Juxtaposition And Symbolism In Shakespeare's As You Like It

“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players,” a quote from Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII, that typically serves as the introductory quote for many essays concerning Shakespeare and literature in general. Alas, yes, a generic quote that often opens up generic essays and is one of the long-standing rituals of writings concerning the theatre. This is typically done in goals to connecting the grander motives of the theatre to the outside world to which we all struggle, creating a clever juxtaposition between the theatre itself and its symbolism. In fact, it would be interestingly clever if only it wasn’t used so much. This, of course, is why I use it. The theatre is old and tired, but yet offers us so many …show more content…
The first round of auditions required us to read a memorized monologue. I instantly picked a monologue for the lead, of course, and David originally picked a monologue for a different character. To be curt, I was overjoyed. He is widely considered across our company to be the best male actor, and moreover the best actor in general. I knew if he committed to the role, he would get it. This felt like my chance to get what I wanted. To this end, my ego began to inflate ever so slightly. At first, it was just David’s genuine artistic interest in another character, then it was his uneasiness at me being competition, until it became his overwhelming sense of inferiority to my skills. This, of course, was not David’s reasoning. But, to me, it was not more than a white lie to boost my ethos. I began to talk about my superb skills, my ongoing research into the character, and how I was certain to get the lead. Things were calm for a while, until I noticed David stopped texting me, would never be around our group of friends when I was there, and was always alone in theatre class. I was initially apathetic, taking it for his own approach to preparing for the audition, but soon learned that David was changing his monologue to one of Mikhail’s. I was shocked. Very soon after, I also began to hear about the things he was saying, concerned for my bloated ego, my lack of skill, and his totally better approach. My heart sunk. In my foolish display of confidence and ego, I gained an enemy not only set to injure my chances at the lead, but that had lost any degree of respect for me. This would become a theme of nearly two weeks as we prepared for auditions. People in the company were sure to never talk to both me and David at the same time, never discussed casting out of fear for starting a firefight, and we saw our previously exciting class turn awkward and quiet. Auditions would roll around as slow as