Comic Life

Turning Tables

The character of Jacques in As You Like it, is often defined as the antagonist. Assuming that the strong, magnificent character of Rosalind is the protagonist, some comparisons between the two can be drawn to conclude whether or not it is right to call Jacques the antagonist. To start off, Rosalind is very successful in what she does. She is self-centered, keeps a cool head, is smart in her plan to test Orlando’s love, and comes up with a great plan to disguise as a man and travel through the forest of Arden to see her father. She knows how to criticize herself and others with charm and gives herself fully over to the given circumstances. On the contrary, Jacques refuses to stop being sad and floats around in his melancholy, always criticizing the foolishness of the people that surround him. While he thinks to be very smart in what he says about others, and he actually seems like the hidden smart fool that has a better understanding of society than everyone else, Rosalind does the same deed with more grace and charm and most importantly a better understanding of the situation. Rosalind critiques in order to change a previous circumstance into something better for her, like Orlando’s foolish love and Silvius’s irrational devotion to Phoebe. Jacques on the other hand doesn’t care if people are changed by his words. He appreciates the attention he gets and he certainly enjoys when people are perplexed after he’s done criticizing the court and life in general, but he doesn’t make an effort to break out of his melancholy. In the end, Rosalind returns to court with all the other characters because they realize that that’s where they belong even though the forest was a nice change for a while that made them realize what they’re looking for in life. Jacques though, stays in the forest which once again shows his opposition to the other characters and his need to be different and feel like he’s the only one who ‘get’s it’. After seeing to what extent Jacques the fool opposes the other characters and is so different in his goals than Rosalind, he can easily be defined as the antagonist of the play.