Minor Characters and Themes Minor Characters in

Minor Characters and Themes Minor characters in any play act as supporting foils and help to advance the plot. Without these foils, it would be impossible for the play to progress in the way that playwright has envisioned. Besides carrying the play forward, they also help in highlighting the major themes of the literary piece.

In almost every piece of fiction, whether a play or short story or novel, we come across certain important minor characters that are minor because while they lend support to the plot, they are not directly influenced by the intentions of the author. The people who remain in the forefront and bear the brunt of all action are the major characters, and thus their in the story is obvious and needs little discussion.

However it is the minor characters that need to be closely analyzed or discussed to see why they have been placed in the story and what purpose do they serve. The best way to accomplish this is by removing them from the play and see how the story would have turned out had there been no minor character.

This help in accentuating their importance and also reveals their purpose in the story as Roy Walker notes, "They [minor characters are] are aspects of a larger truth, elements in a more majestical theme." In Shakespeare's plays we come across more than a few minor characters. Usually his plays are fraught with characters varying in significance and impact. In Hamlet we meet few important minor characters including Gertrude, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Claudius or Horatio cannot be termed minor because they played extremely dominant roles in the play and thus are excluded from the list of minor characters. Once we have recognized the minor characters, our next step is to find out what purpose they served in the play and what themes did they bring to the fore. In Hamlet, we notice that the three minor characters mentioned above helped in highlighting the importance of honest relationships in one's life.

Every person needs some sound reliable relationships in his life and with the absence of the same, he is likely to disintegrate as a person. That is exactly what happens to Hamlet who suffers because of the betrayal of his friends and mother. He was so emotionally broken by the realization that his mother had remarried so quickly after the death of his father and that his two childhood friends had been conspiring against him that he starts having fits of lunacy. Relationships act as cornerstone for a successful life.

Fake, imaginary or less than genuine relationships cast a negative influence on our lives and can only add to our existing troubles. The most important thing is sincerity and loyalty that relationships promise but when they fail to keep this promise, man suffers either emotionally or mentally. This is what we notice in Hamlet especially where his childhood friends were concerned. Some critics believe that these two minor characters had not really betrayed Hamlet but were only trying to obey the King's orders.

As Roy Walker (1948) writes, "They only obey the King, and obedience to Kings was imperative in Shakespeare's day. They are really Hamlet's friends -- would he choose worthless companions to his youth and humor? To the end they are ignorant of the King's real designs upon Hamlet, bearers of a sealed commission. They never lie to Hamlet (which is not quite true) and do not deserve the death he metes out to them.

Such are the dangers of studying one or two figures in isolation from the artistic design of which they are part. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are minor characters in Hamlet but closely integrated with the pattern of the play." (Page 81) whether they actually betrayed the protagonist is out of the scope of our current discussion, but Walker's last sentence in the passage above is worth closer attention.

Minor characters are part of the whole design of the play and this says a great deal about their significance in any story not only Hamlet alone. they help in advancing the action of the play as Walker observes: "The ghost appears to minor characters.