Character of Rosalind

Character of Rosalind

 

Rosalind, one of the Shakespeare's brightest and subtlest heroines. Rosalind, the heroine of "As You Like It", is the daughter of the banished Duke Senior, niece to the usurping Duke Frederick, and the affectionate cousin, and inseparable friend of Celia. She is intelligent, sympathetic and creative. This is why critics after critics have vexed eloquent in their praises of her. Thus, S.A. Brooke writes, "She is fresher than the dew in the forest".

 

Her wit and Wisdom: In the forest, she is all vivacity and sparkling wit. Her wit, her wisdom, her sound commonsense, her illuminating good sense, and her essential womanliness are all revealed in the free and uninhibited atmosphere of the forest of Arden. She bubbles over with animal spirits, and her mind thinks as rapidly as her heart feels, she skips from one subject to another exuberantly. Truly, "You shall never take her without her answer unless you take her without her tongue." She is "effeminate, changeable, capricious, full of tears and smiles." She chides Orlando one moment and at the next she playfully beseeches him,

 

"Come, woo me, woo me, for now I am in a

Holiday humour and like enough to consent."

 

Her Quick Intellect: She has a fitting reply ready always for everyone, The Duke, the melancholy Jaques, Silvious, Phebe and Touchstone. The brightness of her intellect impresses everyone. At the Court, it impressed Duke Frederick and he tried to instill into the heart of his daughter some part of the envy which he himself felt at her intellectual sharpness. She is critical of inefficiency; even the compliments with which the verses on the trees abound do not blind her to their faults:

 

"What tedious homily of love have you wearied your parishioners withal?"

 

A Creative Genius: Rosalind is a great creative genius, she can device and create situations, and all the devices which she invents with her fertile intellect, are the most dramatic, original, and entertaining. "She assumes a double disguise: she is a woman disguised as man, but disguised as man she pretends to play the role of a woman." She calls herself a doctor of love, one who is an expert in curing the disease called love. Her intelligence ,her wit, her power of invention are all shown to a great advantage in the lessons which she teaches to Orlando, and later on to Phebe, and Silvious. To Orlando, she tries to give an idea of the true nature of women, that they are capricious and changeable. She also tries to teach him that romantic love is hollow, and that the protestations of lovers are not worth even two straws. To Silvious she teaches the lesson of manliness, and to Phebe that she must not be so proud and scornful.

 

That she is a creative genius is further seen in the way in which she turns a magician and brings about a happy reunion of the different pair of lovers.

 

Her Essential Womanliness: Rosalind is a rare combination of wit and womanliness. Though she assumes a masculine disguise, she is not at all an Amazon or a hoyden who is immodest or who takes pleasure in playing with the man. That she is the very embodiment of womanhood is seen in her capacity for love and sympathy. Her womanly tenderness and gentleness are shown by the degree of affection which all who know her feel for her, and by the responsive love she has awakened in the breast of Celia.

 

Although in the forest she wears, "the trappings and the suits," of manhood, yet she continually reminds us that she does not carry, "doublet and hose" in her heart. She contrasts her assumed masculine role with her real feminine nature:

 

"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."

 

Her Sympathy: The recital of the fate of the old man's three sons fills her with pity. Her heart goes out in sympathy to Orlando when she appeals to him to refrain from the contest with the wrestler, and when her appeal is unsuccessful; she gives him words of encouragement which must have contributed largely towards his success:

 

"This little strength that I have, I would it were with you"

 

In the forest she is in sympathy with all lovers, and brings about the union of all different pairs. Especialy her sympathetic nature is reflected in her expression. Whenever she appears to wound with her lips, "fester than her tongue did make offence, her eye did heal it up." When Orlando relates the story of his adventures in the forest, her sympathy goes forth first to Oliver "food to the suck'd and hungry lioness" and afterwards to her lover, "which all this while had bled".

 

The part that Rosalind plays in the Phebe-Silvious episode reveals again how she appreciates the feelings of others and easily sympathizes with the true lover whose love is not reciprocated by a coquettish girl whom she humiliates and finally brings her senses. She feels happy in the happiness of others.

 

Rosalind's Unique Love: "Rosalind's love is unique love. She is as much an example of those whose lot is to love at first sight as any other character in this comedy of romantic passions."  (Prof. White)

 

Her Love for Orlando: She is an intensely emotional girl and very deeply in love with Orlando. She falls in love with him at the very outset when she tells him that he has overthrown more than his enemies, meaning that he has conquered her heart. She frankly confesses her love for him to Celia. In the forest of Arden she tells Celia that she is fathom deep in love: "My affection hath in unknown bottom like the bay of portugal........ I will tell thee Aliena. I cannot be out of sight of Orlando." At the sight of the handkerchief stained with Orlando's blood, she faints.

 

Rosalind's Love for Celia: The love that exists between Rosalind and Celia is more than sisterly love and does not undergo a change even under the most depressing circumstances. "Never two ladies loved as they do" -that is what the wrestler Charles reports to Oliver. When Rosalind feels depressed, grieving over her miserable lot and her father's banishment, she sets asides all thoughts of grief and sorrow at the bidding of her cousin:

 

"Well, I will forget the condition of my estate to rejoice in yours."

 

We find Rosalind's love for Celia in the forest also.

 

In summing up we can say that Rosalind is one of the best heroines of Shakespeare. For her intelligence she stands supreme above others.