Summary:
As You Like It is remarkable among Shakespeare's comedy plays for ending with four marriages. Love is the central theme of the play. Through his characters, he shows his viewpoint about love.
As you like it is remarkable among Shakespeare's comedy plays for ending with four marriages. Love is the central theme of the play. Through his characters, he shows his viewpoint about love. I am going to comment Silvius's quote when he was asked what love is like to be "it is to be all made of sighs and tears" base on two couples: Orlando-Rosalind and Silvius-Phebe.
Sigh and tear are signals of disappointment and sadness. We can see most of the characters in "As you like it" have miserable love situations. Rosalind and Orlando fall in true love at first sight and then they live separately by the court. Rosalind must risk everything if she wants to pursue her love. She leaves without either father or her lover to rely on. What a pity for her! A young woman has to rely on herself in a forest with a poor condition life. She has to settle a new life in a strange and wild place. She has to act and think as a man does by disguising as Ganymede. When she meets Orlando again, she has to cover her feeling and hide her real identity. It is a hard work for those who are in love. Meanwhile, Orlando has to flee from his older brother searching. He leaves his lover without a word. We can see how sad he is when he is in the forest too. We are sure that he loves Rosalind so much that he hangs love verses to Rosalind upon the branches of trees. Love has its own strength that helps Orlando does such a romantic thing like this. Doing this, Orlando wants to show not only Rosalind but also all people who are living in the Forest of Ardenne how much he loves Rosalind. He must be disappointed on the way finding his lover. By the end of the play, Orlando shows us how his despair is: " I, how bitter a thing it is to look in to happiness through another man's eyes" or "I can live no longer by thinking." These words suggest that all the daytime and nighttime he misses Rosalind. He really wants to have Rosalind as his wife in reality not in imagining.
In contrast to Rosalind and Orlando, Phebe and Silvius are pastoral lovers and they are also an example of unrequited love. Silvius's first viewpoint about love is: "whoever loved that loved not at first sight." By this point, he has to pursue Phebe for a long time without receiving her love. His heart must be broken when at the same time Phebe falls in love with Ganymede- Rosalind. She knew that Ganymede does not love her, so she is driven into doing silly things for the sake of her love. She loves Ganymede even when receiving scorn words: "why look you so upon me?" and "I pray you do not fall in love with me." To Phebe, these words are meaningless when she loves. Both Phebe and Silvius are lovesick.
At the end of the play, we discover that the "tear" does not bring negative meaning anymore but it brings a positive meaning - the meaning of joy and happiness. The young people meet their true love. Orlando finds out Rosalind, Rosalind receives a true love of Orlando. Phebe realizes who loves her truly and Silvius owns Phebe's heart. They enjoy their sweet time after a long bitter time. Now, each couple satisfies their desire of loving and being loved in marriage life. And each of them understands love properly by his or her experiences.
Many love relations and various love situations in As you like it impress the readers. Love at first sight or unrequited love can become true when one loves with all his heart. Living separately and misunderstanding each other are considered as a ruler to measure the love. A real love just comes to one who still keeps love in his heart even though he has to spend a long challenging time in sadness and in despair.
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