Author ORCID Identifier
Document Type
Thesis
Date of Award
2024
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
English
First Advisor
Darlene DF Farabee
Abstract
Writers and literary scholars’ interest in utopian fiction has increased in the recent decades, although the term originates from Sir Thomas More’s 1516 Utopia. Many Shakespeare scholars show interest in studying Utopia in Shakespeare’s comedy The Tempest, but not many scholars study Utopia in other Shakespeare’s plays. The contrary to Utopia is Dystopia, which appears as a term in 1952, however, More has set out elements of Dystopia in his 1516 Utopia. Few scholars study Dystopia in Shakespeare’s plays. In three chapters, this thesis compares Utopia in two of Shakespeare’s comedies and Dystopia in two of Shakespeare’s tragedies from the perspectives of politics and marriage with the purpose of exploring what Arthur Kincaid calls the possibility of arousing “imaginative sympathy” in readers (193) to be able to see the moral issues characters experience in plays. In chapter one, the thesis will study Shakespeare’s The Tempest and his another comedy As You Like It to show a connection between characters’ good behaviors which are expected in utopian society and their good endings in the plays which are often unions or reunions for comedy. In chapter two, by way of genre, the thesis will also explore the connection between Dystopia and two of Shakespeare’s tragedies King Lear and Othello. The two tragedies show that characters’ evil behaviors which can be found in dystopian society will cause themselves death which is the inevitable element of tragedy. In contrast, the survivors in the tragedies have good behaviors that are advocated in Utopia. In the last chapter, the study of Utopia and Dystopia in one of Shakespeare’s tragicomedies The Winter’s Tale, which has a dystopian first half and a utopian second half, shows a connection between Shakespeare’s comedies and Utopia, and Shakespeare’s tragedies and Dystopia. Some plots in the studied Shakespeare’s plays are similar to dystopian society but also reflect sixteenth-century England. In this sense, Shakespeare’s plays, as More’s Utopia, present prospects for people’s ideal society and reveal the existing social problems in sixteenth-century England. By reading Shakespeare’s plays, people can feel the necessity and try their best to create a Utopia for all.
Subject Categories
English Language and Literature | European Languages and Societies
Keywords
Dystopia, marriage, plays, politics, Shakespeare, Utopia
Number of Pages
122
Publisher
University of South Dakota
Recommended Citation
Duan, Wenhui, "UTOPIA AND DYSTOPIA IN SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS" (2024). Dissertations and Theses. 245.
https://red.library.usd.edu/diss-thesis/245