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As You Like It

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As You Like It
In the play As You Like It by William Shakespeare, love portrays and presents itself differently and in many forms to each character. The diverse attitudes towards love in this play are due to the dissimilar lifestyles, the court and nature, and backgrounds of each character

The romantic notion of love is thwarted by Touchstone and Audrey, as their marriage is basically a contract. Audrey is attracted by courtly manners and as soon as she meets Touch stone she finds her way to court; and decides to marry him, and Touchstone marries her for female company. The love affair of Touch stone and Audrey is prosaic. It serves as a foil to romantic love in the play. Others in the play fall in love at first sight with beauty; but Touchstone takes a fancy to ugliness. Audrey the ugly honest and chaste girl represents the peasant class of women. Though Touchstone and Audrey also get married at the end of the play they are not in love with each other. Their marriage is like a contract where each one gains something from the other.

Audrey is a simple country girl who lacks intelligence .she is also honest that is why she thanks god for making her ugly.She is unable to understand the poetry of Tochstone.Touchstone 's attitude towards Audrey is anti romantic . He does not appreciate her charm and plays with words and tells her that it is good she is not beautiful as no beautiful woman can be honest. Their love affair has been shown in a lighter mood .Touchstone does not wish to marry her seriously and wants to abandon her when he gets tired of her, after sometime on the pretext of having not been married by a qualified priest . Their romance is hence a role reversal of that of Rosalind and Oliver and they are supposed to be farcical characters . However Audrey's love for Touchstone is
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