To what dramatic effect does
Shakespeare use disguise in As You Like It?
Answer: Shakespeare’s
As You Like It employs the use of
disguises for the initial purpose of deceit. While the trickery involved with
identity bending in the play is used for temporary gain, in the end, the final
outcome of such deceit leads to revelations of a higher truth. Thus, while
there is obvious deceit, the result leads to the exact opposite. The characters
most intimately involved with these instances of deceit generally learn
something about themselves by the end of the play and perhaps more importantly,
the reader can interpret the play as Shakespeare’s comment on the mutability of
personality and character.
Rosalind in As
You Like It is one of the most powerful of all the women characters encountered
in any of the Shakespearian comedies. In terms of her personality and wit, she
seems to be unmatched. One of the reasons she is able to express herself so
fully is that she remains disguised as a male for a long portion of “As You
Like It“. This allows her to experience her emotions and thoughts
outside of the more constrained world of the female and even she remarks in one
of the important quotes from “As You Like It”, “Now go we
in content, / To liberty, and not to banishment". 