English | All the world's a stage

/ 8 Mar 2014 /
All the world's a stage

Your identity is impacted by a diverse anthology of experiences that you've accumulated through out your life. One of the major aspects influencing your identity is cultural classifications, this refers to your nationality, race, religion and gender. Another focus of your identity is your societal characterizations, these include family, career and position or title.

Identity is prone to develop over time as we grow and thrive, expand our relationships and encounter new escapades. Although we are the representation of our identities, in no way, shape or form can we obtain knowledge of the things that will occur to us in the near future. Everything is preordained, and we have absolutely no control on how our identities will be moulded.

In the text 'All the world's a stage', Shakespeare supports this theory by emphasising that we live a destined life, in which we are actors, merely playing a role. 'They have their exits and their entrances;', what this is referring to is the abundance of appearances a man makes in his life, followed by an unprecedented departure. Also, the number of people who approach and influence our nature of living is infinite, and wholly dependent on the experiences we confront.

Shakespeare convinces us to feel inclined to stray away from the assumption that we're living an independent and unique life. Just because we possess a peculiar identity, it doesn't mean that we live an individual life, there are many others out there doing the same things we do. This conveys his message to always act humble, regardless of your social hierarchy.

One of the most powerful quotes in this text is as follows, 'Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, is second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.'. His emphasis on the last part reflects upon what it means to be human. We all amount to age, and become oblivious to everything around us, but the one the thing that preserves our identity is the way we choose to live our life, since no one will every know us due to our true identity, instead, they will identify us based upon the many characters we portrayed.

What Shakespeare is trying to imply is that our endeavours, pleasures and pains may just be a form of entertainment to an audience, rather than a tornado of emotion. The audience, is everyone around us, the people who are capable to judge, laugh and watch us humiliate ourselves. Shakespeare states, 'And one man in his time plays many parts', this suggests that people have no objection of the stages they go through, only the way they choose to live and act while a part of the particular scene of their life. Shakespeare teaches us that we don't choose what we do in our lives, we just rely on a script written by those who possess much greater power.


Since this was published in 1623, people's perceptions of identity might have changed, but the idea's still the same. Features of our identities that we have control over are the things we let them affect. For example, we might let our identities choose our paths in our life's future, or we might leave that decision to someone else. Shakespeare obviously had a distinct understanding of how to distinguish an identity by representation in for of a stage.




This is unfinished, yolo get over it.
 
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