The saga continues. Part two was an eventful installment, with bloodshed and high jinks galore. Act IV in this play was especially interesting. First, Suffolk is murdered dramatically, at sea, like a common pirate…and then the real action begins with the depiction of the rise of the rebel leader Jack Cade. The action unfolds quickly (there are a full ten scenes in this Act), with Cade acting as the lightning rod for all sorts of anarchy and mayhem.
Cade’s depiction was particularity interesting. Shakespeare makes him out to be nothing short of a hysterical madman with a deep hatred for all things civilized. The dude rails against everything, especially lawyers (famous quote here: “The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers”) and anyone who can write (the poor clerk Emmanuel is murdered by Cade in this Act for the heinous crime of literacy: “Away with him, I say! hang him with his pen and ink-horn about his neck”). The dude’s a real bloodthirsty freak who unsurprisingly meets a brutal end. Unsurprisingly and apropos…what do you think would happen to a character in a Shakespeare play who hates writers?
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