This question was one in which I had to take my time with. I read it over and over again to truly grasp it in context of my life and my involvement in Service Learning at Hagar's House. When I first brought up the question of Shakespeare with the women, the women seemed very hesitant to respond. One of the women said, "I never studied Shakespeare but I feel I never took the time to engage with his works because they don't relate to me." I thought she made a very valid point. How do we get someone like Shakespeare, a 16th and 17th century English man, to engage with the diversity within our society? I, to an extent, agreed with her. Even for those who may not be so familiar with Shakespeare, when you see productions of Shakespeare's theatrical works and even movie versions of them it sometimes feels like you are watching it at a distance. What I mean by that is that you feel removed from it and I think one of the reasons people may feel removed from it is because you never see people of color play a lot of Shakespearean roles and therefore it seems as if Shakespeare becomes solely exclusive to White audiences and White people.
How can we get Shakespeare's works to transcend the borders of color? Well, first off the themes within Shakespeare's works aren't color exclusive. Treachery, betrayal, loss of innocence, insanity, mental instability, love, chaos, these are all themes in which I think every person can relate too, but it makes it harder to relate to it when you feel, that as a person of color, that people who look like you are never cast in these roles. Therefore you feel isolated from the work. I told the women that Shakespeare is for everyone and that we all must open our eyes to find the deeper meaning within the text.
One thing I like about Shakespeare is that Shakespeare critiqued all classes and he didn't abide by the rules of his time. According to Aristotle, wealthy men could only be tragic heroes and therefore plays produced should show them in a favoring light where audiences felt sympathy for them. Shakespeare said screw that and he showed the flaws of every character, whether rich or poor, and made all characters very human. The very rich, no matter how divine they may think they are, are still human and they are flawed. I told the women to not let Shakespeare isolate you but to engage with the text and allow Shakespeare to bring these characters to life for you by revealing their flaws.
Shakespeare relates to the real world because he creates characters that are three dimensional and representative of humans. Shakespeare has helped inform my service learning because it helped me connect with the women. We all have something to learn from one another and sometimes people can think that if your doing the service that you are the one who is there to teach but in reality, if you are open to it, you can and will learn. As humans we are all each other's teachers and students and there is a sense of humility that comes with that. Shakespeare reminds us that no matter what walk of life you come from you are still subjected to human error and flaw. No person is better than the other and we are all just learning along the way.
This post has a lot in common with Taylor Hebert's post, which also discusses the lasting appeal of Shakespeare's investigation of humanity. I think by focusing on the flaws of individual characters you make them somewhat more accessible, but another thing that makes them appealing is how even Shakespeare's darkest tragedies contain some kernel of redemption. This is one of the things that keeps me coming back to his plays: for all the really messed up stuff they deal with, Shakespeare never leaves us without a sense that things can be better and that we can do something about it.
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