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Example research essay topic: Shakespeare Works Sir John - 918 words

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A very common to all of Shakespeare's works feature is the presence of the second main character in his plays. The character that does not appear very often during the play or performs the main actions of the plot, but the one that has a great impact on all other personages and the development of events; and by that draws the attention of the reader back to the book. It is basically someone whom the reader loves the most, someone who makes us enjoy reading. In William Shakespeare's Henry IV such a character is Sir John Falstaff, who is considered to be one of the most complex (and yet dramatic) characters of all Shakespeare's works. Falstaff has generated an enormous amount of academic discussion for what is admittedly a very peripheral character in this play. He carries a dignified presence in the minds eye; and in him, we recognize our internal admiration and jealousy of the rebellious dual personality, "the fullness of the spirit of wit and humor bodily", that we all secretly wish for.

The multi-faceted Falstaff, in comic revolt against law and order, in his role as father figure to Prince Hal, and ultimately, in his natural ability to discern and adapt to any situation, emerges as the most complex and paradoxical character in drama (Desai). We are as well acquainted with his person as his mind, and his jokes come upon us with double force and relish from the quantity of flesh through which they make their way, as he shakes his fat sides with laughter, or "lards the lean earth as he walks along." Other comic characters seem, if we approach and handle them, to resolve themselves into air, "into thin air"; but this is embodied and palpable to the grossest apprehension: it lies "three fingers deep upon the ribs, " it plays about the lungs and the diaphragm with all the force of animal enjoyment. His body is like a good estate to his mind, from which he receives rents and revenues of profit and pleasure in kind, according to its extent, and the richness of the soil. He manures and nourishes his mind with jests, as he does his body with sack and sugar. He carves out his jokes, as he would a capon or a haunch of venison, where there is cut and come again; and pours out upon them the oil of gladness. His tongue drops fatness, and in the chambers of his brain "it snows of meat and drink. " He keeps up perpetual holiday and open house, and we live with him in a round, of invitations to a rump and dozen (Paris).

Wit is often a meager substitute for pleasurable sensation; an effusion of spleen and petty spite at the comforts of others, from feeling none in itself. Falstaff's wit is an emanation of a fine constitution; an exuberance of good-humor and good nature; an overflowing of his love of laughter and good-fellowship; a giving vent to his heart's ease, and over-contentment with himself and others. The secret of Falstaff's wit is for the most part a masterly presence of mind, an absolute self-possession, which nothing can disturb. His very size floats him out of all his difficulties in a sea of rich conceits; and he turns round on the pivot of his convenience, with every occasion and at a moment's warning. His natural repugnance to every unpleasant thought or circumstance, of itself makes light of objections, and provokes the most extravagant and licentious answers in his own justification. What draws us in and makes us like Falstaff?

If you ask what he enjoys, no doubt the answer is first and foremost, eating and drinking, then relaxing at the inn with his other merry friends and companions. These things are what really matter to Falstaff. Yet we are not to suppose that he was a mere sensualist. All this is as much in imagination as in reality. His sensuality does not engross and stupefy his other faculties, but "ascends me into the brain, clears away all the dull, crude vapors that environ it, and makes it full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes. " His imagination keeps up the ball after his senses have done with it. He seems to have even a greater enjoyment of the freedom from restraint, of good cheer, of his ease, of his vanity, in the ideal exaggerated description, which he gives of them, than in fact.

He never fails to enrich his discourse with allusions to eating and drinking, but we never see him at table. Sir John Falstaff is represented as a liar, a braggart, a coward, a glutton, etc. , and yet we are not offended but delighted with him; for he is all these as much to amuse others as to gratify himself. He openly assumes all these characters to show the humorous part of them. The unrestrained indulgence of his own ease, appetites, and convenience, has neither malice nor hypocrisy in it. In a word, he is an actor in himself almost as much as upon the stage, and we no more object to the character of Falstaff in a moral point of view than we should think of bringing an excellent comedian, who should represent him to the life. Despite his lack of care for order and responsibility, the rebel dormant in readers applauds Falstaff's defiance of the establishment of his defense.

Falstaff seems to appeal to the average reader, for he relates to them (Forward).


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Research essay sample on Shakespeare Works Sir John

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