Question
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"Whether in comedy or in tragedy, the plot serves to move the action toward a closure. The closure serves to reinforce a sense of control and resolution - individual and/or political. Examine at least two plays and discuss them in terms of the above proposition.
Your examination need not take an either or position. The question allows for a complex response".

THE COMPLEXITY OF SHAKESPEARE'S WORK IN RESPECT TO CHARACTER AND PLOT

The plays of William Shakespeare, regardless of their genre, are universal in scope and often as multifaceted and complex as the characters to be found within them. Therefore, in critically examining the work of Shakespeare, there is a danger in drawing conclusions from singular, isolated passages or in attempting to derive theories on the 'point' of an entire work. No doubt, while Shakespeare obviously wanted to address a particular issue in any single composition, this issue was most certainly never the single focus of that play, nor can it always be traced to any solitary comment from one of the plays complex characters. Shakespeare, whether by design or as a result of his complexity of thought, always injected a great deal of intricate significance into his work. As Edwin Wiley reminds us: "The fact that is sometimes lost sight of is that the poet was primarily a creative artist, whose creed...was to hold the mirror up to nature, and to give the form and pressure of the time". However, Shakespeare has done far more than accomplish this goal, as his work holds a 'mirror to nature' even to this day. The fact that he is studied so prolifically in the contemporary world is perhaps the greatest evidence for the universal applicability and relevance of his work as a comment on human nature and artifice. However, in being a 'creative artist' it is therefore assumed that, while his work may have far-reaching implications, it is still communicated within a specified framework. All modes of communication, regardless of their sometimes experimental nature, are highly conventional. That is, Shakespeare may have spoken volumes to his audience through his plays, but that fact remains that they were still works meant for performance, and therefore adhered to a strict method of presentation. As Aristotle would suggest in his Poetics, the plays themselves required a beginning, a middle, and an end in order to be understood.

The plot of any written work serves not only as the backbone to the work itself, but as the beacon lighting the path towards the tale's ultimate conclusion. Consider this idea in terms of the writing process itself; in its design. It is in the construction of the tale that the plot becomes the guiding light, as the author/artist has instilled within the plot a notion of where the play will lead as well as the messages and issues to be addressed within it. The scholarly examination of any text suggests, and indeed is dependent upon, the notion that the writer had themselves employed the very same constructs we seek to uncover in their initial construction of the narrative. Indeed, our purpose as both an audience and critical examiner of Shakespeare's work is to 'deconstruct' the flesh and bones that he used to give life to the body of his creation. Clifford Leech provides an excellent analogy for understanding this concept:

"...To all that extent we are connoisseurs, as in a picture-gallery or antique shop, giving our craftsmen-servants their meed of commendation for having delighted our senses and judgement."

While we have been entertained by the play, it is in making a judgment that we come to acknowledge it as a reflection of life rather than a direct copy of it. As Aristotle put it, the main characters, whether as upstanding and powerful as Antony, as wise and lordly as Prospero, or as evil and scheming as Iago, are "better than we are". Leech goes on to develop this idea in Shakespeare's Tragedies. He states that, essentially, these characters constitute "...a being more fully aware of his situation, more highly organized, more sensitive, than the generality of men, and therefore we look up to him with respect, even if his rashness or ambition leads him to crime". Despite the inherent evil of Iago and his manipulation of those around him, his creativity, intelligence and wit actually make him one of the most attractive characters in the play. Indeed, Maurice Charney points out in How to Read Shakespeare that "..the most intelligent persons in tragedy seem to be the villains, whose plots conspicuously imitate the playwrights own creativity" (pg. 50). Iago is also regarded as an 'honest' and upstanding figure by those around him, but, thanks to his ability to deceive, this may be for entirely different reasons. However, characters such as Iago, however appealing, "...must not be to far removed from us, or we shall fail to see him as humanity's representative and his story will cease to be symbolic of the human situation as a whole. He must have weaknesses and other touches of common humanity...". It is a testimony to the talents and skill of Shakespeare as a writer that his characters become representatives of mankind as a whole and yet remain human. And so, it would be logical to assume that as well as the convoluted plot that decrees the course of action in a play such as Othello or Antony and Cleopatra, it is the characters involved in the story that make it move and provide such a vivid, controlled insight into the human condition. Cleopatra and Antony may provide a graphic example of how lust and passion can lead to the downfall of even the most powerful, but beyond that they are under the control of Shakespeare as an artist and communicator. Iago, Desdemona and Othello as characters are not only human representatives of jealousy and revenge in action, but are pawns in a cleverly orchestrated insight into the human condition. The play has been created, written, acted and conveyed to an Elizabethan audience and is therefore not only a dramatic representation, but a carefully constructed, and therefore controlled, commentary on humanity.

Part of the way in which such a commentary is imparted to the audience is through Shakespeare's knowledge of the 'conventions' of communication, as mentioned earlier. As an audience, we also understand that certain things need not be said. In literature, this convention relied upon a concept that was described by Coleridge as "that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith". Their is an unspoken agreement or pact between Shakespeare and his audience that the fiction about to be presented is, as Maurice Charney describes it, "imaginative truth":

"We recognize a significant gesture or a meaningful intonation because we immediately understand the complex assumptions on which that gesture or intonation is based".

This may also imply that the performer on stage can also contribute to the play by adding his own emphasis on parts that he considers significant. However, Shakespeare also had his own method of 'getting the message across', namely in his use of soliloquy and asides. Both of these techniques are employed in the understanding that they allow a character to not only speak his mind, but provide additional details that aid in the development of the dramatic action and thereby save Shakespeare a good deal of expository effort. A quick aside can allow a character to solicit approval and support from the audience as well as function to reveal multiple aspects of any scene. Indeed, it is the soliloquies and asides in most of Shakespeare's plays that perhaps give the greatest insights into what is actually going on either behind the scenes, or in the minds of the characters. A modern equivalent may be the inner monologue of characters in movies, narrating the action and what they were thinking at the time. Asides function as pregnant, meaningful glimpses into the psychology of the characters and what is really concerning them.

ANTONY - Let him appear.
(Aside) These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,
Or lose myself in dotage.
(Antony and Cleopatra, I.2, 117-118)
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CALIBAN - No, pray thee.
(Aside) I must obey. His art is of such power,
It would control my dam's god Setebos
And make a vassal of him.
(The Tempest, I.2, 370-373)
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PROSPERO - (Aside) Poor worm, thou art infected!
This visitation shows it. (The Tempest, III.1, 32-33)

This effect is magnified in its intention when we consider that in Elizabethan times, the actors would have most assuredly been in the midst of the audience when muttering these side commentaries. The soliloquy was usually a much longer speech for one particular character to address directly to the crowd under the guise of a some sort of personal rumination. While they may be philosophical in nature, they were more commonly a tool for developing the action of the play. Frequently, it was the means by which the evil character would reveal his plot to play upon the weaknesses of the 'good guys'. Consider the importance of Iago's soliloquies in furthering the development of Othello's plot, and adding to the drama of the play.

IAGO - ...How am I then a villain
To counsel Cassio to this parallel course
Directly to his good? Divinity of hell!
When devils will the blackest sins put on,
They do suggest at first with heavenly shows
As I do now. (Othello, II.3, 338-343)

An interesting point made by Maurice Charney relates to the strangely frank and forthright manner in which Iago speaks in his soliloquies. "From his statement of principle, or at least of tactics, Iago moves into his plot against Othello. The soliloquy has an attractively colloquial quality, as if he were making it up as he went along..."Let me see now" (I.3, 386) "How, how? Let's see" (I.3, 388) and "I have't. It is engendered" (I.3, 397)." I would suggest that this is a method by which Shakespeare seeks to give human qualities to a character whose evil scheming is making him almost dangerously incompatible with the ideal human discussed above. We might find it hard to accept the humanity of this character were it not for his colloquial language.

While it may be suggested that his characters were sometimes contradictory, this is only due to the fact that they were more realistic and practical than the average literary construction. It could even be suggested that they were 'real' characters faced with the complicated and convoluted circumstances devised by the artist in control of them. More than creating two-dimensional characters from the tools available to him, Shakespeare was almost using real people as puppets for performance. As critics of literature we appreciate psychological complexity in characters, it could even be said that we hunt for it, and in the case of Shakespeare, this plunder bursts a reservoir of information. However, we must be willing to accept that in order for these characters to fulfill the criteria of being 'better than we are' and representing us in the controlled world of the plot, they must also be somewhat rhetorical and discontinuous in their nature in order to be truly human. We are creatures of habit surely, that have certain traits that distinguish us from others from day-to-day, but if we were placed in the same situations in which we find these characters, would we behave 'characteristically'? Literature functions by accumulating details on its characters, but in plays, this is not the case. A play functions as a single temporal unit, a performance being a passage of time, and we can assume that a playwright cannot, therefore, make the logical steps that a novelist may. This is why Antony and Cleopatra is a source of debate concerning the plays suitability for actual performance, being seen more as a play for reading pleasure rather than viewing. An audience may not delight in the long drawn-out passages that may appeal to the reader. Consider then that characters need to be concise, and may sometimes be discontinuous and inconsistent to those making a close analysis of what was meant for performance on stage. A graphic example of this discontinuity is the change witnessed in Caliban who moves from his talk of slaughtering Prospero to his rather inspired contemplation on the wonders of life on the isle:

CALIBAN - Why, as I told thee, 'tis a custom with him
I' th' afternoon to sleep. There thou mayst brain him,
Having first seized his books; or with a log
Batter his skull, or paunch him with a stake,
Or cut his weasand with thy knife...
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...Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
...and then in dreaming
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again.
(III.2, 84-89, 133-141)

The character is speaking not on his own behalf here, but in the context of the play. Shakespeare has sacrificed the continuity of the character for the continuity of the play itself, in a successful attempt to maintain control over the plot. We need to accept that characters cannot be easily classified in reality, and it is in this respect that we find Shakespeare's characters being almost three-dimension due to their complexity. However, this may not always be the case. Consider, for example, the innocence of Desdemona. She is represented boldly without any moral equivocation. Despite the allusions to her sexuality, usually through Iago's use of beasts and such imagery (the beast with two backs!) to describe what he imagines to be going on, she is still regarded as simple and pure. Why might this be so? The answer lies, as has been discussed, in our need as an audience to have Shakespeare craft and control the action and reach a cogent resolution to the action that has been unfolding. It is important that there be no basis for Othello's murderous jealousy in the tragedy that unfolds, and so Desdemona's virtue is never really questioned.

In setting up graphic examples of the human condition in his plots, Shakespeare must also work to lead them to a satisfactory conclusion so that the message behind the play can hopefully be conveyed to the audience. The fact that a play works towards a resolution is therefore a graphic example not only of the conventions of dramatic communication, but therefore the need for control over the enormity of our everyday lives. Consider that Shakespeare, had a nature that Edwin Wiley describes as "plastic and sympathetic" to the human condition. He had the temperament of an artist and therefore sort to be "mediatorial rather than partisan". As a craftsman attempting to capture a particular human quality, circumstance or history he had to fashion an appropriate dialogue that hopefully was objective in its approach. The conventions in place, and the expectations of his audience, had to be taken into account. This kind of framework upon which to operate lead to the construction of a plot on Shakespeare's behalf that would meet these inherent requirements. For example, Alan R. Velie suggests in his introduction to Shakespeare's Repentance Plays that audiences wanted to see particular political, social and moral characteristics and opinions reflected in the art they were about to witness. In this case concerning the repentant individual owning up to his crimes or forgiving those around him for theirs:

"The doctrine of repentance was a matter of utmost importance to the Elizabethans...In a time in which virtually everyone believed literally in the rewards of heaven and the terrors of hell, the achievement of salvation was one of man's most important concerns. And the only way for a sinful man to achieve salvation was through repentance". (p. 11)

We see this reflected in plays such as The Tempest where the moral choice of Prospero is not whether to repent for his past sins in abandoning the world he left behind, but in fact to forgive those such as Caliban that may have sinned against him.

PROSPERO - ...As you from crimes would pardoned be,
Let your indulgence set me free.
(The Tempest, V.1, 337-338)
Note that in Othello the evil of Iago must have been amplified by his refusal to repent for his sins nor give any detail concerning his motives:
OTHELLO - Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil
Why he hath thus ensnared my soul and body?
IAGO - Demand me nothing; what you know, you know:
From this time forth I never will speak word.
(Othello, V.2, 298-301)

It is in considering what the general zeitgeist of the times was that the artist comes to realise how much he or she is bound by the expectations of the audience, or how they have been fashioned by the society in which they live. As audience, we will eventually detach ourselves from the initial contemplation of the circumstances in which the character finds themselves, and identification with the characters, to a more intellectual examination of the story as a whole. We judge the quality and appeal of the play as a work by Shakespeare which 'holds a mirror' to our own experiences. We have seen the outline of the action by recognizing that as a drama, in a particular genre, the course of action is almost fore-ordained. We expect closure. However, as we have found, this relationship between audience and playwright works both ways. William Shakespeare was no doubt aware that as we watch a play we 'respond', and he would therefore plot to manipulate our responses and channel them in particular directions. In using techniques such as asides, and in fashioning a play which can be classified according to a specific genre, we have already been channeled into considering the play in a particular light. We may have expectations, but we also find that Shakespeare is turning us in different directions in order to consider new topics within the framework of the plot he has fleshed out. For example, E. A. J. Honigmann put forward an interesting idea in Shakespeare: Seven Tragedies. It was his opinion that, in Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare set out to reduce the character of Antony by channeling the audience:

"Cleopatra out-thinks and outsmarts him, plays tricks on him to the very last (her pretended suicide), and often her humour is her deadliest weapon" (pg. 152).

We come to see Antony as a pawn in Cleopatra's game, rather than the other way round. We come to see Antony as being at the beck and call of the Egyptian queen, and it's not only Cleopatra's words and actions that lead us to this conclusion. Consider the opinion of his men concerning his daliances with her:

PHILO - ...His captain's heart,
Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst
The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper,
And is become the bellows and the fan
To cool a gypsy's lust.
(Antony and Cleopatra, I.1, 6-10).

And in considering Antony fleeing in Cleopatra's wake in view of his assembled troops, Scarus makes a comment that is another dagger chipping away at Antony's character:

SCARUS - I never saw an action of such shame.
Experience, manhood, honour, ne'er before
Did violate so itself.
(Antony and Cleopatra, III.10, 21-23).

However, as we approach the end of the play, this is not as noticeable, and may in fact have detracted from the final scenes were it to have been included or maintained. For, as mentioned above, our contemplation of the play has now turned from a more aesthetic or moral engaging of the text to a rather critical detachment from the characters. As critics of literature and of the entertainment that has been presented to us, we now find ourselves detached and intellectual in order to analyze not only our response to the text, but the implications of our having been 'caught up' in it. While Aristotle may have stated three conditions, we find that we take these as a single, imaginative whole. We consume the banquet of images and communications that has been presented to us in order to apply it to our own lives. As commented by Charney:

"There is an implicit assumption that human experience, which supplies the plot for plays, also has beginnings, middles and ends, and is causative, rational, progressive, and triadic in structure". (pg. 105)

And this is the principle idea from which all assumptions and implications concerning the communication of a 'story'; or in this case play; are drawn. Essentially, we have come to understand the world in terms of a natural, orderly progression of circumstances. We expect there to be a beginning, a middle and an end and therefore enforce one upon those aspects of our life in which no apparent progression naturally exists. And why? In order to understand. For this reason, the work of Shakespeare is brilliant for the reason that while it adheres to these expectations concerning format and style, and thereby communicates information to an audience in a manner in which it can be interpreted and understood, it still has greater relevance. In describing human relations, the same rational beings that will end up witnessing and evaluating his work, Shakespeare not only had to derive meaning, but create it. As Wiley so poignantly states in his introduction:

"It would, however, be equally erroneous to assume that one of such power and insight as Shakespeare could concern himself with the infinite variety of human relations and collisions without formulating some sort of theory regarding the hidden forces of which they are the outward expression." (pg. 2).

It is the construction of plot that is the reflection of this wisdom concerning the hidden forces which are at work, for in creating a story for the approval of others, using such complex characters, Shakespeare seems to indicate that it is control over the chaotic nature of the world that the playwright seeks. He seeks to copy down for all was is reflected in the mirror which he holds up to society, to the world, and finds that he can only capture the intangibilities of a logical people seeking a sense of resolution with their conception of an otherwise meaningless and altogether random journey.

Bibliography

Charney, Maurice. How to Read Shakespeare. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1971. pgs. 31-123, 144-146.
Honigmann, E. A. J. Shakespeare: Seven Tragedies. The dramatist's manipulation of response. The MacMillan Press Ltd, London and Basingstoke, 1976. pgs. 1-30, 77-101, 150-170.
Jones, Emrys (ed)., Antony and Cleopatra. The New Penguin Shakespeare. London: Penguin Books Ltd, 1977.
Leech, Clifford. Shakespeare's Tragedies, and other studies in seventeenth century drama. Originally published in 1950 by Chatto and Windus, London. Reprinted by Greenwood Press, a division of Williamhouse-Regency Inc., USA, 1975. pgs. 3-87, 137-159.
Muir, Kenneth (ed)., Othello. The New Penguin Shakespeare. London: Penguin Books Ltd, 1968, 1996.
Velie, Alan R., Shakespeare's Repentance Plays: The Search for an Adequate Form. Associated University Presses, Inc. Cranbury, New Jersey, 1972. pgs 11-17, 114-123.
Wiley, Edwin. A Study of the Supernatural in Three Plays of Shakespeare. Reprint from the University of California Chronicle, Vol XV, No. 4, Norwood Editions, 1976. pgs 1-4.