Play within a play is one of the standard theatrical devices that Shakespeare uses in his plays. The audience can evaluate the effectiveness of performance in the play with the convincing performance of the actors on stage. Disguise in appearance and mindset appears as a commonality to construct the play within a play; however the manner in which disguise is used differs in the plays. Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It are two plays in which disguise is used both as a theme and as a tool to construct the plot. The two plays are similar in the role that disguise plays in first creating chaos, which drifts the characters apart and then solving the chaos, which brings the lovers of the play together. The two plays are different in the language in which disguise is used; while the former uses a potion to bring about the disguise, the latter uses changes in appearance.
This paper focuses on the two different ways that disguise is used in two of William Shakespeare’s plays; A Midsummer Night’s Dreams and As You Like It. While the initial purpose of deceit in both the plays results in a similar outcome: the rise of chaotic problems; the outcome of the trickery involved is also the same: the resolution of problems. The difference lies in the manner in which deceit is manifested in the plays. In the end, deceit becomes the tool to reach a higher truth in both the plays, yet the instrument used to create the deceit differs in the plays. In a broader issue, by presenting deceit in different manners, Shakespeare points to the issue of gender and establishment of order.
The beginning of problems, in As You Like It, created through disguise by using the change of clothes is stated by Rosalind in her speech when she says,
Were it not better,
Because that I am more than common tall,
That I did suit me all points like a man?
A gallant curtal-ax upon my thigh,
A boar-spear in my hand, and in my heart
Lie there what hidden woman’s fear there will,
We’ll have a swashing and a martial outside—
As many other mannish cowards have
That do outface it with their semblences
(I.iii.121-129)
In the play, As You Like It, disguise with the use of changing physical appearance is once again a conducive that creates misunderstandings in the play and then solves them again. The chaos begins first when Rosalind and Celia dress up like men and go into the forest. The love entanglement begins when Phoebe falls in love with Rosalind, who is dressed up as Ganymede. The confusion furthers on when Rosalind disguised as Ganymede becomes friends with Orlando, who is in love with Rosalind. Their friendship is based on yet another disguise, Rosalind who appears as Ganymede will appear to be Rosalind to ‘heal’ Orlando from his ‘lovesickness.’ The fickleness of disguise is revealed, and it is used as an instrument that creates confusion within the audience and misunderstandings within the characters. In this play, however, Shakespeare uses disguise as a theme by changing the physical appearance of the characters. The chaos is resolved once all the disguises are lifted when the characters appear as who they are, Rosalind as Rosalind and Celia as Celia. The order is re-established once the disguise is lifted and marriage is proposed to move forward in the play. Ambiguity within the characters, on who loves whom and who is happy with whom, and the social ambiguity is resolved once all the characters are brought together in a formal binding process of the lovers.
Among the many women characters of Shakespeare’s plays, Rosalind of As You Like It, is one of the memorable ones. Her wit and personality allow her to create a persona that establishes the plot of the play. Within the framework of disguise, Rosalind can express herself because she changes her appearance. She dresses as a man by wearing symbols and clothes that she thinks would initially represent a man. By using clothes and symbols to establish disguise in appearance, Shakespeare points out that gender becomes a performance that is put on, and so can be taken off. In other words, gender becomes something that is nurtured—learned, and not gained by nature—inherited. Through Rosalind’s disguise as a man, we see that gender can be taken on and taken off; however, it is not something transformative and therefore not permanent. It is Rosalind’s disguise that creates the beginning of the problems and the confusion in the play.
The role of disguise in As You Like It, reveals the issue relating to gender during the Renaissance Era. Within the play, Rosalind’s disguise allows her to experience the world that she would generally be refrained, about which she says; “Now go we in content/ to Liberty, and not to banishment” (I. iii. 144-145). Shakespeare uses the term ‘banishment’ to refer to the limitations that females experience from everyday life because of their gender. By disguising herself, Rosalind manages to overcome these limitations and manages to advise the male characters in the play. At the end, when Rosalind delivers the epilogue, she seems to have gained her confidence, but only because she disguised herself as a male. Therefore, the disguises that change the gender by the appearance in the play have two sides: in reality, the actor who would be in the character of Rosalind would be a male, since during the Renaissance females were not allowed to act on stage. Second, the women characters in the play become disguised as men. While the layering creates a confusing plot, it also reflects on the broader issue of the changeability of gender through the disguise.
Rosalind’s disguise has two consequences for her self-development. In the short-run, her primary purpose is to get through the forest safely, which she manages; in the long term, her disguise serves for creating the chaotic atmosphere that she finds herself in. When disguised as Ganymede, she meets Orlando and comes to know of his ‘love-sickness,’ she decides to pretend to be Orlando’s love, Rosalind, who is herself. Thus she creates a disguise over a disguise and makes the plot even more confusing than it already is. Her male role allows her to establish her thoughts and feelings that she would could not within the boundaries of the female society. She could talk about poetry and have long and running conversations about life as a male, something that she would typically not be allowed to talk to if she had not been disguised as a male character. In the end, Shakespeare manages to create a character who is successful at playing both the roles. The famous line of Jacques states the staging that takes place in the play, “All the world is a stage/And all the men and women are merely players” (II.vii.146-147). This line can be understood clearly with the example of Rosalind, who can play both roles of male and female while also managing to match her disguise with the gender she is playing. Based on this view, the convention of gender become roles that can be taken on and taken off. Therefore, when the use of disguise in appearance subverts these roles, the characters become more convincing and honest. The honesty of the characters achieved through deception in appearance thus creates the beginning of the resolution to the problems. The disguise is lifted once the actors take off their male disguises and reveal the true identity, the order is established through marriage.
In the second play, the following lines are the moment in which a magical potion is used to disguise the characters and therefore create problems that unfold the plot:
Having once this juice,
I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep
And drop the liquor of it in her eyes
The next thing then she, waking, looks upon
…
She shall pursue it with the soul of love.”
(II.i.183-190)
In these lines, Oberon interferes and causes a disguise on Titania. Later, Oberon interferes with the four lovers and tells Robin to apply the potion on the eyes of Lysander and Demetrius, thus disguising their mind and diverting their attention:
“A sweet Athenian lady is in love
With a disdainful youth. Anoint his eyes,
But do it when the next thing he espies
Maybe the lady.” (II.ii.268-271)
In these lines, Oberon refers to Helena as the Athenian Lady who falls in love with Demetrius, and possibly as favor tells Robin to anoint Demetrius’s eyes so that Demetrius’s mind is disguised and diverted from Hermia to Helena. The confusion starts when Robin anoints Lysander’s eyes rather than Demetrius’s. The problematic confusion is furthered when Demetrius’s eyes are also anointed to fix the problem. But the disguise cause in Demetrius causes an even bigger problem.
In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, disguise plays a significant role in causing misunderstanding among the characters, through the use of a potion. Deception becomes the consequence of interfering with the flow of the play, once Robin ‘anoints’ a drop of the potion unto the eyelids of Lysander and Demetrius, the chaos begins. Lysander and Demetrius, who are in love with Hermia, become different people once they wake up and see Helena. They fall in love with Helena; thus their true love for Hermia is disguised with the potion. The potion, in this sense, becomes conducive to creating the disguise. Once the chaos starts, all the characters begin to question themselves. Helena starts to reveal how she lacks her self-confidence in the lines, “I see you all are bent/ To set against me for your merriment…Can you not hate me, as I know you do/But you must join in souls to mock me too?” Helena believes herself so worthless and unlovable that she thinks Hermia, Lysander, and Demetrius would come together to conspire against her and make fun of her. Later, we see Hermia, who starts to question herself and her actions. She does not understand why Lysander does not love her, but actually hates her and so begins to ask herself if she has done something wrong. The chaos continues until there is a jungle of misunderstandings caused by the disguise created through the potion until finally everything is resolved with the use of a flower. Both Lysander and Demetrius regain their true self once Robin crushes the herb into their eyes. All of a sudden the disguise is lifted and the real characters are revealed, the lovers find each other and the chaos is resolved.
Disguise and deceit are also a major theme in Shakespeare’s play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. While the manner and method in which disguise is brought about are different, the outcome is the same as in As You Like It. Shakespeare uses disguise differently in this play, while the character in As You Like It choose to disguise themselves through a change of appearance; the characters in A Midsummer Night’s Dream are chosen to be disguise through the use of the potion. Puck transforms the head of Bottom to that of an ass, thus creating a disguise that is seen as horrid by people who meet Bottom but is seen as beautiful for the woman who falls in love with Bottom. The character’s consciousness is not involved in bringing about this disguise, but instead, magic is used. By manifesting disguise in this way, Shakespeare presses on the broader issue of the importance of the establishment of order.
Helena talks about the nature of love and how it ‘looks’ when she says, “Love can transpose to form and dignity/ Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind/ And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind” (I.i.239-241) With this line, Shakespeare refers to the vulnerability that people have when it comes to love, thus setting the stage for the strange attraction induced by a magical potion of Queen Titania to Bottom, who is disguised by a magical potion to have the head of an ass. Love is easy to manipulate since love does not allow one to see clearly what is going on around him/herself, or what is of true nature to what he/she loves. Titania is blinded by the magical potion and therefore does not see the disguise of Bottom, yet the rest of the characters are aware of the hideousness of Bottom. This demonstrates the complexity of the nature of love and how it is easy to turn order upside down by the use of the susceptibility of love.
When Bottom comes outs of his disguise, he does not recall his experience with an ass’s head; yet even then he is aware of the changes taking place in the order of the society, that is the result of the disguise. He understands how people in love fool themselves by their own and other’s disguises, thus resulting in problems that reach climactic points until they are resolved. The disguise allows him to express his feelings of lamenting on the pursuit of dreams, as he says, “Man is but an ass if he goes about t’expound this dream” (IV.i.216). The disguise had created the confusion problem and shook the structure of class hierarchy by causing a queen to fall in love with a commoner with an ass’s head. Once the disguise is lifted, the magic removed by a magical potion, the order is established.
The two texts use deceit to create and solve problems; however, the two texts also use deceit in different ways to point to the more significant issue of gender transformation and establishment of order. In As You Like It, the disguise is created through symbols and concrete objects manifested on the appearance of the characters; while in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the disguise is created through the use of magical potion and the characters experience disguise in their mindset, rather than their physical appearance. The layering of the characters demonstrates the universal theme of gender transformation and its perception in As You Like It; the theme of order establishment is reflected in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. At the same time, both the lays successfully focus on the problems driven resolved by creating a disguise and then lifting it from the characters. Shakespeare manages to balance on the heavy and light issue of not just the Renaissance, but also of the modern era; thus causing the plays to stand the test of time and become immortal.
In the end, the disguise in the plays creates a humorous atmosphere for the Renaissance audience and a social message for the present-day readers. While the Renaissance audience would watch the play as a form of entertainment, today the play can also be analyzed as an example for social ambiguity created through misunderstandings and the establishment of order through the resolving of these ambiguities. In a closer examination, the two plays are similar in incorporating the theme of disguise for creating chaos and different in the theme of establishing order through the resolving of disguise.