As You Like It Literary Elements

drama; comedy

English

French Court; Forest of Arden

There is no singular narrator or point of view in the play. Rosalind delivers the closing comments in the Epilogue, framing the rest of the play as intimately connected to her narrative.

idle, contemplative, celebratory

The protagonists in the play are Rosalind, Orlando, and Duke Senior. The antagonists in the play are Duke Frederick and Oliver, until their respective transformations.

The major conflict in the play is that Oliver is plotting Orlando's murder, which is why Orlando retreats to the forest. At the same time, Rosalind runs away to the same forest after she is banished by her uncle.

The climax of the play occurs when Oliver arrives with a bloody handkerchief (full of Orlando's blood) and Rosalind faints, thereby giving away her disguise.

Rosalind's alter ego Ganymede foreshadows a growing intimacy between her and Orlando, as "Ganymede" was a term for a man engaged in a homosexual relationship.

When Touchstone tells Orlando that he should be wary of roses because their thorns could "prick" him, he implies that Rosalind is actually disguised as a man.

The play makes frequent allusions to ancient Greek literature, culture, and mythology, as well as to the Christian Bible. Some critics believe Shakespeare also alludes to the death of his contemporary, Christopher Marlowe, when Touchstone says, "When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room" (3.3).

Important imagery in the play includes animals, roses, the stage, and the forest.

Touchstone is an example of paradox because he is both a self-described "fool" and a wise thinker who offers deep truths about human nature. Another example of paradox is that it is only through Rosalind's disguise as a man that she and Orlando are able to realize their love.

The brotherly relationships between Duke Frederick and Duke Senior and Oliver and Orlando are parallels for one another, as they both present conflict between brothers over power and wealth.

The play makes frequent use of inverse personification, or zoomorphism, in which people are compared to animals. This most often appears when male characters accuse one another of "wearing horns" or being cuckolds.

As You Like It is one of the most self-referential plays in Shakespeare's repertoire. Characters make numerous references to the stage, the theater, and the nature of performance as central to humanity. As such, the play both relies on and contributes to the influence of the theater on early modern perceptions of humanity and society.