Most of us have seen in Shakespeare an apparent love for making things look like something there aren´t. In the case of fools, it doesn´t matter if they are dressed in a very funny way or if they act as people taken from a psichiatric. These people, are in many forms just a facade of a more deeper meaning not only for them, but for us too.
We should take a look at the definition of fool first. According to Wordreference.com, a fool is "a person tricked or deceived into appearing silly or stupid". In the case of the Oxford Dictionary, a fool can be defined as " a person who acts unwisely or imprudently", so in that sense maybe drunk people can be consider as fools because during those times, they speak from the heart and makes us get more conscious about what we are doing wrong.
The Shakespearean perception of fools is not far from drunk people. They share the crazy appearance, the messy look but in the inside, appart from having vital organs, they also have the truth and the wisdom sometimes we lack in our daily lives.
Dr. Jacquelyn Bessel, a lecturer at the University of Birmingham´s Shakespeare Institute says:"They do share a sort of capacity to stir things up, to say things that other charaters in their social bracket couldn´t possibly get away with saying. In that respect, they´re a really useful vehicle driving your moral and argumentative point home if you´re a dramatist. They deflate popous, socially superior characters. They´re able to criticise kings."
We tend to avoid the truth by being blinded by pretty things because sometimes (or many times) the truth is so ugly that we prefer to look at other things and pretend that nothing has happened, but in other occassions, the truth is innevitable and justice has to take part, just as it happened with the Nurse in "Romeo and Juliet", Puck in "Midsummer Night´s Dream", Feste in "Twelfht Night", or even Hamlet with the death of King Hamlet and the revenge his son wants to take against his uncle.
Pay atention to the details and consider also the proberb that says "Don´t judge a book by its cover.", maybe in that way we would be able to listen to those wise comments some crazy-like people have to tell us to make us react of what we are doing wrong.
References:
Oxford Dictionary online: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/es/definicion/ingles/fool
Wordreference.com: definition of fool.
Winterman, D. "Shakespearean fools: Their modern equivalents" BBC magazine, online, 1 April, 2012.
Samantha, I agree that sometimes the fool does remarkable and wise observations about reality and most of the times we don't pay attention to what they say. The problem is that as we saw in clases, we don't like to always listen to the truth and to see through other our flaws.
ResponderEliminarAt the same time, there are social conventions that make us behave in a certain way, and whoever that doesn't fit into those conventions is seen as a fool or mad and is excluded from society. We have seen those cases in the plays and in the characters you mentioned. The problem lies in that society is controlled my the "normal" majority , and no matter what the "fool" has to say, its going to be excluded from it anyway.
I completely agree with your idea Samantha. For many generations, society has been modeling the way we act, walk, talk, eat, etc. and the same happens to the way we express ourselves. In that sense, fool and/or drunk people are considered not to be normal because most of the times they are dressed in a different way and especially because they talk about the things that we are not capable of.
ResponderEliminarAs the teacher mentioned, we people don't like to hear and accept the truth. That is why we exclude fools, because with their truthful and wise observations they remain us of the things that we don't want to do or change; so, it's time for us to look beyond our shoulders and accept what others can say about us.
Sam, as I always say... I enjoy reading your posts and of course I totally agree with you. The fools are not afraid of showing their real identity; they show the truth ( a twisted but accurate one) because they don't care about what people can say.They don't feel threatened by this society full of stereotypes and prejudices.
ResponderEliminarPersonally, I don't think that we need to hide behind the mask of lunacy to tell the truth. We could have the value to show our real identity but always being careful because sometimes the truth hurts more than a lie.
Now a question came to my mind....to be or not to be a fool? ...and I found the perfect answer in the title of this post..."Dumb, but not that much". Thank you!!!! hahahahha
To survive in this society we need to be dumb but smart at the same time.
As well as the girls, I also like your post. In other posts I have read about the role of women and how they had to disguise the themselves as men so to they are able to solve their problems. But instead of referring to what your post pointed out, it made me think of the following: At the end we have a Shakespeare being part of the play while others are permorming it, in somehow he had to express his thoughts and beliefs, therefore, the fool --I guess-- is a mere mask so to express his ideas. In other words, Shakespeare is the fool of the play because he is the most important person who has a relation with the object and speaks through it. Something that is very important, since if he would have shown his perspective of reality in England, by being the fool he was safe, since fools are allowed to tell the thruth as nobody will take it seriously.
ResponderEliminar