  This program compares Shakespearean themes with similar themes from modern works, enabling students to penetrate complex Elizabethan vocabulary and experience insight into character's feelings, motives and actions. Film clips from screen adaptaions of 'Wuthering Heights', 'Lord of the Flies', 'Mutiny on the Bounty', 'Animal Farm', 'The Lives of Dorian Gray' and others help illustrate themes like alienations, evil and ambition. (47 min). DVD is also available for streaming through Contemporary Arts Media |
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| Teacher's Guide Introduction Themes are the central ideas about human behavior that a play, book, or story illustrates. William Shakespeare’s use of themes reflected his deep understanding of human emotions. Such themes as love, alienation, revenge, ambition, violence, evil, and power were not created by Shakespeare; they were used by the ancient Greeks and Romans and they are still being used by contemporary writers—they are universal. Themes of Romeo and Juliet The most prominent themes of Romeo and Juliet are alienation and love. Romeo and Juliet fall in love although their families are enemies. Juliet becomes alienated from her family and friends because of her love for Romeo. Her father wants her to marry another man, her nurse agrees, even though she know that Juliet is already married to Romeo. Romeo is also alienated, as a result of his love for Juliet and his lack of desire to fight the Capulets. But neither he nor Juliet are rebels. They do not want to be involved in the struggles of the community, but they are drawn in nonetheless because of their love for each other. Love is also a major theme in Romeo and Juliet, but love has a completely different meaning today than it did in Elizabethan England. Today, love is a positive emotion and we expect that couples who marry have fallen in love. But in Elizabethan times—and for thousands of years before—marriages were arranged. Society had strict rules about appropriate matches, and marriage was a public event involving both families and the structure of the state. Couples usually married because it was an advantage for their families, either to form powerful alliances or to fill family coffers. Love had no part in these matches, which were orderly and controlled; love, therefore, when it occurred was seen as “sudden, tumultuous and catastrophic”—an unfortunate thing to have happened to a person. And acting upon feelings of love often ended in tragedy. •Review Questions 1. What different decisions or actions by the lovers might have avoided the tragic result? In light of the circumstances of each moment, were their decisions wise or foolish? 2. In this plan, who, if anyone, can be considered evil or malicious. 3. What external circumstance, similar to the feuding families of Romeo and Juliet, might doom young lovers today? 4. Which character, Romeo or Juliet, acts more responsibly or maturely? Are they equally mature or immature? •Themes of Hamlet Alienation is the major theme of Hamlet. Because Hamlet feels that his father has been killed by his uncle and there is no one in Denmark he can trust, he is terribly depressed and his thoughts lead him to consider murder and suicide. Another theme of Hamlet is humor, but Hamlet’s humor is bitter and lethal and is used for self-preservation as he feels that he cannot tell people what he is really thinking. So, he adopts the role of humorist. Hamlet is a play of many levels. While much of it is immediately accessible and understandable, the meaning of such a play can change as we go through events in our own lives. That is the mark of great art. •Review Questions 1. Should Hamlet have followed the orders of his dead father and killed Claudius? 2. What choices does Hamlet have for action besides taking direct revenge? Do practical considerations, or elements of his own character, stand in the way of his taking other courses of action? 3. Who is a more likeable character, Hamlet or Laertes? 4. Is Hamlet mad? If so, is it true from the beginning of the play or at a particular time throughout the progress of the play? •Themes of Macbeth The play, Macbeth, deals with the themes of ambition, violence and the nature of evil. Macbeth is ambitious, and his ambitions soar when the witches tell him that he will be king. He kills the current king, Duncan, and the bloody and violent events do not cease until the final scenes of the play. Ambition, like love, has very different connotations in the modern world than it did in Elizabethan times. Today, to be ambitious can be a good quality. If a person works hard and achieves success, society usually rewards him. In a feudal society, people were not supposed to be upwardly mobile. It was considered unnatural for anyone to want to rise above his or her station in life. As in marriage, one’s life followed the structure of a particular class. And so, ambition was considered a dangerous or negative quality. Macbeth is a particularly violent play. The word “blood” appears more than two hundred times. The killings engender more killings until the main characters are steeped in blood. While Lady Macbeth goes mad from the killings, Macbeth remains consistently strong and evil throughout the play. He does not flinch from his fate; he is a true Shakespearean villain, and evil person who doesn’t feel guilt or make excuses for his actions. Macbeth has been called a study in evil, and this play raises the questions of the nature of evil. Does everyone have the capacity to commit atrocities? Shakespeare seems to answer this question by providing a foil for Macbeth, a character in the same circumstances who acts in a different way. The witches also tell Banquo that his descendants will be king, but Banquo deos not commit any violent acts. His behavior is a contrast to Macbeth’s. •Review Questions 1. Has Macbeth been thinking about seizing the throne even before the witches approach him? (For evidence, look back at Act I.) 2. Who is closest to being the “hero” of this play: Banquo, Macduff or Malcolm? 3. Is Lady Macbeth insane from the beginning or does she go mad later in the play? 4. Toward the end of the play, most of Macbeth’s countrymen seem to have grown to hate him. What kinds of things might he have done to alienate the nation? Themes of Julius Caesar The major themes of the play are rebellion and the power of words. William Shakespeare was a political conservative and, in Julius Caesar, as in many other of his plays, rebellion against a legitimate rule was against the laws of nature. Order must be reestablished at the end of Shakespeare’s tragedies. A leader is restored to the throne and society once more follows the laws of nature, which are the same as the rightful laws of the land. Even though Brutus is motivated by idealism, the murder of Caesar causes chaos. While Caesar might have been a threat to democracy, he was not a cruel man and he was a true leader. While deeds do have effect, words often inspire people to take action. And, according to Shakespeare, a good orator can inflame and manipulate the masses—which is what Mark Antony does at Caesar’s funeral. Moments before, the crowds had backed Brutus. With Antony’s words, however, they turn against the conspirators who killed Julius Caesar. Shakespeare was a master of words. When we see his plays performed on a stage or in film, we get a better idea of the power behind those words. Although Shakespeare’s society was different from our own, although there were different rules, a different vocabulary, different philosophies, and different meanings for such concepts of love, ambition, and rebellion, we can understand more about both culture and about ourselves from seeing and hearing his plays. Shakespeare’s themes are universal; they touch emotions in us in the same way as they did in Elizabethan times. His words describe the thoughts and feelings of characters who are more like us than not. •Review Questions 1. Would Julius Caesar have made good king for Rome? 2. What are Cassius’s motives for plotting against Caesar’s life? 3. How are today’s citizens similar or different from the mob of Rome? How would the existence of mass media like T.V. have changed the character or actions of the mob in Rome? 4. Why does neither Caesar nor Brutus listen to their wives? Questions and Activities for Classroom Discussion 1. Divide the class into groups. Have the groups pick a scene from each of the four plays. Have them rewrite the scene with the style and language of our own ear. Some may want to act out or read their scene before the class. 2. After reading Hamlet, screen the film version in class. Have the students compare the differences between the film and the play. Which scenes are omitted or changed? Why? 3. Screen West Side Story. What are the differences and similarities between this film and Romeo and Juliet? Is there a more modern-day version of this story? 4. Prepare a time capsule for outer space. Which Shakespeare play would you choose to include in it? Why? Which scenes from the plays would you use to explain human beings to aliens from outer space? 5. Choose a love scene from Romeo and Juliet. Have the students research and rewrite the scene according to the ideas of love from Victorian times, from the Roaring ‘20s, from the ‘60s, and from our own era. 6. Screen Akira Kurasawa’s Throne of Blood. What are the differences between Kurasawa’s vision and Shakepeare’s vision of Macbeth? 7. Have the students memorize a soliloquy from Hamlet or Macbeth. Have them recite it in class and then put it into their own words. 8. Read Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard. Does this capture the feeling of the Denmark of Hamlet? Choose a minor character in one of the four plays and write a biography of that character. 9. Have the class write an imagined diary for Ophelia in Hamlet, for Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, and for Calpurnia in Julius Caesar. 10. Read aloud the funeral speeches of Brutus and Mark Antony. Why did Mark Antony’s speech have such an impact on the crowd? Which is the more convincing speech? Why? |
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