manifestation. Besides the blatant humor behind the imagery, are there other analyses, politically, piously, or otherwise, that the ‘snake in the garden’ allegory might arouse?

1.1.76 “But earthlier happy is the rose distilled / Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn, / Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness”
1.1.129 “How chance the roses there do fade so fast?”
1.1.185 “When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear. / Sickness is catching.”
1.1.214 “And in the wood, where often you and I / Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie”
2.1.99 “And the quaint mazes in the wanton green”
2.1.159 “And loosed his love shaft smartly from his bow, / As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts. / But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft / Quenched in the chaste beams of the wat’ry moon”
2.1.165 “Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell. / It fell upon a little western flower”
2.1.249 “I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, / Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, / Quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine, / With sweet musk roses, and with eglantine. / There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, / Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight; / And there the snake throws her enameled skin, / Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in. / And with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes”
2.2.9 “You spotted snakes with double tongue”
2.2.69 “This flower’s force in stirring love.”
2.2.146 “To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!”

William

During Shakespeare’s lifetime, England experienced war, outbreaks of plague, terrorist attacks, unprecedented prosperity and the growth of conspicuous consumption, religious conflict, and—for the very first time—contact with the New World. These events vitally shaped Shakespeare’s plays. Reading a selection of his comedies, histories, tragedies, and tragicomedies, we will consider these works within their historical and theatrical contexts. Who went to which playhouses, and why? What did the stages look like? What sort of sound-effects did they use? We will also ask questions about Shakespeare’s continued cultural relevance, focusing on the topics of globalization, sex and gender, and race. Readings will be supplemented with film.