Tom Blaich

Prof. Marc Hudson

English 216

02 December 2013

Across Time

In reading many of Shakespeare's plays, a certain character archetype can be seen many times

that is rather indicative of the author himself and very much in line with the way in which I like to

think of myself. And with the existence of this character, we can see evidence of a shared culture and

history across hundreds of years of time that show us that while our circumstances might change,

certain things about how we view ourselves and treat our friends might never be different.

This character exists more comfortably in the comedies than the tragedies or histories, but you

can see his influence everywhere. They are the jokers, the wits, overflowing with confidence and biting

remarks, always having the right thing to say at the right time. He uses these characters as almost his

own intrusion into the story, adding the perfect retort to whatever is said. Shakespeare is undoubtably

the master of the character, and ever since then, writers have been attempting to emulate this archetype

in their own writing, no exception being made for myself, but with no greater effect than the original

author. And we cannot mention this character without discussing Mercutio, perhaps one of the most

fascinating characters in all of Shakespeare's plays, made even more so by his inclusion as not a

protagonist within his work, but as more of a secondary or tertiary character.

Mercutio is the Shakespearean addition to the tale of Romeo and Juliet, adapted from the

Italian, The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, and he is a character so powerful and intriguing that

you cannot help but be affected by his appearance within the play. He is a master of wordplay, a

connoisseur of double entendres, and loyal to a fault. We first catch a glimpse of this before the party

where Romeo and Juliet, in the fantastic speech about Queen Mab which is both lyrically beautiful and

strenuous at the same time, and we see his dedication to his friend when he fights Tybalt to the death in

the street.

But underlying all of this wit and humor is a sense of brooding cynicism, clearly visible within

the end of the “Queen Mab” speech, that is quite easy to relate to, especially from my point of view. He

epitomizes what everyone would imagine themselves to be in an argument, quick witted and brave, but

under that he is scared and angry. He sees himself losing his friend to someone else, and that makes

him jealous and angry, but he hides that behind a sharp-tongued curtain of wordplay.

And up until his death in the street by the hands of Tybalt, he is the driving force behind the

comedic feel of the play, at least in my opinion. Which is interesting considering the cultural

connotations that this play has behind it at this point. We know what will happen at the end, how the

tragic story of the two star-crossed lovers will be cut short in a quick flash of blood and poison. But yet

this man shines through it all, bringing a certain element of hilarity to the play that brings it out of the

dumps and allows the later sections of the story to truly impact the reader in a emotional way.

Behind this is a lesson that can be learned. Even in the darkest of situations, we must find a way

to keep on laughing, even if we are angry, or jealous. He strongly affected the people around him, for

better, like with Romeo, or for worse, like in his angering of Tybalt. He was a divisive person, but is it

worse for me to be a person that simply attempts to please every person who surrounds me or one who

treads his own path, no matter what others may think of him.

In this way, he was as much a star as the lovers themselves, but as they say, the stars that burn

twice as bright, burn half as long, and he did burn twice as bright as any other character within this

play. He fought for his beliefs to the bloody end, defending his friends with an unwavering heart. He is,

in some ways, a friend that you can only come across maybe once in a lifetime. And I want to be this

friend to someone, someday. You can see that he loved Romeo, with all of his heart. He was willing to

die for the man, even if his pride was to great for him to ever admit it.

You can see these individual character traits throughout all of the plays that we have read

before, and they are even reflected within the sonnets we read at the beginning of the class. Hamlet has

his Horatio to tell his story after he has died. Jacques accompanies the Duke into the forest, while

Rosalind is one of the most amazing female characters in his plays. There is the Dauphin, headstrong

and confident, and Puck, carefree and childlike. These traits that Shakespeare so exemplifies can be

seen in almost all of his different works, but here in Mercutio, they truly come together to form the

character of the author within the text.

I say this because of the way that Shakespeare treats his friend within the sonnets. He speaks

many times of a man that he loves with all of his heart, “How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's

use.” (Sonnet 2, Line 9) The author wishes he could be as strong as Mercutio, and as smart as him, but

he recognizes his own faults within the character, in his peculiar way of expressing affection. The

addition of him within the play is especially interesting when considering that one of the wishes that

Shakespeare has in the sonnets is for this friend that he loves so much to find someone with which he

can fall in love and have a child with so that his beauty can carry on. So when we have this character in

a play about finding love and affection within an unforgiving world, it gives new context to the

character and the true feelings of the author himself.

Once I realized this, I felt that I could relate to the author on some level, in that we both wish

we were more like this creation of his imagination, and in that realization, you can arrive at some

conclusion, no matter how insignificant it may be. Times have changed in ways uncountable since

these plays were written, yet still many things remain the same. The imagination of a writer is able to

reach across the gulf of the ages and still remain untouched within the mind. We are still as full of

mistakes and indecisiveness as we where then, and it is still just as difficult to express to a friend how

you care about them, especially within the hyper-masculine society in which we live.

Shakespeare might have been gay, and in those times he would have been ostracized for his

feelings, just as a young man now would be ostracized for showing affection, no matter how brotherly

it may be towards his friends. And that is why I am thankful that I have come to a place such as this,

Wabash College, in which this brotherly love is not only fostered, it is encouraged across the campus,

which is a peculiar atmosphere for a man to grow up in, especially one such as me, who experienced an

entirely different culture in my previous school.

It is amazing to see how much affect that an author can have over time, especially with

something we might consider as inconsequential at first. It would be like someone four hundred years

from now watching a Stanley Kubrick movie and having this same realization, and yet we still consider

movies just as entertainment, much like we used to treat theatre. But this theatre has managed to

transcend time and connect with me all of these years later, and that fascinates me to no end, and makes

me hope that something I do will someday have this effect on someone.