Contrary Notions of Identity in As You like It - Yavanika

MARK BRAC HER
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that of Rosalind and Celia, is constituted by relationship with and
participation in the being of another, as he himself later implies when
he defines his identity in terms of relationship, declaring to Orlando:
"I am the Duke / That loved your father" (I.vii. 194-95).
The most important juxtaposition of these opposing attitudes is
found in the wrestling match. A number of the play's commentators
have realized the symbolic importance of this event as a prefiguration
to the rest of the play.'8 Charles, as Thomas Kelly notes,' is an agent
of Oliver and is also aligned with the court of Duke Frederick; he thus
functions as the champion of the exclusive, monadic self which Oliver
and Frederick have embraced. Indeed, Charles's own words reveal
that he, too, has this perspective on the self. When he tells Oliver, "I
wrestle for my credit" (I.i. 124), he indicates, as Kelly observes, that
"he regards his footing atop Fortune's wheel as a precarious station
. which cannot be shared."20 His being is enhanced, in his view, only by
diminution of other selves.
Orlando seems to embody the contrary view, and Shakespeare
points to this contrast by having both Charles and Orlando refer to
the wrestler as a "foil" to the youth. Charles says to Oliver, "For your
love, I would be loath to foil him, as I must for my own honor if he
come in" (I.i. 127-28). "Foil" here, of course, means to defeat or stymie,
but the other meaning is present to the audience as well. Orlando
uses the word in the same way as Charles, when he says to Rosalind
and Celia, "Let your fair eyes and gentle wishes go with me to my
trial; wherein if I be foil'd, there is but one sham'd that was never
gracious" (I.ii.180-83). But unlike Charles, and indeed unlike
Lodge's Rosader at the identical moment, Orlando appears relatively
unconcerned about self-about either losing "honor" or gaining
"shame." For Charles, in contrast, fights for honor and station, and so
does Rosader, whose victory is immediately preceded by his "calling
to minde . . . the fame of his Fathers honours, and the disgrace that
should fall to his house by his misfortune."2' Again Shakespeare's
alteration serves to focus attention on apparent lack of motivation and
thus to direct our view toward the nature of the self-here toward
Orlando's relative lack of self-interest.
Orlando's attitude is further revealed by the fact that Celia's appeal
to his self-interest- "We pray you for your own sake to embrace your
"See, for example, Thomas Kelly, p. 15. John Doebler, in "Orlando: Athlete of
Virtue," ShS 26 (1972): 115, believes that "we should at least consider the possibility
of Shakespeare wanting to place a special emphasis upon the wrestling match, making
it a thematic introduction to the role he had outlined for Orlando."
9Kelly, p. 15.
20Ibid. My emphasis.
'Bullough, p. 171.
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