How Does Shakespeare Create Dramatic Tension in Ayli?

How does Shakespeare create dramatic tension in AYLI?

Dramatic tension is evident when people struggle to fulfil their roles in life. Shakespeare creates opposing forces in his play, As You Like It, to expose these faults in humankind. The interplay of character, setting and plot achieves this tension. The concept is shown through the differing brothers Oliver and Orlando that the Divine Right of Kings gives power for mistreatment and relationships based on jealousy can cause tension within family.

The brothers, fight about Orlando on missing out on education because Oliver is using his power as first born son to manipulate Orlando. The ruling of the Divine rights of Kings demonstrates that the eldest male son of the family was of heir to the family fortune. Orlando’s ‘father charged Oliver in his will to give me good education’. He continues that he is treated like ‘a peasant, obscuring and hiding from him all gentleman-like qualities.’ The comparison of injustice from Oliver vents Orlando’s anger. The dramatic tension is the hatred between the brothers and clearly expressed by their foul behaviour towards each other. Using animal imagery, Orlando believes that he is treated like an animal and compared his lifestyle as ‘the stalling of an ox’. The constant running theme of animal imagery is apparent as he continues with using the alliterative statement ‘his horses are better bred’. Orlando is being sucked into the dangerous mentality of being valueless. In the Elizabethan era, it is socially accepted that one must be loyal to one’s own family. Hence this goes against family loyalty, in which it creates dramatic tension and a reason for hatred between the characters. Orlando’s insignificance is spiritually damaging as he attempts to harm himself. Oliver’s loathing for his brother is stemmed by jealousy as he reveals that ‘he's gentle, never/schooled and yet learned, full of noble device, of/all sorts enchantingly beloved’. Oliver metaphorises himself to be ‘misprised’ as Orlando receives all the attention, which Oliver craves of. The dramatic tension is shaped through Oliver’s desire for revenge. Orlando’s bitter indignation emanates from his mistreatment. Oliver’s jealousy turns into vengeance in which he pursues a quest to kill his brother as shown through high modality, ‘hates nothing more than his brother’. The opportunity approaches when Orlando enters a fight with the triumphant wrestler, Charles. At this point, Oliver is consumed with a dejected attitude towards life. He elucidates that, ‘if killed, but one/dead that was willing to be so: I shall do my/friends no wrong, for I have none to lament me’. The melancholy tone is suggestive of his worthlessness point in being of existence. During Orlando’s time, in the Elizabethan era, it was considered an evil doing to end life. Life had to be lived even through the toughest of times, it was a