Berger 1

Julius Berger

Dr. Holt

AP Literature: 5

6 May 2021

Greenblatt and Plays: Influence on Behavior

Through dialogue, stage directions, and observations, plays have the ability to give the

audience a much more profound insight into the genuine emotions, relationships, and behaviors

of the various characters involved and portrayed in the play. The questions that follow are: What

leads certain characters to respond to situations in the way that they do? What underlying

conditions and past experiences have these characters lived through that might cause them to

react the way that surprises the audience? Whether the audience sees the cause and effect within

character relationships or not, there is always a reason, answer, and purpose chosen by a

playwright as to why something occurs, why a character despises those around him or her, or

why they are unable to forgive their family members. Just like interactions people have in the

real world, playwrights deliberately construct their characters and storyline to show the audience

that each hint at and mention of a character’s personal life serves as a building block to justify

and explain their behavior, attitude, and choices. More specifically, in three important, emotional,

hard hitting plays, Roy Williams’ Death of England, Brandon Jacob Jenkins Appropriate, and

William Shakespeare’s King Lear, conflict, tragedy, emotional unbalance, and discovery all play

monumental roles in the development of each character in their respective plays. Stage plays tell

a story about the characters involved and dig deeper into the true intentions and ‘emotional

makeup’ of each individual character. Without this depth, the stories would not hold the same

impact and relatability that entertain and directly impact the audience so well. These three plays
 Berger 2

highlight the importance of character depth and backstory in what the director and playwright

present to the public audience. At first glance, the characters have their unjustified outbursts and

various other responses, but after consideration and analysis, the influence of external forces is

evident in playing a significant role to fashion the characters and shape their behaviours and

opinions throughout Roy Williams’ Death of England, Brandon Jacob Jenkins’ Appropriate, and

William Shakespeare’s King Lear.

Greenblatt’s Renaissance Self-Fashioning perfectly encapsulates the theme of how

everything is a mold of the influences and forces around them. Whether it be a societal, familial,

financial historical, cultural, or any other possible influence, Greenblatt describes the truth that

nothing “[can] float free of a powerful set of institutional, intellectual, and historical forces (1)”.

While humans have the freedom of choice in their everyday actions and behaviors, Greenblatt

states that a multitude of external forces impact the autonomy of humans to the point where the

nature of one’s being and even personality is almost constantly, indirectly and unknowingly

affected through daily experiences and encounters. He uses an example from his personal life in

his book and mentions all of the chaos and distress that was occurring at the time of his writing.

His favorite student was found dead after dropping out of college, there were two attempted

assassinations on President Ford, the ongoing war in Vietnam, the United States of America

deciding to fund the neutron bomb (designed to be capable of killing all living creatures), and

several other concerning events during the 1970’s. The author explains that when he now reads

his book, he “perceives many traces of [that] profoundly disorienting time” demonstrating the

influence that the world around him had on his literary artwork during the years of his writing

(16). Furthermore, Greenblatt studies and analyzes the influence and effects of societal pressures

in developing one’s own identity. Because a person is surrounded by pressures, always

 Berger 3

attempting to reach a certain standard or fulfil a norm, Greenblatt states that “there is no such

thing as a human nature independent from culture” (3). Although individuals can somewhat

control how their identity appears on the outside, there are definitely limitations as to what they

hold autonomy of. Humans strive to fit into a society and follow what that society deems as

acceptable or normal, but they will inevitably struggle when basing their decisions and actions

off of those societal pressures. Whether the person gives into it or not, they are making the

decisions with the external forces as a foundation of that choice, and this is why “the dream of

autonomous agency, though intensely experienced and tenaciously embraces, is only a dream.”

Humans cannot escape the pressures around them that shape their behavior regardless of if they

desire something else.

In Roy Williams’ Death of England, the main and only character portrayed in the play,

Michael, reacts to the passing of his father and describes to the audience his life story

surrounding the time of his father’s death. From a reader’s perspective of the play, one is able to

recognize the development of Michael’s story throughout, all while absorbing the distress, rage,

depression, and struggle that Michael projects to the audience. And from observing the

performance, one is able to truly experience the real emotions leaking out of Michael’s character

as he retells this difficult portion of his life. Throughout the play, which is set at his father’s

funeral, Michael is drunk out of his mind, screaming, and pointing fingers around the room,

expressing the wide range of emotions that he experiences from a build up of events. While

anyone would understandably be upset in response to the death of their father, Michael’s

performance is noticeably and deliberately inappropriate and excessive. The audience sees

glimpses into Michael’s familial relationships and past childhood growing up with his best

friend, Delroy, as well as the discovery of a friend of his father’s that he, and everyone else,
 Berger 4

previously knew nothing about. When he approaches his mother and sister to inform them of the

terrible news of the father’s death, he is clearly concerned about his mother’s reaction to the

situation; not because of her husband passing away, but because she would place the entire blame

of the incident on Michael who had nothing to do with it. This scene serves as an insight into the

type of relationship Michael has with his mother. The mixture of these relationships and events

in his life leads to an unhealthy balance of emotions that continue to build up throughout the

aftermath of the tragic death, and they reflect Greenblatt’s theme of external forces influencing a

certain, uncontrollable behavior. Michael, just like anyone else would in a similar situation, does

not wish to be offensive, hateful, and frightening during his speech at his own father’s funeral

and act the way he does. The audience witnesses extreme bursts of emotion in his drunken

speech, but it is difficult to recognize what brought him to that point without deeper

consideration. It seems as though he loses all autonomy in the way he is acting during the play,

and not simply because he is drunk, but also in his choice to drink so much alcohol prior to the

funeral. Being able to draw connections between all of the factors and pressures on Michael’s

character allows one to fully recognize the lack of control he has on this obscene behavior. Aside

from the death of the father figure in his life, several poor relationships with members of his

family, the discovery of his untruthful father, and countless other notable details of Michael’s life

in the play serve as ‘external forces’ which lay the foundation of his decision making. The

question one must ask themself when forming connections with Michael and Greenblatt’s

investigation of human autonomy is: How does the audience see Michael respond to his father’s

death in a way that he appears to lose control of his behavior? With an understanding of

Michael’s love for his father, the character’s performance serves as perfect evidence to
 Berger 5

Greenblatt’s claim of an impossible autonomous agency as Michael lacks self-control at a time

most important to his father’s memory.

Brandon Jacob Jenkins’ Appropriate is yet another play that dissects the inner workings

of a complex and quite controversial family dynamic. In the span of the events of the play,

several major themes rear their heads; most notably racism, forgiveness, perspective, and

identity. Of these themes, each character contributes in various ways, providing insight into each

of their individualities. In respect to Greenblatt’s ever present concept, each of those four themes

play into the loss of autonomy. The main themes of the play not only educate and entertain the

audience, but they define the characters’ personalities and act very strongly on influencing and

shaping their behaviors and interactions with one another. For example, although, for the

audience, something such as the discovery of old lynching photos belonging to the deceased

father could encapsulate the dark history of a southern white family plantation in the nineteenth

and twentieth century, it impacts the involved characters in a much different way: they worry that

their children will see the wrong thing at a young age, they are concerned that their father held a

racist past of which they were unaware, and several other pressures sneak into play. This occurs

numerous times and as the pressures, tensions, and conflicts build on top of eachother, the

members of the family begin to act more and more out of place, diverting from normal familial

behavior, resulting in somewhat of a loss of self control. One of the daughters, Toni, is a perfect

example of a character who loses their autonomy in the play. At the very end the audience sees

her true and desired intentions with her family. She explains to Bo and Franz, “I don’t like

myself in these stories” and “all I really tried to do was love you. I promise” (Jenkins 75).

Clearly, at this point in the play, Toni recognizes the rude, inconsiderate, and argumentative way

she has behaved throughout the past few days and acknowledges that it is not the person she
 Berger 6

wishes to be. Losing control over her own autonomy was the product of countless external forces

in her life, similar to what the audience notices with Michael in Death of England. Her brother,

Franz, had an extremely controversial past with sexual assault, addiction, and depression, her

father passed away recently, she had lost her job and gotten divorced, and there were concerns

that her son, Rhys, was going down the wrong path. As it would to anyone, these aspects of her

life infected her with pessimism and veered her personality away from the way she wanted to

love and appreciate her family members. Greenblatt touches on situations exactly like this.

Environmental pressures surrounding an individual can affect their moods and behavior which

ultimately leads to a loss of autonomy. Although Toni, as a human being, is able to make her own

decisions, Jenkins reveals her deepest and most genuine emotions at the end of the play and

shows that her behavior throughout was fogged by the negative events of her life.

While Shakespeare’s King Lear shows traces of the same Greenblatt-centered theme as

the previous two plays, it contains something that stands out from both examples of Michael and

Toni. The famous play focuses primarily on the tragic downfall of King Lear and the

deterioration process of his mental state as he goes mad. This story allows for the audience or

reader to see the effect and directly draw connections to what the causes are. The development of

his behavior and mind throughout the play are direct responses to the pressures around him

which highlight the influence of external forces to a further extent as it is a main part of the plot.

The madness starts as early as the first scene of the play when King Lear is splitting up his rule

to his three daughters. When he asks his daughters, Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia, how much

they love him, both Goneril and Regan bend their truths and offer false flattery in exchange for

their inheritance. On the other hand, Cordelia stays true to herself and tells him that she cannot

“heave her heart into her mouth,” and loves him just as much as any daughter should love her
 Berger 7

own father. Although she was the only truthful one, Lear is so blinded by the deception of the

other two daughters and gives half to each of them and exiles Cordelia from his sight. Later, once

he realizes the mistake that he had made and that his daughters are unfit to rule, he starts rolling

down the hill of madness. When he says “they flattered me like a dog and told me I had white

hairs in my beard ere the black ones were there,” he recognizes what he had done (203); he

placed false trust in Goneril and Regan and because of that, he blames himself and adds more

pressure into the already chaotic situation: “If you have poison for me, I will drink it… for your

sisters have, as I do remember, done me wrong (221).” Additionally, everyone around King Lear

begins to tell him that he is too old, going crazy, and no longer fit to be king. Because of these

echoing statements, he feels as though he is losing his own identity as king which pushes him to

an even darker point. An example of this is when the Fool says, “thou shouldst not have been old

till thou hadst been wise,” and Lear responds, “O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven!

Keep me in temper. I would not be mad!” (67). Obviously, Lear attempts to restrain himself from

becoming crazy, but the pressures of close family and others telling him that he is not himself

anymore inflicts a major change in Lear’s perspective and behavior. The pressures or external

forces around him continue to rise and lead him into an absurd, crazy behavior which is

indicative of his tragic downfall. When an audience reads or watches a Shakespeare tragedy, it is

simple to see the slow, sorrowful toppling of the hero or main character. But once the audience

looks at it from a different angle, they can conclude that someone such as King Lear doesn’t just

go mad because of choice or their old age; it is almost always a collection of pressures that the

individual faces, and the response to that pressure is unavoidable.

Through close observation in each of these three plays, it is evident that external

influences and pressures play a significant role in not just Michael, Toni, and King Lear’s life,
 Berger 8

but in the everyday existence of all human beings. No matter the magnitude or significance of

the influence, it will always have an impact on the physical and cognitive behavior of the

individual. This theme begs the question: Do humans truly have any autonomy over any of their

actions or are their lives, relationships, and interactions entirely dependent on the environment

with which they surround themselves.

 Berger 9

Cover Letter

Writing this paper was a difficult and long process to say the least. Although the length

requirement seemed very intimidating when it was first assigned to us, the necessary steps and

planning allowed for a much easier writing process. At first, when I was deciding what I wanted

to write about, I immediately thought about Greenblatt’s themes of autonomy that we dissected

earlier in the year - I was so interested in our discussion and the overall idea that I thought it

would be perfect to apply it to the final unit project. As I common-placed some brainstorming in

classes and at home, I was able to draw the connections between the three plays and Renaissance

Self Fashioning, which later served as great help when constructing my outline. During the

outlining of my paper, I split it into six paragraphs: an introduction, section on Greenblatt, one

paragraph for each of the plays, and a concluding paragraph. From here, I was able to start

transcribing my ideas from my common place book to the outline on the computer and writing

down the major points, characters, and relationships I wanted to touch on in my writing. This

allowed me to be able to search for quotes that I wanted to use as well. Once I had everything

laid out in the format of an outline, the actual writing was much simpler than I had anticipated.

There was so much I could have talked about for each play relating to Greenblatt’s theme that I

was able to select the major points (or at least what I thought were the most important), and

include that in my argument. After finishing my essay in the matter of two or three sittings, I

read over it and made all the necessary changes I could notice from the first re-read. When we

had the peer review assignment, Oren left great feedback on my writing that I was able to

incorporate and edit when going through his comments. I found some areas of weakness for me

as well as some reassurance on the strength of my writing. Finally, I re-read my paper two more

times and was able to truly hear my voice and argument. After listening to Oren’s constructive
 Berger 10

criticism as well as my own opinion, I touched up, added, and deleted certain parts, and I

realized it was good to go. I think this writing process did a great job summing up the year as I

was able to bring in themes from two different units and see how Greenblatt’s topic truly does

apply to many things including the plays and the implications it has on our everyday lives.
 Berger 11

Citations

Shakespeare, William, Barbara A Mowat, and Paul Werstine. The Tragedy of King Lear.

Simon & Schuster pbk. ed. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2009. Print.

Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 2005. Print.

Jacob-Jenkins, Branden. Appropriate. New York City: Dramatists Play Service Inc, 2016.

Print.

Williams, Roy and Dyer, Clint. Death of England. London: Bloomsbury Publishing,

2020. Print.