Coriolanus the Overgrown Child: Analysis of Language to Interpret the Character Anonymous 10th Grade

Shakespeare conjures in Coriolanus a character who manifests at times the immaturity and childishness of a typically arrogant and naïve Shakespearean antagonist; yet so too does he render a sense of Coriolanus’ virtuous nobility and honesty which one would find in an archetypally sympathetic Shakespearean protagonist. Thus, Shakespeare splits critics and audiences alike into these two camps, although Coriolanus is seen to be a great spirit due to the fact that his major flaw - being the brutality of his behavior towards the people - is in fact born from the same candor which makes him so honorable throughout the play, thus suggesting that his flaws do not come from malevolence, but from misguided principles. Shakespeare conveys to the audience an aura of Coriolanus’ greatness primarily through his nobility and modesty, manifested throughout the play.

Following his conquest of Corioles, Cominius and his men heap praises upon him such as ‘we thank /our Rome hath such a soldier.’ Through the contrast of the grandiloquence of this speech when compared with the bare and uncomfortable words of Coriolanus, ‘I have done as you have done,’ his humbleness and modesty as well as his reluctance to speak arrogantly of his own deeds are...