Why coriolanus matters

That story reveals the growing dependency of Volumnia, once so invulnerable in his eyes, on her adult son and, worse, her incapacity to accept any change in their positions. She brings this lesson home to her son, however inadvertently, when she gives up on persuasion and produces a savagely ironic performance of her weakness. What brings Coriolanus to his knees in this reading is his slow recognition of her frailty and its consequence to him: he must assume the humbling responsibilities he owes to the members of his household, including his once formidable mother, who depend on him.

Coriolanus knows, as she does not, that she really has mistaken the relationship of parent to child all this while, as she said without meaning it. In what seems to be a private aside, because it is impossible to imagine she is listening, he evokes the gods, who look down at the tragic spectacle, in which both mother and son violate the laws of nature and the gods:.

O mother, mother! The speech is remarkable for the compassion it shows to his mother, who can see no ill in her actions and cannot take his word on faith. Abandoning the principle of strict justice by which he has striven to live, Coriolanus acts to protect his mother from the knowledge of her dependency on him and, more horrifyingly, on the outer world of determinism and fate that he believes she sent him out to combat. Rather than force on her the unbearable knowledge of her vulnerability and illusions, he gives her what he denied to the people: the right to think well of herself.

Left to his own devices, Coriolanus would spend a lifetime sweating with wrath on the battlefield and auditing his performance for minute lapses.

Had he learned these lessons earlier, perhaps he would have revealed his wounds to the people of Rome. The liues of the noble Grecians and Romanes , translated by Thomas North , p. Lee Bliss, ed. You can get your own copy of this text to keep. Download it to get the same great text as on this site, or purchase a full copy to get the text, plus explanatory notes, illustrations, and more.

As Paul Veyne puts it, the Stoics of the late Roman Empire aimed to create the impression that the I is all-powerful, that only it matters, and that it can be sufficient unto itself. The moment he's back, he's supposed to flip the switch to "off" and start making nice.

Guess what? Rome can't have it both ways. At least not according to Shakespeare, who shows us that Coriolanus can't just switch roles the second he steps back onto his home soil. Go to "Themes: Warfare" if you want to think about this some more. The other important thing to know is that Coriolanus has a freaky relationship with his mom, Volumnia. He may be a big time war hero, an important member of the patrician class, and a grown man with a wife and kid, but he's just a mama's boy at heart.

He runs for political office just to please her 3. Oh, and that last thing? That gets Coriolanus killed, because the Volscians accuse him of treason and use it as an excuse to hack him down in public 5. At the very least, we can say that Coriolanus' psychological relationship with his mom is a mark of his emotional immaturity, especially when he lets her boss him around like he's a little kid.

We can tell that Coriolanus might be insecure about the fact that she treats him like a child because he totally flips out when someone calls him "boy" [5. You know, just a little. A lot of literary critics even go so far as to argue that Coriolanus' mom is the whole reason for his tragic downfall. If this is true, then it's a pretty big deal. The argument goes that tragic heroes always experience a huge downfall because of some kind of personal flaw, like pride or anger.

If Coriolanus falls because of his mom—well, that's a whole different kind of tragedy. Parents Home Homeschool College Resources. Study Guide. By William Shakespeare. Previous Next. Flawed Tragic Hero Truth: Coriolanus hasn't exactly won any popularity contests with audiences in the last years or so—kind of like he doesn't win any popularity contests with the plebeians, who kick off the play by rioting in the streets and threatening to go after him with a bunch of clubs and pikes and what not 1.

Here he in action, when the plebs riot on the streets of Rome and demand better access to the city's food supply: What's the matter, you dissentious rogues, That rubbing the poor itch of your opinion, Make yourself scabs? Coriolanus has got some serious flaws. He's got way too much "pride," he's a plebian-hating snob, he can't ever say anything nice, and he often doesn't even seem like a human being. Did we mention that his mom raised him to be a war-mongering, killing machine?

Hero is destined for destruction and downfall: Check. The genre of tragedy is all about tracing the dramatic rise and downfall of its "hero" and Coriolanus is no different. The play shows us a military hero who kicks butt on the battlefield that's the "dramatic rise" part but who just can't hack it back home as a politician. He's so lousy at politics that he gets booted out of Rome and joins forces with the Volscians, but even they turn against him.

Hero dies: Check. Shakespeare's tragic heroes never make it out of the play alive, no matter how much we want them to.

Let's say, for argument's sake, that there's an American presidential candidate who appears to hold his country's electorate in such contempt that no stunt or lowly trick is beneath him or his advisors. Every new week only seems to bring new ways for him to display his unrivaled cynicism and to further debase the political process.

Well, in that case, do I have a play for you. It's Shakespeare's Coriolanus , and it's not particularly well known or widely staged. That's unfortunate. Here's an excerpt from a BBC production: The snippet above comes from Act 3, Scene 1 , in which the title character, a celebrated Roman war hero, scuttles a plan by the Roman Senate to provide some relief-- in the form of food handouts to a starving populace -- in a time of financial crisis.

Move on. Nothing to see. Coriolanus calls the Roman populace "common fools" and "the mutable, rank-scented many. As for my country I have shed my blood, Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs Coin words till their decay against those measles, Which we disdain should tatter us It is, in fact, Coriolanus's Machiavellian disdain for his countrymen that makes the play so difficult to stage as it's typically presented: A tragedy.

A tragedy requires that we somehow sympathize with the hero whose rise and later fall is the lifeblood of the play. But Coriolanus is such a contemptible figure, and not nearly as fascinatingly contemptible as Richard III, that productions of this "tragedy" often fall flat. The key to the play, though, is found in a quip by George Bernard Shaw. Coriolanus , Shaw said, "is the greatest of Shakespeare's comedies.