RichardsonArea of StudyHSC Advanced English

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BELONGING
Area of Study
In the Area of Study, students explore and examine relationships between language and text, and interrelationships among texts. They examine closely the individual qualities of texts while considering the texts relationships to the wider context of the Area of Study. They synthesise ideas to clarify meaning and develop new meanings. They take into account whether aspects such as context, purpose and register, text structures, stylistic features, grammatical features and vocabulary are appropriate to the particular text.
Stage 6 Syllabus English, Board of Studies, NSW, 1999, pp. 32 & 50.

AREA OF STUDY: Belonging

This Area of Study requires students to explore the ways in which the concept of belonging is represented in and through texts. Perceptions and ideas of belonging, or of not belonging, vary. These perceptions are shaped within personal, cultural, historical and social contexts. A sense of belonging can emerge from the connections made with people, places, groups, communities and the larger world. Within this Area of Study, students may consider aspects of belonging in terms of experiences and notions of identity, relationships, acceptance and understanding. Texts explore many aspects of belonging, including the potential of the individual to enrich or challenge a community or group. They may reflect the way attitudes to belonging are modified over time. Texts may also represent choices not to belong, or barriers which prevent belonging. Perceptions and ideas of belonging in texts can be constructed through a variety of language modes, forms, features and structures. In engaging with the text, a responder may experience and understand the possibilities presented by a sense of belonging to, or exclusion from the text and the world it represents. This engagement may be influenced by the different ways perspectives are given voice in or are absent from a text. In their responses and compositions students examine, question, and reflect and speculate on: * how the concept of belonging is conveyed through the representations of people, relationships, ideas, places, events, and societies that they encounter in the prescribed text and texts of their own choosing related to the Area of Study * assumptions underlying various representations of the concept of belonging * how the composers choice of language modes, forms, features and structures shapes and is shaped by a sense of belonging * their own experiences of belonging, in a variety of contexts * the ways in which they perceive the world through texts * the ways in which exploring the concept and significance of belonging may broaden and deepen their understanding of themselves and their world.
English Stage 6, Prescriptions: Area of Study Electives and Texts, Higher School Certificate, 2009 and 2012. p 10 Board of Studies, NSW 2007

DEFINING BELONGING
The feeling of not belonging, of not being entirely worthy, of being sometimes hostage to your own sensibilities. Those things speak to me very personally.Anthony Minghella

Coming to working definitions of the term - belonging

The Board of Studies documentation says of the Area of Study: Belonging that it; `requires students to explore the ways in which the concept of the belonging is represented in and through texts.' The English Stage 6 Prescriptions: Area of Study Electives and Texts (July 2007) notes that perceptions of belonging `vary' and are shaped by context and can consider their study in terms of: Experiences and notions of identity Relationships Acceptance Understanding

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You will also need to consider the concept of not belonging and the things that stop individuals, groups etc. not belonging. Below is an abbreviated version of what the Board requires of students; In their responses and compositions students examine, question, and reflect and speculate on': How the concept of belonging is conveyed The assumptions underlying the representations of belonging The effect of composers' choice of techniques Your own experiences The Board of Studies requires that we examine the concept of belonging carefully so we can adequately respond in these ways. Some definitions from Dictionary.com can help towards an understanding. The site has many definitions. Some of these are: Something that belongs Belongings such as possessions, goods and personal effects To be proper, appropriate or suitable To be in an appropriate situation or environment To be a member of a group To fit into a group To be a part of something Acceptance as a natural member of Happiness in a secure relationship OTHER TERMS REQUIRED IN THE BOARD DOCUMENTS As we have read previously the document English Stage 6 Prescriptions: Area of Study Electives and Texts (July 2007) notes that perceptions of belonging 'vary' and are shaped by context and can consider their study in terms of a few terms such as experiences and notions of identity, relationships, acceptance and understanding. 1. Defining Identity These definitions come from Dictionary.com. 1. the state or fact of being the same one as described 2. the sense of self, providing sameness and continuity in personality over time. 3. an instance or point of sameness or likeness Now find a dictionary of your own and find another definition of the term. 2. Defining Relationships These definitions come from Dictionary.com. 1. a connection, association or involvement 2. an emotional or other connection between people 3. a romantic or sexual involvement 3. Defining Acceptance These definitions come from Dictionary.com. 1. Favourable reception 2. The act of assenting or believing 3. Belief in something, agreement 4. Defining Understanding These definitions come from Dictionary.com. 1. A state of cooperative or mutually tolerant relations between people 2. Mutual agreement 3. Knowledge or familiarity with a particular thing
The Belonging Workbook by S & B Pattinson

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THE CONCEPT OF BELONGINGAN INTERPRETATION

Belonging is security. Where you belong is where you feel you are safe. Safe from what? Safe from threat and safe from being misunderstood. To belong is to understand the unspoken codes of the people you live with and to share their values. Not only do people understand what you say, but also understand what you mean and can accept you as an individual in their community. While we may try to understand belonging as an idea, it is not in itself a cognitive concept but rather an affective one we can only feel we belong. All objective criteria, such as roots, similarity of experiences, culture and values, for belonging may be checked off but unless we feel we belong, we remain an outsider. Belonging is extremely subjective. The desire to belong has always been seen as important. This is evident in the many stories of outcasts and exiles from the earliest times. But it is with the mass migrations of the 20th century which put pressure on the sense of cultural identity that the concept of belonging was destabilised. One of the effects of this was that those on the margins, those who had been silenced in centuries past, were gradually being heard, albeit from the borders of established society or writing back from the edges of empire. Those of us lucky enough to live in the wealthy west, can look back on the successes of multiculturalism, which has been able to flourish through the interdependence of law enforcement powers of the state and, at the very least, the willingness of individuals to submit to these for the common good. Because of a generosity of spirit and openness to difference, we have been able to enjoy a sense of belonging to a larger and far more diverse community than has ever existed in the past. The cosmopolitanism of the 20th century is giving way to the globalism of the 21st. We now can look forward to a sense of belonging to a community that is worldwide. At this point in time, this is an ideal. It is an ideal at risk of sentimentality with its connotations of home, comfort and togetherness and has even become a clich through political professions of harmony and feelgood images. Nonetheless this is the challenge of the next century belonging to the world a concept that can be fulfilled when we understand and feel understood through .feel safe enough

Vocabulary you may find helpful

relationship, connection, affiliation, affinity, rapport, proximity, identify with, association, closeness, a sense of place, acceptance, a sense of community, reciprocation, natural harmony.

Activities To Get You Thinking About Belonging

Student journal entry
Before beginning the Area of Study students consider: Their own ideas of belonging where they belong and why/ whether they want to belong or not/ what belonging means to them Aspects of belonging they would like to explore What they expect to enjoy about the study and difficulties they expect to encounter

Group Activity
1. In groups, students discuss the concept of belonging then construct a visual representation of their concept of belonging on a large piece of paper (they could use magazines, newspapers, coloured pens, etc) considering: What they agreed on as common to their understanding What they rejected as not appropriate to their idea of belonging Why they made these choices 2. Over the page is a diagram that presents Maslows ideas. He has presented a hierarchy of needs as a model for understanding an individuals social behaviour and it was designed to explain peoples personality and motivation. Its creator, Maslow, believed that as we satisfy lower order needs we are able to turn our attention to higher order needs and in this way we can develop as social individuals. (This is not the only way of describing human motivation.)

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Selfactualization

Morality Creativity Spontaneity Problem solving Lack of prejudice Acceptance of facts Self-esteem Confidence, achievement Respect of others, respect by others

Esteem Love/ Belonging Safety Physiological

Friendship, family, sexual intimacy Security of body, of employment, of resources, of morality, of the family, of health, of property Breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, excretion

View the above diagram and answer the following questions. 1) Do you feel that your sense of family is dependent upon feeling comfortable at home? 2) Is your sense of self-esteem dependent upon belonging to a group? 3) Can you be creative if you do not feel safe? 4) Do you agree with the models positioning of belonging as a need? What does Belongings position in the hierarchy of needs say about its importance to an individual? 5) How would you change the hierarchy of needs to reflect your order of importance for these concepts? Are there other concepts you would include that are more important?

Work out the opposite words for the ones given. The synonyms are for belonging and the antonyms are for not belonging SYNONYM ANTONYM
antipathy alienation attachment insecurity inclusion acceptance
ETA 08

SYNONYM
understanding

ANTONYM

disaffection identity disenfranchised belonging closeness

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Noonuccal, Oodgeroo (1920-1993).

"My name is Oodgeroo from the tribe of the Noonuccal, custodian of the land that the white man calls Stradbroke Island and that the Aboriginal people call Minjerriba." Known for most of her life as the writer, painter and political activist, Kath Walker, Oodgeroo in 1988 resumed her traditional name and returned her MBE in protest at the condition of her people in the year of Australia's Bicentenary celebrations. Oodgeroo shared with her father the Dreaming totem the carpet snake (Kabul) and his sense of injustice. Leaving school at the age of 13, Oodgeroo worked as a domestic servant until 1939,when she volunteered for service in the Australian Women's Army Service. Between 1961 and 1970, Oodgeroo achieved national prominence not only as the Queensland State Secretary of the Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (CAATSI), but through her highly popular poetry and writing. With her 1964 collection of verse We Are Going,Oodgeroo became the first published Aboriginal woman. Selling out in three days, We Are Going rivalled the previous record for a publication of Australian verse set in 1916 by C. J. Dennis and his Moods of Ginger Mick. The Dream Is at Hand (1966) was her second volume of poems. My People (1970) represented verse from the earlier editions as well as new poems, short stories, essays and speeches. Stradbroke Dreamtime was published in 1972. Oodgeroo also wrote a number of children's books - Father Sky and Mother Earth (1981), Little Fella (1986), and The Rainbow Serpent (1988) with her son, Kabul Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Vivian). Oodgeroo was involved with many Aboriginal rights organisations. These organisations included the National Tribal Council, the Aboriginal Arts Board, the Aboriginal Housing Committee, and the Queensland Aboriginal Advancement League. Oodgeroo spent her last days on Stradbroke Island where she established a cultural and environmental education centre known as Moongalba (resting-place). The biographic note was written by the University of Queensland's Fryer Library ( http://www.library.uq.edu.au/fryer/ ). Its origins are gratefully acknowledged.

We Are Going
They came in to the little town A semi-naked band subdued and silent All that remained of their tribe. They came here to the place of their old bora ground Where now the many white men hurry about like ants. Notice of the estate agent reads: 'Rubbish May Be Tipped Here'. Now it half covers the traces of the old bora ring. 'We are as strangers here now, but the white tribe are the strangers. We belong here, we are of the old ways. We are the corroboree and the bora ground, We are the old ceremonies, the laws of the elders. We are the wonder tales of Dream Time, the tribal legends told. We are the past, the hunts and the laughing games, the wandering camp fires. We are the lightening bolt over Gaphembah Hill Quick and terrible, And the Thunderer after him, that loud fellow. We are the quiet daybreak paling the dark lagoon. We are the shadow-ghosts creeping back as the camp fires burn low. We are nature and the past, all the old ways Gone now and scattered. The scrubs are gone, the hunting and the laughter. The eagle is gone, the emu and the kangaroo are gone from this place. The bora ring is gone. The corroboree is gone. And we are going.' Oodgeroo Questions
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. in the poem. Comment on the structure and form of the poem. Why does Thunder have a capital letter? Comment on the mood and atmosphere created. Comment on the repetition of the title and last line. What is the poem saying about belonging? Justify your response. Find examples of belonging/ not belonging in the poem.

Explain why they are silent and subdued. How are white men represented? Why? What is a bora ring and explain why it is so central to this poem? 11. Explain their reaction in line 8. Lines 9-17 begin a litany. What is the effect produced? Comment on the significance of metaphors used

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1. Explain the aspects of belonging and/or not belonging in these pictures. 2. Explain the aspects of belonging and/or not belonging in the picture book by Shaun Tan called 'The Lost Thing' 3. Find 2 texts of your own that show belonging and/or not belonging and state how each does this techniques and concepts/ themes.

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SIX-STEP ANALYSIS OF TEXTS ABOUT BELONGING

1. List all the different examples of belonging evident in the text, using these categories as a starting point: A person belongs / does not belong to another person A person belongs / does not belong to a group A person belongs / does not belong to society A person belongs / does not belong to a place A person belongs / does not belong to the world at large 2. Choose three interesting, possibly contrasting examples of belonging / not belonging, not all from the same category. For each example, build up a set of notes in response to these questions: Describe the person and the other person or group or society or place or the world as depicted in the text. Describe the connection between the person and the other person or group or society or place or world in terms of belonging. How does the persons context influence his/her experience and sense of belonging (or lack of it)? What other factors impinge on the persons experience and sense of belonging (or lack of it)? How do the persons experience and sense of belonging (or lack of it) affect his/her self-concept and world-view? Do the experience and sense of belonging change through the course of the text? If so, explain why. 3. What techniques does the composer use to represent belonging in particular ways in the text? Consider: Structure Language Other textual forms Focus in particular on how the composer has exploited the particular features of the medium or type of text. For each technique, complete a TEE: Identify the technique Provide example(s)/quotes Explain the effect and evaluate the effectiveness of the techniques used by the composer. Consider the medium and technology in which the text was created. How do these factors affect the meaning and impact of the text? 4. Overall, what ideas about belonging are presented in the text? Use your mind map to guide you in analysing the ideas about belonging in the text. How is the concept of belonging represented in the text? Identify the main techniques being used across the whole text. 5.

How are you, as reader or audience, positioned to view the representation of belonging? Are you encouraged to identify or empathise with a character or person in the text (i.e. to belong to the text)? How is this achieved? Or alternatively, are you encouraged to take a more distant, even critical, perspective (i.e. alienated from the text)? How is this achieved? Consider the composers purpose for positioning you in particular ways. Does your perspective change through the course of the text? How is your response also partly influenced by your own personal context?

6. Earlier you considered the context of the character/person within the text and in the previous question you considered your own context as audience. Now consider the context of the text itself. When and where was the text composed? What were the social/political circumstances of this

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context? What do you know about the composers personal context? How does an understanding of context help us to understand the views about belonging and the ways these views are presented in the text?

Shes Leaving Home

Wednesday morning at five o'clock as the day begins Silently closing her bedroom door Leaving the note that she hoped would say more She goes downstairs to the kitchen clutching her hankerchief Quietly turning the backdoor key Stepping outside she is free She (We gave her most of our lives) Is leaving (Sacraficed most of our lives) Home (We gave her everything money could buy) She's leaving home after living alone For so many years (Bye bye) Father snores as his wife gets into her dressing gown Picks up the letter that's lying there Standing alone at the top of the stairs She breaks down and cries to her husband "Daddy our baby's gone Why would she treat us so thoughtlessly? How could she do this to me?" She (We never thought of ourselves) Is leaving (Never a thought for ourselves) Home (We struggled hard all our lives to get by) She's leaving home after living alone For so many years (Bye bye) Friday morning at nine o'clock she is far away Waiting to keep the appointment she made Meeting a man from the motor trade She (What did we do that was wrong) Is having (We didn't know it was wrong) Fun (Fun is the one thing that money can't buy) Something inside that was always denied For so many years (Bye bye) She's leaving home Bye bye (Lennon/McCartney)

Exercise
Analyse this song in terms of the Six-Step Analysis

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Quotations on belonging
No house should ever be on a hill or on anything. It should be of the hill. Belonging to it. Hill and house should live together each the happier for the other. Frank Lloyd Wright I celebrate myself, and what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease... observing a spear of summer grass. Walt Whitman There is a feeling of an absence of a future, of belonging to nothing worthwhile. Lionel K. Murphy The feeling of not belonging, of not being entirely worthy, of being sometimes hostage to your own sensibilities. Those things speak to me very personally. Anthony Minghella We are driven by five genetic needs: survival, love and belonging, power, freedom, and fun. William Glasser I'm trying to make a case for those people who don't have a sense of belonging that they should have, that there is something really worthwhile in having a sense of belonging, and recasting and looking at our modern history. Billy Bragg We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. Aldo Leopold I had friends at school, but I was never part of a gang and I dreamed of that sense of belonging to a group. You know, where people would call me 'Em' and shout across the bar, 'Em, what are you drinking?' after the show. Emily Mortimer Hypocrisy is the essence of snobbery, but all snobbery is about the problem of belonging. Alexander Theroux People enjoy the interaction on the Internet, and the feeling of belonging to a group that does something interesting: that's how some software projects are born. Linus Torvalds
State of New South Wales through the NSW Department of Education and Training, 2007

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As You Like It
William Shakespeare

The Playwright

Shakespeare was born at Stratford-upon-Avon on April 23 (?) 1564. While he was baptized two days later there is not a lot of documented evidence on his life. His father was a glover and leather merchant who later went on to the position of Alderman in the town. Mary, his mother, was a landed heiress so it is thought that Shakespeare's early life was quite comfortable. Little is known about his early years but it is assumed that he had an education at the local grammar school. He was married at eighteen to Anne Hathaway who was pregnant. She was eight years older than him and they eventually had three children. In the late 1570s his family began to have money problems and he seems to disappear for several years. He resurfaces in London around 1588-92. There are several unsubstantiated rumours as to his whereabouts during this time including fleeing from poaching problems, school teaching and acting. It is assumed that Shakespeare began acting in Richard Burbage's company and he began to make his mark writing with the Henry VI plays. In 1593 the plague struck London and the theatres were closed. He began to write long poems such as 'The Rape of Lucrece' and his sonnets. By 1594 the theatres opened again and the players had a new patron, the Lord Chamberlain. Shakespeare had become a shareholder in the company and began to produce two plays a year. By 1598 he was quite wealthy and able to afford to buy a large house in Stratford, a coat of arms for the family and formal status for himself (ie. the right to be called a gentleman). In 1603 Queen Elizabeth died and James I became King. The players were given a Royal Charter and became the King's Men. Shakespeare walked in James' coronation procession. Shakespeare at this time began to write his great tragedies between 1604 and 1608. In 1608 his company took over Blackfriars Theatre, a good winter venue. His company was the most successful in London and he became successful in his own right, being quite famous and popular. He began to slow down in his work and plan for retirement. He died, aged 52, on 23rd of April, 1616. Shakespeare's works were published after his death by two friends, John Heminges and Henry Condell, in the First Folio editions.

The Nature of Shakespearean Comedy

Put most simply, Shakespeare's comedies are the plays with the happy endings. There are a few other characteristics that can be extrapolated. In the comedies, the primary purpose is to interest, involve and amuse the audience. The problems of the characters engage our attention with delight, rather than a profound concern. We feel confident that things will resolve themselves in a satisfactory way. Shakespeare's comedies all end happily for the main characters. Shakespeare's comedies tend to be based on clashing elements. They display a pattern of harmony made out of disharmony. Another way of putting this is that conflict is resolved. All these qualities apply to As You Like It, although it has been described as one of the lightest of Shakespeare's comedies. Comedy, is usually not about the individual, but about a community (now the focus is on a group of characters rather than a central protagonist), about overcoming limitations, so the main characters, often young lovers, can belong to a new community at the plays end. The old order is replaced by the new, the old people by the young. Comedy has its genesis in fertility festivals that celebrated the return to life of the earth after winter, so that it emphasise new life should come as no surprise. Comedy explores relationships and often ends with marriage, the process through which society is regenerated and new life is created. Notably, many comedies even overcome the limitation of death itself through allowing characters who appear dead to come back to life in this play Olivers life is saved as he is about to die. As You Like It is a comedy, but it reveals a highly ambiguous attitude to many aspects of belonging, and this ambiguity perhaps exemplifying the mixed feelings we all have.

Belonging and Shakespeares Theatre

The concept of Belonging in relation to this play might begin with this simple idea. In much modern theatre the audience are excluded, given the task of being observers only rather than being included in the action of the play. In Shakespeares time exactly the opposite was true. The actors were constantly aware of their audience as people who could be engaged with directly. A Shakespearean actor given a soliloquy was alone with the audience and would speak to them. In Shakespeares plays there is also an awareness and great playfulness about the whole business of acting, playing a role, pretending to be someone else. As you read the play, keep these ideas in mind.

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Scholars are divided on exactly when As You Like It was written and first performed, but it was probably sometime between mid 1599 and mid 1600. By this time Shakespeare is a successful dramatist whose reputation is mainly based on his history plays and comedies. He has been writing and acting in London for some eight years and is entering what many see as his most productive period when he will produce the major tragedies. 1599 is also an important date in Shakespeares career, because it was in that year that the theatre most closely associated with his work, the Globe, was built on the south bank of the river Thames in London. We know that the Latin motto of the theatre, which appeared on its flag, was Totus mundus agit histrionem which means all the world plays the actor and this has suggested to many people that As You Like Its most famous speech on the seven ages of man which begins All the worlds a stage (Act 2, sc 7, 139-166)1 is a playful acknowledgement of both the motto and the name of the new playhouse. In fact some argue that As You Like It may have been the first play performed in the new theatre.

Boys will be Girls!

There were no female actors in Shakespeares time. Female roles were taken by, so-called, boy actors, although it is possible that older actors who could sustain a high-register may have taken female roles. This means that Rosalind was originally played by a man. Keep this in mind as you read the scenes in which Rosalind, a female character, disguised as a male called Ganymede, pretends to be Rosalind so the man she really loves, Orlando, can be cured of loving her! We will explore this gender bending and its relation to belonging further in later sections. Shakespeare must have had enormous confidence in the acting skills of the man playing Rosalind, because this is the longest female role he ever wrote. In fact Rosalind is the third longest role in all the plays - only Richard III and Hamlet, both roles played by his lead actor Richard Burbage, are longer.

Plot summary of As You Like It

As You Like It begins in a pastoral setting, an orchard. Sir Rowland De Boys has died recently and the estate has passed to his eldest son, Oliver. Here his brother, Orlando, is complaining about the treatment given to him by Oliver. Later Oliver plots Orlando's death in a wrestling match. We also hear how Duke Frederick has usurped Duke Senior and taken over the kingdom. Duke Senior has fled to the Forest of Arden where he lives a Robin Hood type existence with a band of followers. They have adapted to life away from court. In the next scene we see Orlando and Rosalind (Duke Senior's daughter) meet and fall in love, a common occurrence in this play. Rosalind has been allowed to remain at court because she is friends with Frederick's daughter, Celia. The wrestling match planned in an earlier scene takes place and Orlando wins but when he returns home he is warned of Oliver's plot to kill him. Oliver decides to go to Arden where he will be safe. Rosalind and Celia talk but Frederick enters and banishes Rosalind who says she is not a`traitor'. He mistrusts her because she has the love of the people. Celia is upset and they decide to go to the forest but in disguise so they will be safe. Rosalind disguises herself as a man called Ganymede and Celia as a girl called Aliena. Both have hidden their good looks and also take Touchstone, the court jester with them. In the forest Duke Senior is criticising life at court as hollow and then he calls for Jaques to be brought to him so they can debate. Back at the palace the Duke is furious at Celia's disappearance. At Oliver's house Orlando is warned by Adam not to go in and they both head off to the forest. Now in the forest Rosalind, Celia and Touchstone wander around and meet Corin and Silvius who are discussing Silvius' love for Phoebe. The two disguised girls ask for food but are told by shepherds that there master owns everything. They also tell the ladies that everything is for sale so they head off with Corin to buy the land. In another part of the forest Amiens and Jaques talk. Jaques sees the negative in everything which provides some humour. Elsewhere in the forest Adam is starving and Orlando promises him they will find some food. He comes across Duke Senior and his entourage preparing to eat their meal. Orlando desperately barges in with his sword drawn and demands food. They treat his threat with disdain but the Duke calms Orlando with a great speech followed by Jaques `All the world's a stage' speech. They finally eat and Duke Senior realises Orlando is the son of Rowland De Boys. Back at the palace Duke Frederick demands Oliver find Orlando or else he will forfeit his lands. Orlando meanwhile is wandering the forest declaring his love for Rosalind. Meanwhile the two ladies have purchased a cottage in the forest and Orlando comes across them and meets Rosalind disguised as Ganymede. Ganymede claims to be an expert in love. She makes Orlando promise to pretend Ganymede is Rosalind and come every day to `woo' her. This is supposed to cure him of his love. He agrees and they head off to the cottage. Off somewhere else in the forest Touchstone talks to Audrey, a goatherd. Jaques listens to their conversation. They are to be

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married by Sir Oliver Martext but Jaques intervenes saying they should be married in a church and they agree. Outside the cottage Rosalind is truly in love with Orlando and is finding it hard to cope but Corin comes in and tells them to watch the scene between lovestruck Silvius and the scornful and cruel Phoebe who keeps rejecting him. Rosalind decides to become involved but Phobe falls in love with Rosalind's guise of Ganymede. Rosalind and Jaques discuss his melancholy and she mocks him. Oralndo arrives and Rosalind berates him as a 'snail' and the scene is full of double meanings. He leaves but promises to return at two. Celia criticises Rosalind for her behaviour but Rosalind says Celia doesn't understand how much she loves Orlando. We now see a hunting scene where Jaques calls for a song. Back at the cottage Silvius comes in with a letter for Phoebe and Rosalind gives him instructions to take back to her. He leaves and Oliver enters. Rosalind has been distressed at Orlando's non appearance at two o'clock but Oliver says he is late because he saved him from a lion. Celia says to Oliver he wanted his brother dead but Oliver tells her he has changed because of Orlando's honour. Touchstone plays out a humorous scene with Audrey and William until Touchstone is called for by the two ladies. Oliver and Orlando now discuss how quickly Oliver fell in love with Celia and how quickly she agreed to marry him. Rosalind enters and Orlando says he is sad as he can't marry his Rosalind. As Ganymede she tells him reassuringly he will, says she has magic and can make it happen. Rosalind then reassures Phoebe and Silvius they will get marriage too if they wait until tomorrow. Touchstone and Audrey are to be married on the morrow as well. The wedding day arrives and all the couples gather before Duke Senior and his men. Rosalind, still in her disguise as Ganymede, reminds all the lovers of their obligations then gets Phoebe to promise that if she refuses to marry Ganymede she will marry Silvius. She also gets Duke Senior to promise to allow his daughter to marry Orlando if she can be found. Rosalind and Celia leave only to return as themselves with the god of marriage, Hymen. Hymen conducts the ceremony and all four marriages are sealed. More good news comes on this festive day. Duke Frederick while coming to the forest to attack Duke Senior has met a holy man who convinced him to assume a monastic life. Thus he has returned his estate to Duke Senior and given all the exiled lords their lands back. They resume the party and eventually all leave except for Rosalind who gives the epilogue which questions the need for epilogues.

Bright Ideas for As You Like It

Links to Belonging In As You Like It much of the action takes place in the court and most of the characters belong here despite many having to flee to the forest to survive the persecution at the court under Duke Frederick. For example the person who truly belongs at court is Duke Senior and things don't return to normalcy until Frederick steps aside for him and the traditional court members return. Some of the characters in the play belong to the forest eg Phoebe, Silvius but the court characters have to adapt to belong in this environment. Other types of belonging in the play come about because of the concept of love. Look at how Shakespeare ends the play with the marriages of Phoebe and Silvius, Celia and Oliver, Audrey and Touchstone and Rosalind and Orlando. This ends the play on a positive note and we feel these characters belong with each other. You may wish to examine how these couples take different paths to marriage and how they come to belong. Familial love is also an important concept and the disorder with the families at the start of the play would have been easily recognised by Shakespearean audiences as unnatural so the conclusion where order is restored gives a sense of belonging to both characters and audience. Look also at how the idea of disguise and transformation gives a sense of belonging in that characters can create a new identity for themselves and gain acceptance through that. For example Rosalind transforms her gender becoming a man and this allows her to explore her relationship with Orlando without the risks associated with being a woman. This is of course a theatrical device used by Shakespeare for in his time the female roles were played by young men. Some characters in As You Like It choose not to belong. One example of this is Jacques who is always melancholy and chooses to look on the negative side of things. As a philosopher he thinks he has to be free but the others try to include him anyway. His speech on the human condition ironically shows how we all are connected and belong together.

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As you like itComprehension Questions for CD Version Act I

Scene 1
1. 2. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 1. 2. 3. What is Orlandos situation and how does he feel about it? Explain Olivers plan for Orlando. Celias devotion to Rosalind is strong. What does she promise her and what does she warn her against? Touchstone enters. His job as a professional fool is to criticize the behaviour and point out the folly of those around him. What point is he making here? Touchstones wit is vulgar whereas Rosalinds is clever. How does she outwit him here? What news does Le Beau bring to the ladies? Rosalind and Celia watch the wrestling match which Orlando wins easily. What is Duke Fredericks reaction to him? Why does he react this way? Rosalind and Celia banter using metaphor. What are they joking about? Celias father, Duke Frederick, makes a stormy entrance. What does he demand and why? What plan do Celia and Rosalind devise as a result?

Scene 2

Scene 3

Act II
Scene 1
In contrast to the court is the forest. Duke Senior expresses the positive in his situation. What is his situation and how does he feel about it?

Scene 2
Duke Frederick has been informed that Rosalind and Celia have left the court. What does he plan to do?

Scene 3
Adam warns Orlando. What does he warn him about and what course of action does he suggest they follow?

Scene 4
1. 2. They enter the forest and overhear Corin and Silvius. What are the two shepherds discussing and how do Rosalind and Touchstone respond? Rosalind approaches Corin and makes a request. What is it?

Scene 5
Jaques is a melancholy fellow. What does he request from Amiens? What does this scene reveal about the two men?

Scene 6
What is Orlando and Adams situation?

Scene 7
1. 2. 3. Jaques informs Duke Senior that he has met a fool. What does he say about him? Orlando enters with his own expectations of what he will find. What Happens and what terms of hospitality does Duke Senior offer? In this scene Jaques delivers his famous speech. In your own words explain what he means. Do you agree with him?

Act III
Scene1
Duke Frederick confronts Oliver about Orlando. What does he say? What does he realize about Oliver?

Scene 2
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What is Orlando doing in the opening of this scene? Corin and Touchstone enter engaged in witty banter. List off the topics they philosophize about. Rosalind enters reading a poem she found on a tree. What is Touchstones response? Celia has news. What is it? Rosalind tricks Orlando. What does she do?

Scene 3
Touchstone engages in vulgar banter with poor Audrey who does not understand half of what he says. What does Touchstone want to do? In what way does Jaques intervene?

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Scene 4
Rosalind is upset. What is she complaining to Celia about? Corin arrives with some news. What does he tell them?

Scene 5
Silvius love for Phoebe is revealed. How does she feel about him? What happens when Rosalind interferes with their conversation?

Act IV
Scene 1
1. 2. 3. Jaques and Rosalind talk. What does she find out about him? For the remainder of the scene Rosalind as Ganymede pretends to be Rosalind so that Orlando can practice wooing her. What do they talk about? What does Rosalind confess to Celia after Orlando leaves? How do you think an Elizabethan audience would react to this scene; a boy playing Rosalind who is pretending to be Ganymede pretending to be Rosalind?

Scene 2
Jaques alienates/ridicules the first Lord over the killing of a deer. How does he do this?

Scene 3
1. 2. Silvius delivers a letter to Ganymede from Phoebe. What does it say? What is Rosalinds reaction? Oliver arrives with a bloody handkerchief and a strange tale to tell. What does he say and how does Rosalind react?

Act V
Scene 1
Again Touchstone uses his vulgar wit to his advantage. What does he say to poor William who also wants to marry Audrey?

Scene 2
1. 2. 3. Oliver has fallen instantly in love with Celia. How does Rosalind describe their love at first sight? How does Silvius describe being in love? Rosalind asks them all to return tomorrow. In your own words describe how she has played on words to promise them all that they desire.

Scene 3
Two of Duke Seniors pages enter and Touchstone encourages them to sing. What does he complain about?

Scene 4
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Rosalind gathers everyone together and outlines the terms of the agreement. What does each agree to do? Another comedic interlude this time between Touchstone and Jaques in front of Duke Senior. Briefly outline Touchstones argument. Rosalind and Celia enter as themselves. What is each persons reaction? At the end of the scene Jaques de Boys (Oliver and Orlandos brother) enters with news. What does he announce? How is the news received by Duke Senior and Jaques?

Epilogue
Rosalind delivers the epilogue. What does she say?

Questions for As You Like It and Belonging

How does the forest of Arden give a sense of belonging? Discuss how love and marriage is important to belonging. Use specific quotes from the film to support your ideas.

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Show how Shakespeare shows that people have a sense of belonging to each other through cultural background and tradition. What is the impact of disguise? How does it allow people to develop a sense of freedom in their identity? How does Shakespeare convey the idea that people need to develop a sense of acceptance before they truly belong? Discuss two characters who chose not to belong in the play.

Detailed Study Guide

The following questions will get you thinking about the play and will help focus your use of the play in your essay on Belonging.

ACT I
Scene 1: Who is onstage (who do we see and what is the effect)? It can be helpful to just note who is onstage and log all exits and entrances. Sometimes a character may say little or nothing, but the fact that they are there listening may be part of the point of a scene. 1. What is the effect of starting with Orlando? 2. Does this make us sympathetic towards his plight? 3. What is the effect of seeing Adam, the servant, in relation to the brothers and the fact that the older brother also treats him badly? 4. Are patterns of belonging and exclusion already being set up? 5. What is the effect of our learning that at court there is an old duke banished by his younger brother? Is this possibly what motivates Olivers feelings towards the younger Orlando? 6. What is the effect of our discovering that the banished Duke has a daughter, Rosalind, who is still at court with her best friend, the usurping dukes daughter? 7. Do we already see a connection between the two brothers and these two daughters? 8. What is the effect of Oliver lying about Orlando in an attempt to get Charles to hurt him? 9. What is the effect of Oliver sharing his thoughts and plans directly with us remember to consider the effect of this in later scenes when it creates dramatic irony, because we, as audience, know something that other characters dont.

You will also want to note key lines that you find particularly striking, for whatever reason. For example: Orlando: I am the youngest son of Sir Roland de Boys. The line emphasises his sense of belonging to a family (the importance of this is underlined in the next scene when Orlando repeats the line to Duke Frederic causing a political incident and creating a connection with Rosalind whose father was a friend of Orlandos father)

The scene is Shakespeares basic dramatic building block and when you look at subsequent scenes you need to keep this idea in mind think of the idea as building something like a wall that depends on its foundations. As you comment on each subsequent scene remember to consider its relationship to the one/s before. Often you will discover that Shakespeare appears to set up deliberate comparisons and contrasts the relationship between the two girls, Rosalind and Celia, in Act 1, sc 2 in comparison to that between the two brothers in the previous scene and the comparison between Oliver (in Act 1 sc 1) and Duke Frederick (in Act 1, sc 3) in terms of their anger and their language are just two examples. When you move to the forest scenes in Act 2, youll find that such contrasts and juxtapositions become very important.

Aspects of Belonging explored in the scene

Fathers, sons and inheritance - family is important to the idea of belonging, the personal connections it enables giving its members their sense of acceptance and identity. However, here brothers have turned against each other, perhaps because of problems of inheritance and jealousy.

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Master and servant Adam appears to remain loyal to his old master and to Orlando, but not to Oliver, perhaps servants only owe the duty of belonging to a good master. Friendship is an important bond of belonging and here the daughters friendship (described as love) appears to have overcome the animosity between the fathers. Communities worlds of court and of forest. Individuals derive a sense of belonging from the communities of which they are members

How the text creates meaning

A clear contrast established between the younger (good?) brother and the older (bad) brother Conflict is created which impacts on the audience arousing their curiosity and creating tension. Theres a connection/comparison between these two fighting brothers and the two brother dukes at court where the younger brother has deposed the older one Theres also a contrast established between daughters and sons, since the daughters of the two dukes have not been affected by their fathers enmity. Two worlds are established and juxtaposed. One in the court where there are disagreements and plots and an alternative world in the country the Forest of Arden - where people live freely without a care in the world. The brothers, Orlando and Oliver, appear to inhabit an in-between world, infected by the jealousies of the court, but with a series of images suggesting rural life and farming. There is conflict as well as an example of dramatic irony when we hear Oliver give a very negative version of Orlandos character to Charles and then hear him immediately give exactly the opposite positive version to the audience. He hates Orlando because his good qualities reflect badly on himself.

Note on Verse and Prose

Shakespeare wrote his plays, as did all his contemporaries, in verse. He used the iambic pentameter line. This sounds complicated but all it means is that each line has five stressed syllables (penta is from the Greek for five). Usually each line has five stressed (/) syllables alternating with five unstressed (x) giving a ten syllable line: x / x / x / x / x / Hath not old custom made this life more sweet? This underlying rhythm isnt regular, like the beat in rock music, because Shakespeare varies it so that what an audience hear has the effect of natural speech, but with a heightened quality that can convey great emotion. Most of Shakespeares plays have more verse than prose, but As You Like It is one of the few that has more prose (that is the lines are determined simply by the sentence structure and not by any underlying rhythmical pattern) than verse. Some people argue that Shakespeare uses prose for ordinary or low-life characters and verse for more sophisticated or aristocratic characters, but in this play this idea of belonging seems questionable in the next scene, for example, Duke Frederick, Celia and Rosalind, all aristocrats, speak in prose. However, the next scene and subsequent scenes also use verse.

ACT 2
BELONGING AND LITERARY/CULTURAL TRADITIONSTHE PASTORAL ROMANCE TRADITION Pastoral literature and drama takes as its subject country life, not the actual life of the country, but an idealised vision of what such life could be. The tradition dates back to Greek times when writers, such as Virgil, created a golden world in which country life was perfect and peaceful and man lived in harmony with nature. Pastoral was even then a consciously nostalgic form written by sophisticated writers who lived in towns and who looked back to a simpler style of life in the country, unsullied by the corruptions and unnaturalness of city living. So, from the very start, the contrast between the city and the country youll find in As You Like It is a core feature of pastoral. The tradition can be seen operating in Genesis with the story of The Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve live in perfect harmony until their world is disrupted by the first sin caused by the temptation of the Devil. So while pastoral deals with the life of shepherds and shepherdesses (the Latin word pastor means shepherd and is still used metaphorically in this sense when we call a religious leader a pastor) they were far from realistic, tending to be more concerned with philosophising about life in poetic terms and with falling in love. Literary traditions arise because they are ways of reflecting on real problems, even if the form in which this is done is far from realistic. Pastoral acknowledges that most adults look back to their childhood as a better/happier life because it was simpler and then equate this with the restrictions/constrictions placed upon them by society/the city.

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To see how Shakespeare uses the conventions of pastoral we can examine Duke Seniors first speech which opens Act 2: Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile, Hath not old custom made this life more sweet Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods More free from peril than the envious court? Here feel we not the penalty of Adam, The seasons difference, as the icy fang And churlish chiding of the winters wind Which when it bites and blows upon my body Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say, This is no flattery these are counsellors That feelingly persuade me what I am. Sweet are the uses of adversity Which like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head, And this our life exempt from public haunt Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything. As You Like It contains many speeches that look like set-pieces and this is one of them speeches that are performed before an audience onstage and thus draw attention to themselves. This speech obviously reveals many of the elements of pastoral identified above. Here is a father, a knight who has journeyed to the forest who while beset by adversity finds positives in the natural world as he muses on faithfulness. Duke Senior is very obviously making a speech and trying to persuade his audience.

Activity
Analyse how Duke Senior persuades his listeners Identify, analyse and discuss the effect of the following techniques in Duke Seniors speech and suggest their effect: The tone of the speech and the nouns used to name his audience Use of rhetorical questions Use of contrast between tradition and newness, between country and city Use of alliteration Use of allusion Use of assonance. In the speech the Duke suggests that in the magical forest of Arden they dont feel the penalty of Adam. When Adam and Eve were thrown out of Eden they had then to cope with the fluctuating weather of the seasons. Duke Seniors point appears to be that even though he and his court also must cope with this natural problem, they dont feel it because it teaches a useful lesson that court flatterers never did, reminding him that they are human. Duke Senior is the typical Knight learning from nature, but how seriously do his court and, by extension, the audience take him? And this question can begin our exploration of the complexity of this play, which simultaneously questions and even undercuts the tradition to which it seems to belong. The question has been suggested by Shakespeare in two ways. In Act 1 he introduced us to Touchstone, who mocks the ways of the court causing us to question its superficial importance and here Shakespeare has designed the scene so that we dont automatically agree with the Duke.

The Forest of Arden

The way Shakespeare uses the forest of Arden in the play is like his ambiguous use of pastoral. On one level the forest is obviously a magical one, with a snake (echoes of Eden here) and a lion. Characters, like Oliver and later Duke Frederick, undergo magical transformations when they enter it. On another level it would have seemed all too familiar to Shakespeares audience with its absentee landlord (see Act 2 sc 4, lines 71-79) and its pagan rituals of hunting (see Act 4 sc 2). While on one level its shepherds are the stereotypes of pastoral on another they are all too real, getting their hands greasy with lanolin and tarred over with the surgery of our sheep (3. 2. 43). Not surprisingly, some see the name Arden as a reference to the forests of the French Ardennes (and in the first scene Oliver refers to Orlando as the stubbornest young fellow of France). However, there was, as Shakespeare knew only too well, a forest of Arden in his home county of Warwickshire.

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Indeed, the word itself may well have been in Shakespeares time a generic one for woodland.3 So the forest is at once both real and imaginary, an ideal world of pastoral and a real one complete with contemporary problems. The critics in Arden are Touchstone (who we met in Act 1 and who we encounter for the first time in Arden in Act 2, sc 4) and Jaques who we meet for the first time in the very next scene Act 2, sc 5. I will discuss Jaques further later.

FOCUS ON THE CRITICS IN ARDEN 1: TOUCHSTONE

Touchstone at his first entrance (in 1, 2) is described as a fool, a kind of court jester who plays with words and who is allowed, up to a point, to criticise the excesses of the court. From his introduction, his jokes involve the word if and this motif will continue throughout the play becoming the centrepiece of his final routine upon the lie seven times removed (perhaps in itself a parody of Jaques seven ages speech?) in the plays concluding scene. Touchstones use of parody in Act II Sc 4 Just how Shakespeare uses Touchstone can be seen as he arrives in Arden with Rosalind and Celia (Act 2, sc 4). They are all exhausted a first suggestion of reality in the pastoral world and Rosalind has the simple line: Well, this is the forest of Arden. On Shakespeares non-representational stage this may have been simple scene setting, although many modern productions play the line for irony. Touchstone uses it for a one-liner, Aye, now I am in Arden, the more fool I! When I was at home I was in a better place; but travellers must be content. This is typical of his style which often uses puns. Touchstones main mode is parody. As You Like It can be likened to a kind of Shakespearean The Simpsons, using the elements of pastoral, but simultaneously sending them up, in other words acknowledging a tradition while not quite belonging to it. Certainly the moment other characters enter this scene, the mode of the play appears to shift into the mode of parody. Corin and Silvius are stock characters of pastoral, the older, wiser, shepherd (Corin) and the young, lovelorn, shepherd (Silvius). In Shakespeares time, it is possible that an audience would have taken Silvius comments on love seriously: If thou rememberest not the slightest folly That ever love did make the run into Thou hast not loved. Or if thou hast not sat as I do now, Wearing thy hearer in thy mistress praise, Thou hast not loved. Or if thou hast not broke from company Abruptly as my passion now makes me, Thou hast not loved. O Phoebe, Phoebe, Phoebe! While it is up to every reader and director to hear the particular tone they wish to convey, this looks to me like parody of pastoral. The rhetorical flourishes are there those if structures with their repeated statement Thou hast not loved, but in a play that will be much concerned with if, the audience probably remember the if parody that introduced us to Touchstone in Act 1, sc 2. Even if (no joke intended!) they dont, perhaps the way Silvius draws attention to his own oddities (that word abruptly is surely a cue to the actors actions as he suddenly rushes from the stage) might alert us to the comic possibilities of that final line? While this is all debateable, the responses of the others onstage begin to firm up the curious mixture of tone we have here. Rosalind, herself in love, responds straightforwardly: Alas, poor shepherd, searching of thy wound, I have by hard adventure found mine own. Touchstone, on the other hand, goes into full-blown parody mode and the change from verse to prose only emphasises the new satirical tone. (Note the effects of the long sentences, parallel phrases and the balanced sentence at the end.) And I mine: I remember when I was in love, I broke my sword upon a stone and bid him take that for coming a-night to Jane Smile; and I remember the kissing of her battler and the cows dugs her pretty chapped hands had milked; and I remember the wooing of a peascod instead of her, from whom I took two cods and, giving her then again, said with weeping tears, Wear these for my sake. We that are true lovers run into strange capers; but as all is mortal in Nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly. These comments are ribald, because part of Shakespeares parody is to take the form of pastoral romance in which love has been de-sexualised, and make it thoughly raunchy! Touchstones sword (and now we may begin to wonder about Shakespeares choice of name for this character!) is his penis. Stone is often a synonym for the male testicle, so already the comment is ambiguous, suggesting he may be

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masturbating. I leave you to dwell on coming anight and the appropriateness of his girls suggestive name. And now the parody becomes more complicated because he lists a series of mundane images he kisses her battler, a wooden paddle used for washing clothes or making butter (in performance, consider the effect of a pause before battler) and he kisses her hands that have milked cows. All this already seems in stark contrast to the high sentiments of Silvius, but now Touchstone begins to focus on Rosalind and her feeling for Orlando. Remember at this point Rosalind is dressed as the boy, Ganymede, and Touchstone suggests he is wooing a peascod from whom he took two cods cod is again a synonym for the male testicle (at this time in history gentlemen were wearing codpieces). The idea of giving a girl these male fertility symbols may have particular significance for Rosalind dressed as a boy. And in case you think this all a touch far-fetched, Touchstone, in the way of all parodists, then reuses Rosalinds own words. In Act 1 sc 2 she said to Orlando as she gave him a chain Wear this for me and here Touchstone echoes her comment. Later I will want to argue for the balance that Shakespeare achieves between taking various ideas seriously while simultaneously making fun of them an aspect of the mixture of belonging and not belonging and the end of Touchstones speech offers a fine example. After the deflating, not to say crude, innuendo, the final sentence with its assertion that in just the way that everything that lives must die, everything living must be foolish when in love returns us to a very different tone.

ACTS II AND III

Activity exploring the uses of parody
To see how Shakespeare continues to use Touchstone within the play, explore the start of Act 3, scene 3. Touchstone gets the last word in this exchange with Corin which considers the contrasts between court and country, but do either of them win this exchange? When next we see Touchstone (in Act 3, scene 4) Shakespeare appears to be using him in a parody of another kind. His relationship with Audrey (herself the foil to the stereotypical Phoebe) with its overt sexual innuendo appears to be the parody of those between Rosalind and Orlando and Silvius and Phoebe. What is the effect of this kind of juxtapositioning? Does it make us question the love relationships or what? In the very next scene (2. 5) we see Jaques for the first time and the comparison with Touchstone is inevitable as Shakespeare continues in the parody mode. The scene revolves around Amiens song Under the Greenwood Tree which works directly in the pastoral tradition emphasising the positive role of the natural world and that even winter and rough weather are preferable to the enemy of the court. Jaques offers a verse of his own that suggests that those who leave their wealth and ease are fools and replaces Amiens choral Come hither, come hither, come hither with the line Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame. Of course, he is asked what ducdame means and as the courtiers gather around he reveals his trick Tis a Greek invocation to call fools into a circle. It is not just the pastoral tradition in which he is working that Shakespeare parodies, he also makes fun of the tradition of love poetry. Orlandos verses (in Act 3, sc 3) are little better than doggerel and Touchstone parodies them while Jaques suggests he writes no more. Jaques is, however, a critic of a rather different kind from Touchstone and to understand just how he belongs in the play we need to examine the theatrical traditions in which Shakespeare is working.

ROMANTIC COMEDY
Shakespeares play belongs to this theatrical tradition: basically, Romantic Comedy involves a pretty simple formula, one that you will recognise as driving comedies even now. It goes like this boys meets girl, they fall in love, but there is an obstacle, eventually the obstacle is overcome, happy ending, they marry. Shakespeares comedies up to the point he wrote As You Like It had been influenced by New Comedy, the name given to Roman plays, often written by Plautus, that he may have first encountered in his Grammar School days at Stratford. Such plays typically concern the love of a hero for a heroine who, by the plays end, is won against the odds. Shakespeare adapted some of the conventions of such plays, the scheming servant, misunderstandings caused by identical twins or by various disguises, to his own ends in a series of exotic settings France for Loves Labours Lost, Italy for Much Ado About Nothing and Ancient Greece for A Midsummer Nights Dream. His plays were therefore very different from the other kind of comedy available in Elizabethan London which is usually called city comedy. These plays were set in the city of London itself and usually involved the efforts of various low-life characters, thieves, pickpockets, whores and others to trick honest merchants out of their money.

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Although all modern comedies tend to use realistic settings you can see the way both traditions continue in Britain in such Romantic Comedy films as Love Actually and Notting Hill and such city comedy television shows, such as New Tricks and (although it isnt strictly a comedy) The Bill.

Conventions of Shakespearean Romantic Comedy

1) Situational Comedy
A basic convention of all comedy is to set up a situation where one or more characters are unaware of some key fact that the audience know. In Shakespeares comedies he often uses disguise to create this effect. The audience know who the disguised character really is, those on stage dont. In As You Like It we know that the girl with whom Orlando has fallen in love, Rosalind, is now dressed as a man and is now pretending to be Rosalind! Nobody said comedy was meant to be realistic!

2) Comic characters
Comedy often uses stock or stereotypical characters. Such characters often have one particular characteristic that has been highly exaggerated. In this play there are several examples Le Beau is the foppish courtier, Audrey the rather unintelligent and gross shepherd girl, William, the country bumpkin. Shakespeare, as I suggested above, is also playing with characters from Pastoral to create other exaggerations, Silvius, the lovelorn shepherd, Phebe, the scornful shepherdess. In the next section I explore how he also adopts some of the new ideas for such comic characters invented by his rival playwright, Ben Jonson.

3) Comic language - Word Play

Shakespeares comedy is full of word play basically the idea that words can mean more than one thing and if we hear another meaning we may see a joke. In this play, for example, there is a character called Jaques pronounced Jakes. Now however French this name may be, the fact that in Shakespeares time what we would now call a toilet was called the jakes, may mean that already his name was a joke (Touchstone actually makes it in 3.4. when he calls him Monsieur What-Ye-Callt). This play delights in such word play, which often involves puns, and we explore some of it in coming activities.

4) Innuendo
The stock in trade of the so-called dirty joke is the kind of play on words Ive suggested above, but with a sexual meaning. Thus quite innocent words, such as ball, prick, fan, cock, can all take on suggestive meanings. This is the wink, wink, nudge nudge school of comedy and it was alive and well in Shakespeares time. Touchstone is this plays equivalent of a stand-up comic making a series of blue jokes.

THE RISE OF THE COURT MASQUE

The final element from theatre tradition that Shakespeare incorporates in As You Like It is court masque. The masque" was a strange dramatic form, which is in some ways the forerunner of our modern opera, that used lavish costumes and painted sets (unusual enough at a time when in the public theatre there was no scenery), highly stylised plots based on mythological subjects, dancing and singing to create an entertainment that could only be afforded by the royal court because its hallmark was expense. The extraordinary move from the world of (vaguely) realistic comedy into the stylised world of the Masque of Hymen at the end of this play shows that Shakespeare had realised the possibilities in this form he would only use it once again in The Tempest over ten years later.

FOCUS ON THE CRITICS IN ARDEN: 2. JAQUES

Having established Jaques (in 2,1) as the melancholy man (melancholy is a term that is already ambiguous in 1599. It does not just mean sadness, but is already becoming synonymous with madness) and presented him as a satirist (in 2,5), Shakespeare then gives him his biggest scene in the play (2,7). Jaques has met Touchstone in the forest and announces he too wants to have the liberty that fools have to criticise and satirise society. What follows, between Duke Senior and Jaques, is a discussion about the purpose and effect of satire. This also belongs in a contemporary tradition. Jaques says he will cleanse the foul body of the infected world and the Duke runs another contemporary argument suggesting he would actually commit foul sin in chiding sin. Jaques metaphor involves purgation, a medical process that believed that by getting the body to evacuate waste you created an improvement. The Duke is suggesting that satirists use such

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arguments as an excuse to do socially unacceptable things. (If you think of the arguments that both sides still use in defence of satire and in attacks upon it think, for example of The Chaser crew and their skit at APEC you can see that the same arguments continue!) The discussion onstage is interrupted by the entrance of Orlando, sword drawn, demanding food and as he goes off to get the exhausted Adam, Jaques has the plays most famous set-piece, the seven ages of man speech. Activity: Analysis of the Seven Ages speech (II 7) and its context * Explain the metaphor of the world as a stage and the idea that the men and women are merely players why merely, for example? Why would this idea have greater force in a theatre called The Globe, whose motto meant All the world plays the actor? * Most plays at the time had 5 acts, but Jaques decides that this play of life has seven. List and comment on the effect of the verbs that Jaques uses for each age. Most of them are highly emotive discuss the nature of the idea of human life they conjure up. * As the speech proceeds it becomes more obviously satirical the lovers ballad is about his mistress eyebrow! Corrupt judges were often supposed to take bribes of chickens, hence the capon. Jaques said he would cleanse the foul body of the corrupted world. How powerful are the satirical points? Explain. Perhaps it should be: Is he doing so or is he doing something else? * Comment on the effect of each age ending not at the end of a line, but in midline. * Comment on the effect of each age, except the last, taking more lines than the one before Do you find a change in the tone of the speech as it proceeds? Describe the change, and where it occurs and try to account for how it comes about. You might like to consider how Shakespeare uses such techniques as alliteration, assonance and sibilance here. Quote one example of each and examine it. * The end of the speech reflects the beginning by returning to the world of childhood. Using the word mere, comment on the rhythm of the final line, suggesting how the repetition assists it and what effect it creates. * What do you suppose would be the dramatic effect of this speech on the audience onstage (that is the Duke and the courtiers) and then on the theatre audience? Would you expect their response to change as the speech proceeds? * Note the stage direction that immediately follows the speech, Enter Orlando with Adam [on his back] (and recognise that the information in square brackets has been inserted by the editor to help you visualise this moment, but it wasnt in the original edition. Orlando may well carry on Adam, but not necessarily on his back. Remember too that at the Globe with its large open stage that entrance may have already begun as Jaques is finishing his speech. Imagine what the audience see as Orlando and Adam enter. How does this relate to the final age and what do you suppose is the effect on the audience? * As Orlando and Adam eat the food provided by Duke Senior the play moves from dialogue to song. As the audience hear Amiens words they see an image of inclusion and hospitality youth helping age, the sharing of a meal. What is the effect of the juxtaposition of the negatives in the songs lyric with the positives the audience see? * The Dukes short speech that closes this scene, and this act, suggests that the negative view of life in Jaques seven ages speech, in which the individual proceeded remorselessly towards death, is not all there is. His comments suggest that one of the effects of having children is that something of you lives on remember the earlier comments about family and belonging and friendship also provides another bond between the generations. Discuss what you think is the final effect of the entire scene. Activity: Amiens first song The question about the song above and my earlier commentary on Amiens first song suggests that it might be useful for you to analyse the remaining songs. They occur in Act 4, sc 2, Act 5 sc 3 and then in the plays final scene as part of the Masque. The questions you could consider are: What is the songs purpose (you might ask, why include it at this exact point?) What is the songs subject? What is the songs effect?

BELONGING AND GENDER BELONGING AND LOVE

These two are entwined and seem to form the central focus of the play. As You Like It is primarily a play about love, a romantic comedy, and as such it belongs in a long tradition. The play presents us with a series of lovers to compare and contrast as it examines what tis to love (5. 2. 66). We have:

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Rosalind and Orlando and Oliver and Celia both exploring love at first sight Phoebe and Silvius as the traditional pastoral lovers he pleads for love and she denies him and Touchstone and Audrey, who seem, with the emphasis on the grossly sensual, to parody all of the above

Gender ambiguity Shakespeares manipulation of gender

These will be the four couples who will wed at the plays end, but the exploration of love goes further than this and we need to remember what I have suggested so far about the contexts in which it was written and performed. In 1599, a play in which female roles were played by male actors belonged in an acting tradition that Shakespeares audience wouldnt have thought twice about. A play in which these boy actors, playing girls, then disguised themselves as boys was once again a tradition they would have recognised Shakespeare had previously used it in Twelfth Night. So Shakespeare had played with gender ambiguities before, but what, I think, makes As You Like It different is the attention that Shakespeare draws to them. For example, when Rosalind decides to assume a mans costume and character, she tells Celia her name will be Ganymede. In mythology this is the name, as she points out to us, of Joves own page with whom the male God had fallen in love and as a result the name was associated in the Renaissance with same-sex sexual relations. In fact, in Shakespeares time the name was used to designate a homosexual. In much the same way we might today say hes gay, in Shakespeares time the equivalent would have been hes a Ganymede. Once again, in this play a girl character, Phoebe, falls for the girl character dressed as a boy and as Phoebe thinks about her new love the qualities she notes are distinctively female. In this play there is no easy resolution of this situation. When Rosalind reveals herself as not a boy but a girl, Phoebe will shamefacedly marry Silvius, almost as if forced to finally accept Rosalinds earlier scarifying comment about why she should accept the shepherds initial offer of marriage: Sell when you can: you are not for all markets. It is this disdainful treatment that appears to attract Phoebe (no mean hand at disdain herself!) to Rosalind. This is not the only same-sex relationship in the play. Many have seen the opening of Act 4, scene 1 as Jaques making a pass at Ganymede. Jaques opening line I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with thee certainly has a suggestive ring to it and this was the way the scene was played in the recent Bell Shakespeare production (Sydney, 2008) resulting in considerable embarrassment on the part of both characters as the pass was rejected. Some productions go even further glossing Charles line about Rosalind and Celia from the opening scene, never two ladies loved as they do, literally and showing the play charting the movement of Rosalind away from a lesbian relationship with Celia to Orlando and then of Celia to Oliver. What sparks all this interest in gender is the plays main idea and arguably its greatest scene (Act 4, scene 1) in which Rosalind, disguised as a boy offers to cure Orlando of his love for Rosalind if he will pretend that she really is Rosalind and woo him. Think for a moment about just how audacious Shakespeare is being: Rosalind really does love Orlando, but she is disguised as the boy Ganymede This is a way of getting Orlando to express his real feelings for her even in her disguise But because she is disguised and pretending to cure him of love she can be critical of what she hears in ways she might not normally be. Thus she can embody both the male and the female attitudes to love simultaneously. This gives her character a great deal of power, enabling her to do impossible things, such as organising a mock wedding ceremony. In terms of the concept of belonging she is both involved in the relationship and able to step outside it to comment critically upon it. However much Ive been emphasising the importance of remembering that, in the original production, Rosalind was played by a boy actor, this double aspect of the character remains in all productions. While the audience know the true identity of Ganymede and can thus respond to the underlying real relationship between Rosalind and Orlando what they see is one man wooing another man. This opens up a series of possibilities in performance. Will there be points at which Orlando and Rosalind forget that they are pretending and may catch themselves going too far (or have to be brought back to reality by Celia)? Or, at the other extreme, will Orlando come to realise that this really is Rosalind and play her disguise for all its worth?

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BELONGING AND BALANCEACT V Sc 2

In much of what has gone before we see that Shakespeare is involved in a bit of a balancing act in this play using the pastoral tradition while he parodies it, using elements from a variety of sources, revelling in romantic love as he has characters criticise it. Towards the end of this play Shakespeare needs to change the balance from criticism to celebration. He has removed the characters from their normal place of belonging, the court, and tested them in the world of pastoral, the magical forest of Arden, but a denouement involves resolution and in this play restoration. The transition point occurs in Act 5 Sc 2. By this point Oliver has entered the forest and been saved by Orlando, so belonging in the sense of connection with family is being re-established. At the start of the scene we find that Oliver has also fallen in love with Celia so they too now belong to the group of lovers. The scene begins in prose, with Rosalind explaining that she has conversed with a magician and can do strange things, but on the entrance of Silvius and Phoebe its shifts from the naturalness and ease of the usual verse into verse that quickly becomes much more formal and highly patterned as Phoebe suggests tell this youth what tis to love. Silvius makes a series of statements to which the various lovers respond: Silvius: And so am I for Phoebe. Phoebe: And I for Ganymede. Orlando: And I for Rosalind. Rosalind: And I for no woman. (Examine the use of repetition here.) By the scenes end Rosalind, now, it would appear, in full control in the forest, has made them all promise to meet tomorrow so she can resolve all problems in marriage. Activity: Inclusion or exclusion? Who will finally belong and who wont?

ACT V Sc 3 and 4
Shakespeare, a little like his creation Rosalind, appears to use conventions and fashions while he happily questions them, to take love very seriously while he makes fun of it. While you will need to reach your own conclusions about just where and how the play comes to rest in terms of its ideas about love, I think that Shakespeare here begins to shift the balance away from criticism towards celebration. At the end of this play he does so, in part, by changing form. He moves from romantic comedy to the much more formal world of masque, from the ease of his colloquial prose to the formality of highly structured verse. Try to answer the following questions and relate them to the idea of belonging: The plays use of music might have prepared us for the highly formal structure of the statement/ response almost like a religious service, perhaps. Suggest the effect of the highly formal patterning of Act 5, sc 3. Note the formal patterning of Rosalinds responses (from line 91 onwards). Does it matter that the scene returns to prose? In the plays final scene (5. 4) belonging is emphasised in a number of ways: Rosalind is restored to her father belonging to family Rosalind is revealed to Orlando belonging to the loved one Rosalind is revealed as herself belonging to gender We hear the echoes of the formal patterning we discussed above in the final scene, especially from line 101 onwards. Shakespeare may be echoing the wedding ceremony here, if so, what is the effect? In the final scene Touchstone and Audrey, the parody lovers, are also included, but not without comment. In terms of belonging how do you respond to Jaques commentary on the marriages (lines 168 177)? Dancing is often taken as an image of harmony, of belonging to a working community, and this play ends with a dance, but Jaques is not included as he leaves to join Duke Frederick. How do you respond to this final exclusion and what do you think is the effect? Finally we are left with Rosalind and she begins by making the point that it is not the fashion to see the lady as the Epilogue. Shakespeare is playing with the idea of gender, as he does throughout the speech, because while the character may be a lady, the actor playing her is distinctly not and this is what will drive the jokes about sexual ambiguity. Here are the final jokes about belonging as the boy actor playing Rosalind, now again dressed as a girl, celebrates belonging to both genders with a series of witty innuendoes: If I were a woman, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me, and breaths that I defied not. And I am sure that as many as have good beards, or good faces, or sweet breaths will, for my kind offer, when I make curtsey, bit me farewell. As Rosalind, who has just admitted he is a boy actor, doesnt bow but instead takes a girlish curtsey,

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expecting the audience applause, the doubleness we have explored is maintained. He/She belongs and yet doesnt belong, is inside the play and able to comment upon it, but finally remains (almost) in character. Discuss the effect of the Prologue in terms of belonging. What is the effect of concluding the play like this? How seriously do you think we are meant to take it? Do you think that for Shakespeares audience the play did end as they like[d] it? Does it do so for us?

CHOOSING ADDITIONAL TEXTS

It is a requirement of the Area of Study that you choose texts that relate to belonging that reveal your understanding of the concept. Now that the Board of Studies has dropped the idea of a booklet of texts relating to the concept, you will need to write about at least TWO (2) texts that you have chosen. This means it would make good sense to choose at least four. I think it would make the best sense if you chose texts that relate to the ideas youve developed in relation to As You Like It. Belonging is a broad term and one that you may find easier to define in terms of its opposite, exclusion, by focussing on the idea of the outsider. Some recent romantic comedies from the UK appear to work in a tradition similar to Shakespeare. You might think of: Four Weddings and a Funeral Love Actually Bridget Jones Diary Notting Hill and so on. Advertisements The purpose of all advertising is persuasion and many adverts, especially those based on visual media, work on the idea put yourself in this picture. In other words, they present an image to the responder which makes you want to belong, to put yourself in the picture, to be like the people who have the product. If you choose advertisements as additional texts, you could explore this aspect of belonging in a variety of ways. Clothes adverts often show beautiful people wearing the clothes, interacting intimately with members of the opposite sex, the message being, if I buy this dress/suit Ill look fabulous like her/him and be cool and attractive! Some adverts try and have exactly the opposite effect by scaring their audience. Drink driving ads are in this category My God! If I drink look what happens to my brain and if I drive Ill wind up dead! Because advertisements by definition are trying to persuade you, they are trying to get you to share their point of view, trying to create a sense of belonging, so you could analyse just why and how this is achieved in such texts, in whatever media. Poetry Much poetry deals with the feelings of the individual and often such feelings cut across social beliefs and expectations. Satirical poetry obviously questions belonging: Popes The Rape of the Lock offers a rich critique of the accepted mores societys ideas about love. Shakespeares Sonnet 130, My Mistress Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun questions the tradition of love poetry Shelleys Ozymandias argues for the artist as outsider T.S. Eliots The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock has a protagonist desperate to belong. The tradition of anti-war poetry from the First World War onwards is a rich source here and that tradition then goes into popular music. Students could look at the work of Bob Dylan in the sixties (and not just the songs that relate to war), at Jimi Hendrixs version of The Star Spangled Banner from the movie Woodstock, Eric Bogles The Band Played Waltzing Matilda and Cold Chisels Khe Sanh.
ENGLISH TEACHERS ASSOCIATION NSW ETA.18.03

Helpful Information
BELONGING - ADDITIONAL TEXTS SUMMARY SHEET
Form (website, news article etc).. Title By (Author)... Where and when published.. Purpose/Audience. Brief description of text (no more than 100 words max) How does your text relate to As You Like It? What aspects of the area of study belonging does your text reveal? Identify and explain TWO 2 techniques employed to explore the concept of belonging (these techniques must be form specific, that is, film techniques for film) Create a paragraph of no more than 150 words (of the kind you might use in an exam answer) that incorporates and synthesises the information above.

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The Australian Oxford Dictionary: belong:

1.

(followed by to): be the property of be rightly assigned to as a duty, right, part, member, characteristic, etc. be a member of (a club, family, group, etc) 2. have the right personal or social qualities to be a member of a particular group (hes nice but just doesnt belong); (followed by in, under) be rightly placed or classified fit a particular environment

The New Oxford Thesaurus of English belonging: noun the club helps their members maintain a sense of belonging. Affiliation, acceptance, association, attachment, connection, union, integration, closeness; rapport, fellow feeling, fellowship, kinship, partnership. Opposite: alienation

Modelled Responses

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2010 HSC

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2010 Examiners Comments on this text:

William Shakespeare, As You Like It In stronger responses, candidates skilfully explored the statement, weaving a consideration of familial and other relationships in the text with a reflection of the importance of the connections to their world and how all of this served to enrich or limit the characters sense of belonging. They assessed the juxtaposed worlds of the court and the Forest of Arden and how these affected or influenced the interactions of characters. They also looked at aspects of Shakespeares dramatic craft, exploring the humour, irony, use of disguise and conflicts within the play to illuminate the growth and development of character. Some responses also discussed the characteristics of Jaques, and the reasons for his inability to interact with others, his not belonging at the end of the play in contrast to the resolved conflicts in the relationships with others. Other responses explored the role of Rosalind (aka Ganymede) as a catalyst in enriching or hindering belonging between others. Weaker responses tended to re-tell the plot with only a limited connection to the idea of belonging and without assessing Shakespeares dramatic techniques. They also tended to focus on Jaques and his desire to limit his sphere of belonging at the expense of a wider exploration of the play. Some of these responses relied on a simplistic understanding of equation of the court as limiting and the country as enriching, but did not take their ideas any further.

2010 HSC Marking Criteria

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Shaun Tan Picture BooksRelated Texts

The Arrival, a wordless story of a migrant travelling to a country that doesn't exist, arose from research into migrant stories which became one universal migrant story which blended all into a sense of belonging' and transcended the original references. The arrival shows migration as a "fundamental experience" where adults become like children. We become familiar with the landscape of the migrants and accept them in the end. The nine images of domestic objects at beginning and end offer a circularity and show that a sense of belonging has been achieved. The first page of passport photos may be from the archives of Ellis Island, but can be understood by people from all nations. As he explored the archive, Tan felt each character's story - the silent stories of anonymous people - and imagined how each person could fit into physical, metaphorical and spiritual places. ln The Arrival, fictional, and nonfictional images were forced together to bridge the gap between speculation and reality. Images were left uncaptioned for readers to construct their own meaning. In one scene a serpent tail wraps around a building "like a threat beyond explanation This could be anything from poverty to political corruption to hunger and disease. The space around events, the lack of specific time and place transcends all logic, giving a sense of what it's like to confront things. A "false" symbolic constructed language liberally used in the drawings serves to remind us of the power of confusion. It is with these techniques that Tan captures the attention of his readers and allows them to construct a meaning that resonates with their own existence. To further allow this resonance, Tan invites the unnoticed and unexplained into his drawings. A red leaf becomes an unexplained object in The Red Tree images of not paying attention in a world patrolled by "predatory despots" leads to a theme of the outsider and alienation which recurs in many of Tan's texts.

The Lost Thing

The Lost Thing expresses Tan's concern with place and space, belonging and the perils of a world governed by mindless bureaucracy. The story concerns a young boy who finds an unusual imagined creature on the beach. After taking it home he realises that this new friend is destined to be isolated from society, and tried to find a place where it will be accepted. His quest takes him into the industrialised landscape of an ominous and futuristic city. 1. A motif is a recurring image or idea within a text that relates to an important theme. What symbolic image is repeated on each page throughout The Lost Thing? 2. What theme does this image illustrate, and how does this theme relate to the plot of the story? 3. Look at the collages that are in the background of each page. Why might the author have decided to use engineering textbooks in this way? What do you think it adds to the story? 4. The subtitle of The Lost Thing A tale for those who have more important things to pay attention to." Who pays attention to the Lost Thing in the story, and who ignores it? 5. Look at the Lost Thing. What does it resemble? Describe the Lost Thing in your own words. 6. The Lost Thing is described as being 'quite friendly' even though it cannot talk. How do the Lost Thing and the narrator communicate throughout the book? Mention at least two examples of communication.

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The Red Tree

An archetypal little girl lost undertakes a metaphysical journey through the dark world her despairing mind has created. In order to emerge from a nightmare "without sense or reason she needs to overcome her depression and recognize that the vivid red leaf of happiness has been beside her all day. 1. Why do you think the reader never finds out the little girl's name? What do we know about the little girl's life? 2. Think of a reason why the little girl might be feeling the way she is. Write a paragraph that comes before the opening of the book ("Sometimes the day begins with nothing to look forward to..') explaining who the little girl is and what has happened to her. 3. What does the red leaf represent? Do you think the little girl sees the red leaf? 4. ln The Red Tree, a little girl's feelings cause her to explore the world around her in an imaginative and different way. Write a paragraph discussing this idea. Include a topic sentence and give examples from at Ieast three different pages in the book. 5. The book uses many visual symbols to represent emotions. Find three of these symbols and discuss what they mean to you as a reader. Are they effective in telling the story, or would more text make the story easier to understand? 6. Look at the way that small and large objects are arranged together in the visuals. What objects are larger than life, and why do you think the author has chosen to show them in this way? 7. Look at the picture for "darkness overcomes you". Why do you think the author has chosen to place unusual things in ordinary places? What do you think the fish represents? Where does the little girl's journey take her? What emotions do you see her experience, and how are these reflected in the world around her?

Further Analysis
Choose a double-page spread from either The Red Tree and The Lost Thing. Look at the relationship between the words and the images, and comment on how the pages represent an imagined world. How does Shaun Tan exaggerate things about our own world to create an imagined world? Juxtaposition involves positioning images next to one another so the viewer is aware of their differences and similarities. Why does Shaun Tan use juxtaposition? What are the little girl and the Lost Thing shown next to, and how does the reader know they are having trouble fitting into their world? Examine the setting of the story - what environment are they set in, and what atmosphere is created in the pictures of the imagined world? Consider how the illustrator uses colour, salient images and the size of objects to create atmosphere. Shaun Tan has said that the best illustrations are a form of writing and storytelling. Look at the illustrations in both books. What stories do they tell us that cant be found in the text? Think of alternative text for one illustration from each book. How can the illustration be used to tell a different story? Choose an example of his use of colour, objects, composition, vectors or words and find an example and explain its purpose and the effect this would have on the audience ie a TEE