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Duality in Shakespeare's Works
The theme of Duality in literature can be defined as contrast or opposition between two different concepts. It is a broad theme that covers a diversity of smaller themes throughout Shakespeare's collection of works. Duality is described by the Oxford Dictionary as 'The condition or fact of being dual, or consisting of two parts, natures, etc.; twofold condition'. Duality is also defined as “two conceptually distinctive ideas that are interrelated” by Mona Ericson. Duality can be referred to as dichotomy and is expressed through the characters, their words, actions, and the situations they experience. Duality, or dichotomy exist in many genres of literature and can be found represented in Shakespeare’s romances and his tragedies, including:


 * Themes of Duality in Shakespeare's works are found in:


 * Macbeth
 * Antony and Cleopatra
 * Romeo and Juliet
 * A Midsummer Night's Dream
 * Twelfth Night
 * Hamlet

It is inevitable to have two opposing inclinations as a human being, these can include good and evil, private and public, and love and hate. Shakespeare utilises this everyday duality in his works, alongside more occasional dualities, such as, fear and courage and past and future. Neal Shusterman says “people aren’t all good, and people aren’t all bad. We move in and out of darkness and light all of our lives.” This quote, shows that human beings have two driving desires, a good one and a bad one; these are often opposing or harmonised in daily life.

Duality Examples
Duality is when one thing or idea contains two conflicting sides, it is also a situation in which two opposite ideas or feelings exist simultaneously. Examples of these opposing concepts in Shakespeare's works are day and night, positive and negative, male and female, good and evil, love and hate, life and death, war and peace, home and exile, foul and fair, supernatural and natural, and fear and courage. These examples can exist in a single entity or situation or as separate concepts. Marion Bodwell Smith writes 'no single duality is permitted to dominate the study. Each play is shown to have its own kind of conflict and degree of resolution'. There is no single, dominating theme of duality, Shakespeare's plays each have many subthemes of duality running throughout them. Smith writes 'What this amounts to is a book about not only the most important dualities- good and evil, reason and passion, nature and art- but ironies, puns, paradoxes, inversions'. However the duality of hero and villain or antagonist and protagonist is portrayed in almost every piece of literature written by Shakespeare, this may be seen as a single dominating theme of duality as it is consistent. Shakespeare demonstrates these examples of duality within the language, characters, and events in the play that he creates.


 * Examples of opposing concepts in Shakespeare's works:


 * Good and Evil
 * Love and Hate
 * Life and Death
 * Home and Exile
 * War and Peace
 * Supernatural and Natural
 * Past and Future
 * Fear and Courage
 * Foul and Fair
 * Day and Night
 * Male and Female
 * Antagonist and Protagonist

Duality in Macbeth
The play Macbeth represents duality in a variety of ways. It explores foul and fair, supernatural and natural, and good and evil. In act 1 scene 1, when the witches chant ‘fair is foul and foul is fair’ it shows the duality of righteousness. The duality of the supernatural is shown by the witches, whilst its opposing force, nature, is shown by the raging storms and tremors in the earth. The boundaries between the opposing forces of nature and supernatural are blurred; the supernatural witches have the ability to create natural things like storms. Finally, the dual nature of morality, the fight between good and evil, is portrayed throughout Macbeth by the characters. The duality of morals, good vs evil, is shown by Banquo in particular, Alina Degünther writes Banquo 'embraces all characteristics of goodness' but slowly succumbs to the temptations of evil.

Duality in Antony and Cleopatra
Similarly, to Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra should be enemies, but instead find love, making the theme of duality in this play of Antony and Cleopatra love and hate. The conflict of love and duty is a subtheme for love and hate, the main protagonist, Antony, finds himself torn between these two opposing concepts. Antony also finds conflict between his past and present self, creating a conflict between old and new. From his struggle between his past self, a war hero, and his present self, a lover, we can see the fight between peace and war being portrayed.

Duality in Romeo And Juliet
The play Romeo and Juliet represents duality with the entirely different emotions of love and hate. The duality of life and death is also pertinent to this play being portrayed throughout the final acts, where Romeo and Juliet both narrowly escape death and live only to choose death in the end. Additionally, the duality between home and exile is shown when Romeo is banned from entering Verona. A quote in Romeo and Juliet that is heavy with duality is "Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms, Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health," and the duality between love and hate can be seen by the quote "O brawling love, O loving hate".

Duality in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The play A Midsummer Night’s Dream presents duality through the blurring of reality and fantasy in this play about fairies. This is closely connected to the conflict between order and disorder or abandon and restraint in A Midsummer Night's Dream's use of settings. The play opens in Athens, founded on ideals of law and order. Yet a distinct opposite to this order is the forest, which symbolises disorder and celebration. Additionally, like many other plays, there is a duality between love and hate, the love of Lysander & Hermia and the hatred or unrequited love of Helena & Demetrius.

Duality in Twelfth Night
In Twelfth Night respectability is doubled with informality, the world of nobility conflicts with the world of outsiders. The idea of twins throughout Twelfth Night is a more physical use of duality used by Shakespeare, the confusion between Sebastian and Viola and the roles that they play would not if they were not identical twins. Both Viola and Olivia are connected as they are both in mourning over their assumedly dead brothers. Additionally, it seems as if Olivia and Viola's names are anagrams for one another.

Duality in Hamlet
The characters in Hamlet show a broad duality between the moral conflict of good and evil and sanity and insanity. Hamlet must choose the good and resist the evil, but slowly starts deteriorating from a well-respected man into believing the ghost of his deceased father and choosing insanity and evil. The other characters in Hamlet also feel effected by their conscience as they reflect on their past, present and future actions. The duality between sanity and insanity is often blurred, Polonius says, 'Though this be madness, yet there is a method in't' showing sanity can be simultaneous with insanity.