... The first three acts of the Winter's Tale are where the tragedy takes place. These three acts can be broken down into five acts, as suggested by Bill, the great comparative literian. The first of these five acts is the exposition. The story is set up and you are thrust into Leontes internal passion of jealousy. The second act is where Leontes expresses his passion externally by accusing Hermione of sleeping with Polixenes. He then has his wife taken off to jail. The third act is where we see the first contest, or agon. This takes place when Paulina brings the baby daughter from jail and presents it to Leontes. The two battle back and forth, attempting ...

... be briefly discussed. In general, women had very few rights. In the eyes of men, the main purposes of women in Greek society were to do housework such as cooking and cleaning, and bear children. They could not vote, own property, or choose a husband, and had to be represented by men in all legal proceedings. In some ways, these Greek women were almost like slaves. There is a definite relationship between this subordination of women and what transpires in the play. Jason decides that he wants to divorce Medea and marry the princess of Corinth, casting Medea aside as if they had never been married. This sort of activity was acceptable by Greek stan ...

... a confused old man. At the end of the play Lear has completely lost his sanity with the loss of his daughter Cordelia and this is the thing that breaks Lear and leads to his death. In the beginning, King Lear shows his need for praise is how he chooses to divide his kingdom among his daughters. The one who praises him with the most "gusto" shall receive the largest area of land. This is even more evident when you consider that he already has divided up the kingdom before the praising even begins. As evident as he gives each daughter her land before hearing the next daughter's praise. Thus the who thing is just a show and an ego boost to himself. It is because of h ...

... he was any good at. When he had the conference with Howard, he had his hopes up. Willy had regained his confidence in himself and was ready to take control of his life at a very crucial time. However, Howard crushed all of that by firing Willy, simply because he thought Willy, "needed some rest." Actually, Howard never intended to give Willy his job back. He was merely trying to take Willy's position because he didn't believe Willy could hack it anymore. This is a reflection of society's present day treatment of the elderly. Younger generations now, move older people into rest homes and try to keep them out of public view, for risk of embarassment. This is r ...

... 3, Scene 4 line 28). Consequently, Hamlet consumed with rage automatically thrusts out attempting to kill Claudius, but instead strikes Polonius. Hamlet's and Laertes's imprudent actions are incited by fury and frustration. Sudden anger prompts both Hamlet and Laertes to act spontaneously, giving little thought to the consequences of their actions. Hamlet and Laertes share a different but deep love and concern for Ophelia. Before his departure for France Laertes provides lengthy advice to Ophelia pertaining to her relationship with Hamlet. Laertes voices his concern of Hamlet's true intentions towards Ophelia and advices her to be wary of Hamlet's love. Laertes ...

... plays have a moral. In this play, Shakespeare models a small world after society. In it everyone and everything is just as he sees it - a façade. Shakespeare captures this theme in "Much Ado About nothing" because pretending is something people often do whether it is positive or negative. The idea of acting and the illusion it creates is rarely far from the surface. Do we ever undeniably know the truth about someone, a situation or ourselves? In "Much Ado About Nothing", everyone is pretentious. Don Pedro deceives Hero by acting the part of an honest friend, concerned for his brother and Claudio's honour. Leonato and his family act as if Hero were dead ...

... are revealed and the battle between the illusions and the characters will begin. What initially leads to her illusions is love. When she was young, "sixteen, I made the discovery - love. All at once and much, much too completely" (1368). She met Allan Grey, the perfect man - he had "a nervousness, a softness and tenderness which wasn't like a man's, although he wasn't the least bit effeminate" (1368). However, as we are eventually are shown, this illusion wouldn't last forever. The young couple got married and, to Blanche, were falling more and more in love, when one day "coming into a room that I thought was empty" (1368), this illusion would be shattered. ...

... but the way Macbeth killed Macdonwald was a savage display of sickness. "Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps, And fix'd his head upon our battlements" (Act 1, Scene 2:line22, 23) Macbeth was not a bad man at first he was a very noble ally to Duncan. When Macbeth he saw the Three Witches everything changed. They told him things he wanted to here and he believed them. He told Lady Macbeth what the witches said. She taught him and ridiculed him to be evil. He listened to her and that is when the trouble started. The first ignoble killing by Macbeth was the killing of what was supposed to be his friend Duncan. Macbeth killed Duncan to become king. "A ...

... Juliet is not sure if she wants to marry Paris but she will consider it while she gets to know him. In other parts of the play Juliet is quite rash and acts thoughtlessly and very quickly. One example of this is when she wakes up in the tomb and finds out the Romeo is dead. She refuses to listen to Friar Lawrence's pleas, to leave the tomb and come with him to a nunnery. Instead she tells him "Go, get thee hence, for I will not away." She tries to poison herself but there is none left. When she hears the watch coming she grabs Romeo's dagger and fatally stabs herself. Juliet is so upset she doesn't think and tries to poison herself instead of listening to the Fr ...

... brought him out of the shadows, where his controlled madness might have fooled the likes of Jonan for a while, but the latter's paranoia finally caught on and killed Sowho and itself; putting a rest the destruction and curse laid upon the poor factory workers and opening a broad new scale of possibilities that might (in long terms) help tip the edge of demeaning business ethics in the Nigerian society. Anyone who read Macbeth would agree that it's quite parallel to Flowers & Shadows. Even thought the books where written by two different authors at different time periods; the depicted morals of the stories show the fundamental and universal relation of ...