GITS Script Reading and Analysis Series: “Shakespeare In Love” — Characters

Welcome to Week 8 of the GITS Script Reading & Analysis series. This week we are analyzing the screenplay for the 1998 movie Shakespeare In Love (written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard), your choice for the Romantic Comedy sub-genre.

You may access the 1998–06–04 version of the script here.

Today we discuss the script’s characters. Here is a list of most prominent ones in order of appearance in the script:

Fennyman

Henslowe

Will

Dr. Moth

Burbage

Tinley

Rosaline

Queen Elizabeth

Viola de Lesseps

Lord Wessex

Nurse

Marlowe

Urchin

Lady de Lesseps

Sir Robert

Alleyn

Sam

Screenplays are unique narrative forms for many reasons, one of which, I contend, is that each character in a script should have a function. Oh, sure, depending upon the genre or circumstances in a story, you may be able to drop in a secondary or tertiary character who pretty much exists for pure entertainment value, but that is not the case with primary characters. A screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and the interplay of character functions is a critical aspect of that blueprint.

There are five primary character archetypes we see in movies all the time. They are:

Protagonist: The lead character, the character through whose perspective the story is told, the character who typically goes through the most significant metamorphosis.

Nemesis: Provides opposition to the Protagonist, often represents the Protagonist’s shadow, their dark impulses, tied somehow to the Protagonist’s goal.

Attractor: Characters who are most intimately tied to the Protagonist’s emotional development, often a love interest, Heart.

Mentor: Characters who are most intimately tied to the Protagonist’s intellectual development, wisdom, Head.

Trickster: Characters who test the Protagonist, switching allegiance from ally to enemy, enemy to ally, intentionally or not helping to prepare the Protagonist for their Final Struggle.

So an interesting way to approach analyzing the characters in Shakespeare in Love is: (1) Cull through the above list, picking out the most important characters. These represent the story’s primary characters. Why do you think they qualify as a primary character? What about who they are and what they do elevate their status to such importance? (2) Look through the lenses of Protagonist, Nemesis, Attractor, Mentor, and Trickster to consider what the respective narrative functions are for each primary character.

If you are uncertain as to a character’s potential archetype, ask yourself this: When all is said and done, what is the most fundamental narrative function this character provides to the story? Strip the character all the way down to that core essence. It is almost always a determining factor in understanding their archetypal role in a story.

See you in Comments to discuss the characters in Shakespeare in Love.

For Day 1 of our analysis of Shakespeare in Love, go here.

For Day 2 focusing on structure, go here.

Remember the upcoming schedule of scripts:

Week 10 [November 7-November 11]: Drag Me to Hell [2007–09–26] — Horror Comedy

Week 11 [November 14-November 18]: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind [2003] — Charlie Kaufman

Week 12 [November 28-December 2]: Panic Room [2000–02–23] — Action Thriller

NOTE: THIS SERIES AND THE USE OF SCRIPTS IS STRICTLY FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES!

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