CLASS 9 SEVEN AGES BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

SUMMARY 

This monologue compares the world with a stage in a theatre. Men and women are the actors or players on this stage.

Actors playing roles have entrances and exits during a performance. Life also has its entrances and exits- people are born and die and pass in and out of our lives. Just as an actor plays a variety of roles in life, so too do men and women play different roles or pass through different stages or seven ages of their lives.

The speech then focuses on the experience of men. However it is also possible to consider how the lives of women might be divided into seven ages or stages.

The first role or stage is that of an infant or baby. The baby cries and whines before vomiting in the arms of his nurse.

In the second stage of life man plays the role of a small boy or child. He holds a school bag, has a shiny face and walks as slowly as he can because he does not like school and is reluctant to leave home.

The role of the lover is the third stage of life. He is young and foolish and falls passionately in love, singing a sad song about love in which he describes the beauty of a girl’s eyebrows.

In the fourth stage of life the man plays the role of the soldier. He has a beard, swears oaths and is ambitious to seek out honour. He is so keen to improve his reputation he is willing to risk dangers such as cannons in war.

In the fifth stage of life man plays the role of a justice or judge. He has grown fat from eating expensive meats. He uses his experience of life and the knowledge he has gained to offer what he thinks are wise sayings and advice and good decisions.

In the sixth stage of life the man becomes a pantaloon or weak old man. He is so thin his stockings become loose. The speech compares this stage of life to a return to being like a baby or child.  Old men and small children both have high voices and are dependent on adults.

The seventh and final stage is extreme old age or a second childhood. Like babies very old men are dependent on others and have no teeth. The old man loses his memory, hearing and control of his senses before dying.

LITERARY DEVICES

1. Simile - ‘creeping like a snail”; “soldier… bearded like the pard”; etc.

2. Metaphor - The entire speech itself is more like symbolism; men and women are portrayed as players whereas life is portrayed as the stage. Shakespeare uses the “stage” as an extended metaphor.

3. Repetition - Another figure of speech used in this monologue; words like sans, age, etc. are repeated for the sake of emphasis.

4. Anaphora - It is used in the eighth and ninth lines, beginning with the word “And”.

5. Synecdoche - “Made to his mistress’ eyebrow”; “And then the justice”; etc.

6. Alliteration - “his shrunk shank”; “quick in quarrel”; etc.

7. Onomatopoeia - “pipes / And whistles in his sound”

8. Asyndeton is a figure of speech that occurs when words like “and” and “or” (coordinating conjunctions) are removed from sentences.  e.g. Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste......"