Category: Coriolanus

Despite the adaptation of a text to film benefiting from the opportunities and abilities bestowed to a director through the visual aspect of the medium, narrative complexity and depth of literary themes almost inevitably suffer a condensation. Ralph Fiennes’s adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Coriolanus is not immune to this trend, with temporal constraints forcing Fiennes to focus upon thematic elements of Shakespeare’s original work that he finds to be integral to his interpretation. Whereas Shakespeare’s characterization of key figures such as Coriolanus and the Tribunes are mainly dependent upon dialogue, Fiennes integrates techniques specific to his chosen medium in order to achieve the equivalent intention. Moreover, Fiennes’s modification of the setting and aspects of the historical context assists in the distinction of Fiennes’s film as an adaptation with its own unique emphases, rather than a visual reconstruction of the original play, while still effectively maintaining the essence of Shakespeare’s piece.

Fiennes’s selection of modifications and emphases within the focus scene provide a characterization of the Tribunes in line with that of Shakespeare. Fiennes mirrors Shakespeare’s presentation of the Tribunes as Machiavellian and conniving in nature, seen in Sicinus’s assertion in regards to Coriolanus’ display of wounds, “Why, so he did, I am sure”. Laced with subtext, Sicinius provocatively feigns a sentiment of homonoia towards Coriolanus to conceal the true agenda of the Tribunes. This suggestion is targeted by Fiennes through a close-up shot of the Tribune as he delivers the line, emphasizing the oratory manipulation at play by forcing audience attention towards Sicinius. Brutus and Sicinius’s contradictory manner of reference to the plebeians serves to highlight their rapid disassociation from their own social class, a theme that is omitted from the cinematic adaptation in terms of dialogue, but Fiennes uses an alternate method of presentation. Brutus informs Menenius that they will stay in the marketplace “for the people”, connoting a sense of service for the plebeians, which is fortified by Brutus positive appellation towards them as “my masters”. While both of these comments remain in the film, Brutus’ “Let them go on” is excluded, disallowing the audience from comprehending the disassociation of the Tribunes from their social class, evident in the pronoun “them”, in a diegetic manner. Instead, Fiennes uses the costume to achieve this aim, with both Tribunes wearing suits is symbolic of their megalomaniacal ambitions to separate themselves from the plebeians and breach the social chasm, as only Coriolanus, Menenius and their entourage are wearing suits. Fiennes characterization of the Tribunes as manipulative beings fixated upon their ambition appears in a manner faithful to Shakespeare’s original play.

Fiennes’ depiction of the eponymous tragic hero is one that maintains the essence of that presented by Shakespeare. Throughout his request for consulship, Shakespeare includes large passages that present the internal dialogue of Coriolanus and reflection upon his ordeal. However, Fiennes highlights the attempt to gain the voices of the people as a wholly arduous task for the general, emphasizing his lexical minimalism and discomfort in discourse with the plebeians due to his contempt for them. In a modern addition to Shakespeare’s original script, heavy and intensifying percussion instrumentally accompanies Coriolanus’ approach of the marketplace. Representative of the drums heard in war, this instrumentation is used by Fiennes to emphasize the task as a battle for Coriolanus with both his code of ‘stoic virtus’ and with his disdain for the people whose voices he must plea for. However, Coriolanus’ innate respect for those within the martial domain, as seen in Shakespeare’s text with his use of positive appellation such as “my fellows” for plebeian soldiers, is emphasized by Fiennes through modifications and additions in regard to Citizen 1. In the cinematic adaptation, Citizen 1 wears a beret emblazoned with a Roman crest, indicative of military service, which earns the respect of Coriolanus, symbolized by a handshake between the two. The only physical contact between Coriolanus and a plebeian in the scene, Fiennes adds this contact to highlight his adulation of those who most closely reflect his code of honour, and his simultaneous scorn for those who do not meet this criteria, being the vast majority of commoners. Coriolanus’ candid passage of prose “I will, sir…bountiful to the desirers” is omitted, with Fiennes opting to present Coriolanus’ seeking of consulship as a venture to be completed quickly, rather than one involving any sustained discourse with the lower class which he disdains. This notion is furthered with the removal of Coriolanus’ dialogue most similar to soliloquy “More sweet voices…the other will do”. As soliloquies in Shakespeare stereotypically allow the self-examination of the internal conflict of a character, the omission of this passage by Fiennes, partly due to the fact that a lone character on screen may appear contrived if the extra-dialogic instructions were to be obeyed, is also a result of his presentation of Coriolanus as unwilling to engage in reflection on the matter, favoring a rapid procedure of the unavoidable custom. In his “Your voices” speech, the dialogue in Shakespeare’s original text emphasizes the repetition of the metonimous “voices” as evidence of Coriolanus’ disposition to become obsessed with words that vex him. In Fiennes’s film, the dialogue is adapted such that Coriolanus delivers the speech in a stilted, mechanical manner, highlighting the preternatural nature of the words he delivers, as they are words spoken due to necessity, not honesty. Coriolanus’ interactions throughout the scene are adapted by Fiennes to emphasize his abject scorn and aversion to divulgence with the common class, due to his perception of them as a cowardly cohort and of inferior nature to himself, wholly in line with the characterization of Coriolanus in Shakespeare’s work, despite being highlighted in a differing manner.

Shakespeare’s setting and historical context are adapted by Ralph Fiennes to suit his cinematic adaptation of the text. While the original play is set in Ancient Rome, on the Jacobean stage, Fiennes’ makes the decision to transpose the play into a modern context. This modification through transposition provides the contemporary audience a familiar lens through which to understand and contemplate the major concerns of the work. While Shakespeare’s exploration of power and class transcends time, the modern screen adaptation affords the audience a greater ability to connect and identify personally with the issues presented. The audience are familiar with modern politics more so than they are ancient roman customs. The “napless vesture of humility” and “cap” worn by Coriolanus in in his walking through the marketplace are items of clothing that, in Shakespeare’s text, are worn by aspiring consul to present themselves unpretentiously to the plebeians to garner their respect. The clothing worn by Coriolanus in Fiennes’s film suitably avoids the anachronistic nature of the attire, but provides an alteration to the intentions of Shakespeare. Coriolanus wears a suit without a tie, apparel that remains indicative of his superior class to the plebeians, as their own clothing is of lesser sophistication. Due to his favor of military dress, conspicuous as these are the clothes he returns to following his removal of the “garments” of humility, Fiennes presents Coriolanus’ attire as representative of his engagement in the civic domain with the plebeians he regards as inferior, rather than appearing humble. Moreover, Shakespeare delineates Coriolanus as begging a small “brace” of citizens in the market place for their approval of him, partially due to the constraints of the stage size. Fiennes capitalizes on the film medium’s lack of restriction with space to depict a large crowd before Coriolanus in the market place. Through use of shot reverse shot, showing Coriolanus in the market square and then the common body after he speaks, Fiennes emphasizes the division between the protagonist and the common people. Fiennes’ uses minimal shots of Coriolanus and the common people within the same frame. When Coriolanus does speak to the citizens individually, Fiennes isolates the protagonist with a similar use of shot reverse shot. Close up shots of the 4th citizens’ eyes create a sense of Coriolanus being interrogated, and low camera angles are used that angle up to show Coriolanus literally and metaphorically above, or superior to the common body. While Shakespeare’s stage setting with fewer citizens effectively depicts the power struggle between the people and Coriolanus, Fiennes’s larger modernized setting works effectively also.

Ultimately, the medium of film is mimetic in nature, and while audience comprehension can be promoted through this paradigm, conflation or exclusion of complex literary themes is inevitable. Fiennes’s adaptation of Coriolanus is temporally incapable of exploring the eponymous protagonist’s character and developing the complex metaphor evident within Shakespeare’s play to an equal degree. However, through the use of a plethora of cinematic techniques and directorial decisions in regards to the omission and emphasis of components of the original play, Fiennes’ adaptation is one that accurately transposes the essence of the original Jacobean play to a modern setting.

Proclivity for violent outbursts. The proud and inflexible Coriolanus cries out in a key scene in the play, surrounded by his enemies, I banish you There is a world elsewhere (act 3, scene 3). But there can be no other world for a Roman-like Coriolanus, who was raised on the ideal of serving the commonwealth and striking blows ‘for Rome’: he brings Rome with him everywhere he goes. They see him as implacable, a machine bent on destruction when his old comrades Cominius and Menenius come to ask him to spare Rome after he leads an army of Volscians to Rome’s gates after being expelled. Coriolanus, solitary and unyielding in this scene, claims to be able to resist the promptings of instinct and stand As if a man were the author of himself, and knew no other kin (act 5, scene 3). However, the words ‘Rome’ and ‘Roman’ are repeated 15 times in this scene alone, ten of them by Coriolanus himself. When his mother, wife, and son appear before him in a final appeal, the burden becomes too much for him to bear, and he knows that if he spares Rome, he will eventually kill himself. He will still be an outcast, unable to find a home anywhere on the planet.

Identity in Coriolanu’s play about is inherently problematic because it is both personal and social. Coriolanus shows that identity is essentially impossible. In three instances, the play reveals the impossibility of identification. Coriolanus seeks to identify himself as an independent entity on a social level, only to reveal that the self is still dependent on the social field on which it stands. Psychologically, Coriolanus tries but fails to detach himself from his mother. On a linguistic level, he tries to name himself but fails once more. Coriolanus is an inability to become ‘the author of himself'(5.3.36) on all three levels. Also, the identity of Coriolanus led to his exile. He was shot down due to his great ambition and unwillingness to negotiate with the forces that seek his downfall. his military prowess seems to make him an ideal hero for the common people, But he loses the common touch, and his fear of global democracy makes him an enemy of the people. He finds himself in a republican current system that he cannot bear. As a result, its negation is appropriate; He has no place in the new political life of his city.

In this play Coriolanus by Shakespeare, Coriolanus’ expulsion is the peak of a sequence of incidents in which a few powers have a role, all impelling him to his absolute destruction. As is normal in Shakespearean Tragedy, the legend, at the crest of his accomplishments, falls, because of a lethal blemish in his character. Despite the fact that Coriolanus is viewed as the legend and hero of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus and ought to be a solid, thoughtful character, he is ruled and overwhelmed by the other principle characters of the play on the grounds that they well comprehend his shortcomings and have the capacity control and thrash him. Influence is the way to authority in Shakespeare’s play, and the individuals who have the ability of influence are the ones who succeed. Coriolanus’ blemish is his pompous pride and absence of restraint, and his fall is extraordinary, from national saint to pariah. A specific tactic of this drama is that Shakespeare demonstrates to us how the saint’s personality came to be imperfect. We establish that the defect stems from the family and society which formed his identity.

This understanding does not empower us to pardon Coriolanus for his conduct, yet it does keep us from exhibiting a primary highly contrasting case for the inquiry of who is at fault for his downfall. The plebeians, who are the poor masses and the patricians, who are the ruling class, are the two categories of subjects that exist in Rome, in the times of Coriolanus. The two factions are seen to live in a condition of almost universal enmity, with peace being kept up by an eagerness to bargain with both sides.

Coriolanus, be that as it may, does not settle well with the general public. His heroism positions him on top of the plebeians, and his absence of the politic sense places him beyond the social circle of the patricians. Coriolanus cannot comprehend the ideas of practicality and appreciation essential for the support of a stable society by its powers. He innocently sees society in shortsighted terms of great patricians and terrible plebeians. In his serious egocentricity, he supposes he is correct, and others are not. On the selection of tribunes, he reprimands the choice of the patricians and does so in dismal terms that demonstrate the cost he is willing to pay for his standards. His position in the public arena is unreliable because he has no social framework to provide for him backing or checks. He is an oddball, and all things considered his bond with the populace depends wholly upon his character and conduct. His personality takes him to the two limits of class in the public arena, especially according to the plebeians. The drama begins with the plebeians resolved to kill him, yet afterward they are set to choose him diplomat, regardless, later they are for executing him once more. Remembering that these warnings are not in vain, Coriolanus’s position is amazingly shaky; one ascertained push will depose him forever. The push originates from the tribunes; they perceive his lethal imperfection and use it as an issue to control him. Coriolanus must be responsible for his fault in this, for permitting himself to be so effortlessly controlled.

Coriolanus’ blemish is his arrogance, his emphasis on voicing his feelings paying a little respect to the results, and the intolerance that, makes him resistant to improvement. He solidly accepts that the obligation of each Roman male is to be brave, and bravery is virtuous. By demonstrating his wounds from the battlefield and commending his heroics to the masses in the market center, Coriolanus wants to win the support of the plebeians, by showing them his ethos. From the beginning, his self-importance is evident; he battles in the part of a solicitor. It is his resolute resolve that has prompted his prosperity, however it additionally leads him to loathe and detest every one of the individuals who, in his perspective, neglect to satisfy their obligation. The quality of his inclination is underlined by the terrible physical symbolism he utilizes as a part of tending to the plebeians. The thought of ‘compatriots’ does not evoke any sentiments from him. In spite of the fact that he is by all accounts battling for Rome, it is an individual principle or image, and he holds his kindred Romans in absolute hatred. They are an irrelevant riffraff to him, and to him there is not much difference between his kinsmen and his enemies.

It is not the way that he holds these suppositions, in any case, that seals his fate, it is the way that he can’t forgo voicing them energetically out in the open on every conceivable event. He demands acting thusly, against the word of wisdom, to disguise, from Menenius and his mother, yet his life is in danger. Brunus and Sicinius, Rome tribunes, are cognizant of this part of his personality, and how easy it is for them to use this flaw to their benefit. They are propelled mostly by their insight that if Coriolanus becomes their representative he will depose them from their positions.

They are very much aware of Coriolanus scorn for the plebeians, are terrified of the threat to the Roman subjects they speak to if the haughty war saint is chosen. Through their convincing discourse, they are effectively able to induce the plebeian masses; ability that Coriolanus has not comprehended. They speak to the residents of Rome and sense that Coriolanus, with his privileged pride, will be an inconvenience to the battling lower class that they speak to. Along these lines, their inspiration turns into the decimation and ruin of Coriolanus. They are also driven by their individual emotions of resentment and jealousy of Coriolanus, who has attained significantly more than they ever will. It is not troublesome for them to prod him into openly putting forth a treasonous expression, for which he is expatriated.

Regarding the activity of the play, in this manner, we must principally apportion blame to Coriolanus personally for his haughtiness and open showcase of disdain, and optionally to the angry envy of the tribunes, also to the uncertainty and artlessness of the plebeians. Notwithstanding, the play provides for us, confirmation of the reasons behind human moral fiber. Through the personality of his mother, besides the way of the Roman culture itself, we can identify where Coriolanus gets his character. From the excitement of the patricians and plebeians to adulate Coriolanus for his preeminent military skill, we can see the impact of Roman culture in exalting bravery as an ideal. Be that as it may this social impact will be normal to all Roman lineages, and therefore cannot be used an excuse for the excessive temperament of Coriolanus’ behavior. Significantly the most influential person is his mother, Volumina, which brings up Coriolanus, with the sole aim of making a great soldier out of him. Valeria’s gives us more knowledge, on how Coriolanus’s personality has been molded from a tender age, by way of her report on an adolescent Martius, Coriolanus’ child, over whom, probably, Coriolanus mother has had enormous sway. Subsequently we can feel incredible sympathy for Coriolanus, when he opens up that his mother has had far much influence on his life than is should have been. This understanding makes the inquiry of who is to be faulted considerably less obvious and maybe even futile.

Vengeance, chaos, uncertain honor and untimely death-whether describing the fall from grace of a noble king, impassioned General, or valiant warrior, each arises in the historically based tragedies of William Shakespeare. Coriolanus, Shakespeare’s account of the societal and self destruction of a Roman warrior paragon, proves no exception, depicting the demise that results from any character trait excess, even honor. This particular play introduces a further element of gender to fatal excess, providing, through the characters of Coriolanus and Volumnia, a theory on the relationship between masculine and feminine honor in Roman society, a relationship which, semantically intertwined and yet independent in actualization, leads to a conflict that necessitates the play’s tragic outcome in order to restore this chief virtue to both characters.

In Coriolanus both sexes value honor above limb, life, and love. Volumnia, a Roman matriarch and the primary female character in the play, establishes this value immediately upon her entrance into the plot, stating, “If my son were my husband, / I should freelier rejoice in that absence wherein / he won honor than in the embracements of his bed / where he would show most love”. This son, Coriolanus, echoes his mother’s verbal esteem for the virtue in action by leaving his wife and child whenever his station as honorable warrior demands, by welcoming the wounds consequent of those demands. Even the nobler of the minor characters reaffirm this value system. For example, Cominius, a Roman general and Coriolanus’ father figure, states with regard to his honorable service, “I do love / My country’s good with a respect more tender, / More holy and profound, than mine own life, / My dear wife’s estimate, her womb’s increase”.

Cominius, in this statement, declares not only honor’s significance to Shakespeare’s Romans but also the word’s signification within their society-sacrifice for patriotic defense, the product and producer of the “country’s good.” Both sexes share this definition, Coriolanus in particular expanding on it during the first act.

This “ill report” to be feared represents the loss of one’s honor in the sight of his peers, an honor that Coriolanus links the high estimation of, in this statement, to an equal regard for one’s country. Tufts University professor Linda Bamber in her book Comic Women, Tragic Men: A Study of Gender and Genre in Shakespeare supports a semantic fusion between the genders’ perceptions of honor, noting the preference of not only the male but also the female, who represents a “fanaticism according to the dogma of ‘manhonor-fight,’” for a “bloody ambitious sort of honor”. Indeed, Volumnia demonstrates this very fanaticism in stating, “. . . had I a dozen sons, each in my love alike, and / none less dear than thine and my good Martius, I had / rather had eleven die nobly for their country than one / voluptuously surfeit out of action”.

While the definitions of honor held by the two main characters coincide, their socially prescribed methods for obtaining this honor differ considerably. The male in Roman society, represented by Coriolanus, gains honor principally through physical participation in battle, a method inscribed upon the male in early childhood. Coriolanus’ son, for example, who in sharing his name represents an extension of the father to the audience, receives praise in the play’s text for the emergence of his warlike qualities when he tears apart a butterfly that had angered him in his pursuit of it. War, as the sole means of achieving masculine honor, further marks a patrician boy’s entrance into manhood, a ritual recounted by Volumnia when she notes “. . . To a cruel war I sent, from whence he returned, his brows bound with / oak . . . I sprang not more in joy at / first hearing he was a man-child than now in first seeing / he had proved himself a man”. Through battle in their country’s defense, men symbolically achieve true masculinity and the honor it entails, something Will Fisher shows by noting that, while Coriolanus lacks signifiers such as a beard, “he performs martial feats which quite literally confer masculinity”.

Despite its realization independent of the physical signs of puberty, this masculine honor, bestowed as a result of the sacrifice of the self, requires symbols upon the self, specifically Coriolanus’ scars and cognomen, for Roman recognition. Cominius bestows the latter of these two symbols shortly after witnessing Coriolanus face and subdue an entire city alone, proclaiming, “For what he did before Corioles, call him, / With all th’ applause and clamor of the host, / Caius Martius Coriolanus. Bear / th’ addition nobly ever!” (1.9.62-5). Immediately upon his return to Rome with the noble addition, Coriolanus receives recognition of his honor’s extent from the general populace, who, despite their hatred of his supposed pride and unkind tongue, find themselves unable to rightfully deny the services he has shown his country. Beyond his name, Coriolanus’ scars, each a visual proclamation of flesh sacrificed, provide a further, perhaps more widely available, means for the soldier to prove his honor. Copp?©lia Kahn in her feminist analysis of Shakespeare’s works supports this symbolism, noting that “[w]ounds signify martial prowess . . . The warrior who survives his wounds asserts the impregnability of the male body . . .”.

The Roman female, by contrast, must obtain honor through the gendered Other rather than the Self, through maternal and, indirectly, martial sacrifice as the physical and pedological mold of Rome’s mortal weapons. Kahn demonstrates this feminine role, arguing the existence of two “constructions of the maternal,” the second of which is that “a mother produces sons for the state, to which she owes them” (146). Women, to whom social scripts make participation in battle unavailable, realize their honor through association with and support of those without this restriction. While these men-as-honor-sources need not necessarily be sons, as in the case of Virgilia whose husband fulfills the role, for the widowed Volumnia the filial source remains the sole source from which to enact her patriotism. This role as mother sacrificing son to state manifested itself prior to Coriolanus’ birth when Volumnia “. . . help to frame [him],” continued during his infancy when she recalls to Coriolanus, “thou suck’st [thy valiantness] from me,” and remains for the adult Coriolanus around whom the plays centers. In the final stage of his life, Coriolanus, able now to earn the battle honor for which his mother shaped him, achieves such that may reflect back upon its source, his outward recognition becoming the symbol of his mothers’ dues paid to her country and, consequently, her honor.

For Volumnia and the other honorable Roman women whom she represents, this leads to an inability to distinguish between honor and honors, as she receives a quantity of the former equal in proportion to the amount of the latter bestowed upon her son. Volumnia demonstrates her connection of the two early in the play, stating, “I, considering how / honor would become Coriolanus – that it was no better / than picturelike to hang by th’ wall, if renown / made it not stir . . .”. Renown, often the product of publicly granted honors such as the consulship Volumnia will later plead with her son to do all necessary to attain, receives the status among Roman women, in this statement, of that alone which confers worth upon honor. The desire for Coriolanus’ renown serves as the prompt of Volumnia’s later statement, “O, he is wounded: I thank the gods for’t”, a statement the matriarch qualifies with “There will / be large cicatrices to show the people, when he shall / stand for his place”.

Conversely, the difference in masculine and feminine honor actualization makes the distinction between honor and honors clear for Coriolanus, who will not sacrifice the former by begging for the latter. While he wears his wounds proudly and thanks Cominius for the “good addition” of his surname, Coriolanus consistently rejects verbal, material, and societal rewards as a means of external compensation for internal sacrifice. For example, when offered his choice of the defeated Corioles’ spoils, the warrior remarks, “I thank you, general, / But cannot make my heart consent to take / A bribe to pay my sword”. Menenius recognizes this rejection by Coriolanus noting, “He’d rather venture all his limbs for honor / Than one on’s ears to hear it . . .”. This dismissal of outward praise by Coriolanus is something Lynn Enterline interprets as a socially acceptable means for the hero to obtain more of that which he denies himself, and Kahn echoes this belief, observing that even when Coriolanus “rejects the praises wounds elicit, he does so in a way that recalls them”. While each denial by Coriolanus does in fact reference the scars upon his frame, his motivation for this repetition stems more likely from the fact that the praise, not his wounds, bears a connotation of shame. Earned solely for his country, the depiction of Coriolanus’ wounds as a means for gaining self tribute marks a form of sacrilege for the noble warrior. Coriolanus’ own words regarding his unwillingness to praise himself lend support to this interpretation: “To brag unto them ‘Thus I did, and thus!’ / Show them th’ unaching scars which I should hide, / As if I had received them for the hire / Of their breath only!”.

This absolute adherence to honor on the part of Coriolanus confirms his role as the ne plus ultra of Roman warrior virtue, a character excess which disrupts the socially perceived harmony between the bestowing of honors and the recognition of honor, creating the conflict that leads to Coriolanus’ expulsion. Standing for consulship, Coriolanus cannot, as noted, subdue his honor, specifically by exchanging the mannerisms prescribed for the protection of his country for those best suited to further himself, “doff[ing] his hat, kneeling, bowing his head in humility”. In addition, neither the plebeian nor the patrician classes of Rome measure up to Coriolanus’ ideal of honor. Presenting their country with demands for comestibles rather than sacrifices for its safety, the commoners are, according to him, “curs, / That like nor peace nor war . . . Where he should find [them] lions, finds them hares” . His fellow soldiers fare no better in his estimation, accepting retreat to their trenches rather than accompanying him within the enemy’s walls and thereby incurring description as “. . . a plague . . . / The mouse ne’er shunned the cat as they did budge / From rascals worse than they”. This combination of an excess of honor in Coriolanus and a lack of absolute honor in Roman society leads the tragic hero to hold no value for societal opinions, refusing to yield to the will of either class when standing for consulship. As a result Coriolanus’ political enemies, Sicinius and Brutus, seize upon both his forsaken humility and righteous hatred of the plebeians in order to play on public fears that the commoners will suffer under his government.

This results in a treason trial, during which both Rome’s patricians and plebeians refer to Coriolanus as “Martius” while requesting or allowing his exile, stripping him of both the lexical emblem and patriotic root of his honor. This revocation of Coriolanus’ honored cognomen initiates in the accusations of Sicinius, “Martius would have all from you, Martius, / Whom late you have named for consul,” is echoed by all the commoners present in their proclamation of, “Yield, Martius, yield!,” and even extends to those held highest in his affection with Menenius declaring, “Help Martius”. Sicinius and Brutus meanwhile succeed in their demands and, with little protest from Coriolanus’ own class; the people pronounce a verdict of banishment. Although the later lines of Coriolanus’ fellow nobles restore to him his title, the link between the moment of declared exile and the stripping of his name signifies the connection between loss of statehood and loss of honor.

Despite this loss of statehood, Coriolanus refuses to change the composition of his character, declaring upon his exit from society, “While I remain above ground, you shall / Hear from me still, and never of me aught / But what is like me formerly’. However, he now lacks a higher power to surrender himself to in the pursuit of honor, and therefore, must, in order to restore this honor, displace it onto the land of equally honorable enemy, the Volsces. Upon learning of this enemy’s approach in the first scene, Coriolanus states, “They have a leader, Tullus, Aufidius that will put you to’t. / I sin in envying his nobility, / And were I any thing but what I am, I would wish me only he”. Coriolanus further refers to this adversary as “. . . a lion / that I am proud to hunt”, evoking the same bestial metaphor he used to deny honor to the plebeians in order to demonstrate the great measure of this quality in Aufidius. This honor possessed by Aufidius and acknowledged by Coriolanus confers honor upon the land Aufidius serves in its gain, a fact which enables the hero to enact his patriotic redirection there. Upon approaching the place, Coriolanus states, “My birthplace hate I, and my love’s upon / This enemy town. I’ll enter. If he slay me, / He does fair justice; if he give me way, / I’ll do his country service”. The service to which Coriolanus vows must take the form of an attack upon his own country, not only to meet the requirements of vengeance through retribution equivalent to Rome’s crime, but also to truly avail a land whose worth hinges upon the conquering of that state.

Ultimately this attack brings Coriolanus, described as the “the oak not to be windshaken”, into conflict with both the seed “[w]herein this trunk was framed” of his honor, his mother, and its original root, his country. Cominius demonstrates this conflict within Coriolanus by stating, “Coriolanus’ / He would not answer to, forbade all names. / He was a kind of nothing, titleless . . .”. Having shed the emblem of honor bestowed upon him by Rome but having not yet forged an equivalent in service to the Volsces, Coriolanus’ honor has failed to fully reinstate itself through displacement. It thus occupies a precarious position, particularly within the hero who still thinks of his homeland in terms of possessive modifiers even while his allegiance is sworn to another: “. . . for I will fight / Against my cankered country . . .”.

The conflict for the women, however, rests not between two countries but rather between their fatherland and their patriarch, and this conflict, according to Bamber, results in the separation of Coriolanus from his mother, the two now “mortal antagonists” (92). Volumnia seeks a compromise that in sparing herself and her country, would prove “poisonous” to Coriolanus’ honor by forcing his betrayal of the Volsces to whom his mother holds no allegiance.

Young here depicts how Siddons portrayed Volumnia’s sense of honor through body language, an element outside of Shakespeare’s text to which his intended audience would have had access. The combination of this image with the Romans’ speeches upon her return demonstrate a restoration of honor, both internally felt and externally recognized, to Volumnia, equal to that her son had held in the play’s opening scenes.

While the outcome of the play is decidedly tragic for both its male and female protagonists, one having lost his life and the other her only child, out of this tragedy both characters arise, whether in casket or in body, with honor restored to them both in the eyes of their society and the Elizabethan audience. More importantly, the characters nobly accept the consequences of this restoration, rectifying both Coriolanus’ fatal excess and Volumnia’s deficiency, creating a balance which allows for the fulfillment of the Aristotelian tragedy convention of catharsis for readers and play goers alike.

In Coriolanus play, Getting a name is closely associated with having an identity , so if a person does not have a name, he is nothing. Comenius said about Coriolanus ‘He called me by my name only once, and I reminded him of our relationship and the blood we’ve shed together. He wouldn’t answer to ‘Coriolanus’ or any other name. He was a kind of nothing, titleless, until he had forged himself a name out of the fire of burning Rome’(A5 ,S I). Coriolanus, at the start of the play, had a good sense of self. As the play develops he falters and decides to become extremely independent, refusing even to acknowledge the name that his mother gave him throughout the play, he changes his name and identity on a frequent basis. Coriolanus opposes Rome’s social values and creates his own set of virtues to live by.

Coriolanus was despises the poor and feels disgusting from them. He was rebukes the poor, hungry for daring to beg for corn. Coriolanus said ‘What’s the matter, you dissentious rogues that rubbing the poor itch of your opinion, Make yourselves scabs?’(A1, S1). In the play’s first scene, Coriolanus punishes the poor of Rome for requesting food to eat. He chastises the famished wretches for requesting corn from the aristocracy, which he considers to be a criminal act. When Coriolanus was elected consul, he promised to deny food to the poor unless their rights were removed. The right to appeal to the tribunes, or people’s representatives, was the most important of these privileges, which was granted to please the people after the plebeian secession. The system of tribunes, the vocalizers (and influencers) of the common will, was something Coriolanus hated more than anything else in the real world. After becoming consul, not only did the Coriolanus refuse the poor corn, demanding the revocation of their privileges, but he also requested that their spokesmen be deprived of their influence.

The group of Roman nobles tries to convince Coriolanus to change his character. ‘Let them puff all about mine ears, present me Death on the wheel or at wild horses’ heels, Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock, That the precipitation might down stretch Below the beam of sight, yet will I still Be thus to them’ (Act 3, scenes 2).Here Coriolanus informs a group of Roman nobles in this scene that he has no intention of altering his character to satisfy the mob’s desires.In Coriolanus play, Getting a name is closely associated with having an identity , so if a person does not have a name, he is nothing. Comenius said about Coriolanus ‘He called me by my name only once, and I reminded him of our relationship and the blood we’ve shed together. He wouldn’t answer to ‘Coriolanus’ or any other name. He was a kind of nothing, titleless, until he had forged himself a name out of the fire of burning Rome’(A5 ,S I). Coriolanus, at the start of the play, had a good sense of self. As the play develops he falters and decides to become extremely independent, refusing even to acknowledge the name that his mother gave him throughout the play, he changes his name and identity on a frequent basis. Coriolanus opposes Rome’s social values and creates his own set of virtues to live by.

Coriolanus was despises the poor and feels disgusting from them. He was rebukes the poor, hungry for daring to beg for corn. Coriolanus said ‘What’s the matter, you dissentious rogues that rubbing the poor itch of your opinion, Make yourselves scabs?’(A1, S1). In the play’s first scene, Coriolanus punishes the poor of Rome for requesting food to eat. He chastises the famished wretches for requesting corn from the aristocracy, which he considers to be a criminal act. When Coriolanus was elected consul, he promised to deny food to the poor unless their rights were removed. The right to appeal to the tribunes, or people’s representatives, was the most important of these privileges, which was granted to please the people after the plebeian secession. The system of tribunes, the vocalizers (and influencers) of the common will, was something Coriolanus hated more than anything else in the real world. After becoming consul, not only did the Coriolanus refuse the poor corn, demanding the revocation of their privileges, but he also requested that their spokesmen be deprived of their influence.

The group of Roman nobles tries to convince Coriolanus to change his character. ‘Let them puff all about mine ears, present me Death on the wheel or at wild horses’ heels, Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock, That the precipitation might down stretch Below the beam of sight, yet will I still Be thus to them’ (Act 3, scenes 2).Here Coriolanus informs a group of Roman nobles in this scene that he has no intention of altering his character to satisfy the mob’s desires.