"My father charged you in his will to give me good education: you have trained me like a peasant, obscuring and hiding from me all gentleman-like qualities."(I. i. 3).
This act is filled with contrasting characters. I think that we talked about this at the beginning of the year, where characters incorporated in a story are foil characters. Here, basically all of the characters have an opposite character. For instance, Oliver and Orlando are brothers, but they are complete opposites. Oliver is older, but he is simply evil. He does not share any of his wisdom with Orlando because Oliver is selfish. The Dukes are also opposites; however, their story is a little different. Oliver was the older brother in the Oliver / Orlando foil character pair. Here, Duke Senior is older, but he has been overthrown by his YOUNGER brother. I just find this situation worse. It's one thing if an older sibling is harsh to a younger sibling, but come on. I don't even know what I would do if my younger siblings treated me the way Duke Frederick treats Duke Senior.... Anyways, other foil characters include Jaques (truly pronounced Jay-Queez. I finally believe you now, Mr. Costello! hahaha) and Touchstone. Jaques kind of takes things a little too seriously, for he was crying over the dead deer in the forest (II. i. 19). Touchstone is always being a jokester. Jaques doesn't believe in falling in love. He makes fun of Orlando for writing on the trees to express his love for Rosalind. However, Touchstone ends up getting married in the end. All of these foil characters contributed to the plot of As You Like It to add more dimension to the play.
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