Coriolanus (Vol. 30) | Bruce King (essay date 1989)
Bruce King (essay date 1989)
SOURCE: "Coriolanus and His Mother," in Coriolanus, Macmillan Education Ltd., 1989, pp. 76-80.
[In the following excerpt, King describes the allegiance of Coriolanus to his mother and her effect on him when he seeks revenge on Rome.]
At the core of each of Shakespeare's plays is some fundamental human problem, a failed rite of passage such as the unwillingness of a father to give up his daughter's love (King Lear) or the way jealousy turns into destructive rage (Othello, Winter's Tale). Hamlet although 30 years old seems immature in his idealisation of his father and his emotional attachment to his mother.
Early in the play the First Citizen says the services Coriolanus has done are not for his country but 'to please his mother' [I.i.39]. His mother speaks of him both as a husband and as someone she would sacrifice for the fame it brought: 'If my son were my husband I should freelier...
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