Shakespeare Character Explorer

Every figure gets the same treatment: what they are for structurally, how they change, who they are set against, and the reading that usually goes wrong.

Play:
Role:

Relationship Web

Every connection in the play, typed by what it actually is. Filter by relationship to see the whole pattern of schemes, services and counter-moves at once.

Play:
Kind:
A relationship map is only useful once the edges are typed. Two characters connected is not information. One character deceiving another while a third serves them and a fourth mirrors the first is a structure, and that structure is usually the argument an essay needs.

Foils and Parallels

Shakespeare builds meaning by pairing. Each pair below isolates one quality, and naming the quality is what turns a comparison into an argument.

The Plays

Structure, sources, and the question each play is built around, with a count of what this explorer currently covers.

Essay Method

Nine moves for writing about a Shakespeare character, and the failures each one prevents.

Extending This

Everything on this page comes from four arrays. Adding a play, a character, a relationship or a foil pair is appending one object, and nothing else needs to change.