VolciakLens1King+of+Shadows

Samantha Volciak //King of Shadows //: Reader Response //King of Shadows // and Young Adults  Shakespeare is a topic that I am very interested in and passionate about. As a future teacher, I often wonder how I will get my students to be interested and engaged in his works. //King of Shadows// has taught me that you can take a difficult topic that would normally be less appealing to students, and present it in a fun, interesting way that includes elements they can relate too. Therefore, I feel this story could definitely be used to teach young adults about Shakespeare, his time period, and //A Midsummer Night’s Dream.//  The text, as a whole, presents an interesting story that grabs the reader’s attention. This is important because young adults are not going to become engaged in a story that is dry and boring. The text also focuses on topics that young adults can identify with, such as, loneliness, growing up, losing a loved one, and coping with that loss. A teacher can very well use this text as a bridge to teaching Shakespeare because the text is not only interesting and relatable to young adults, but touches on many key elements concerning Shakespeare. For example, when Nat first arrives at the old Globe he discovers Will Kempe quitting the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. In real life, Will Kempe played the part of the fools in Shakespeare’s plays, and actually did quit to be replaced by Robert Armin, who is also mentioned later in the story. This is significant because Shakespeare makes references to his absence in many of his plays, such as //King Lear//. No fool even exists in //Hamlet,// because Shakespeare did not have an actor for the part.  There are, of course, more significant issues in the text that young adults should learn about. For example, when the basin and garbage get dumped into the street, the characters are unaware of sanitation and are causing the plague by bringing the rats. Another part with historical significance is when Nat conducts the “Heimlich maneuver,” and is accused of being a witch. We as readers can laugh at the situation; however, this would have been a very serious matter in this time period because they took witchcraft very seriously. The teacher can discuss witchcraft laws with the students, and how Nat is lucky to have arrived during the reign of Queen Elizabeth and not King James, or he would have surely been executed. An interesting assignment might be to imagine if he did arrive under the reign of King James, and consider how the plot would change.  This text could also be used to teach //A Midsummer Night’s Dream//. I feel it would be a challenge to get young adults engaged and interested in the play. I remember reading Shakespeare in high school, and I was not even remotely interested in reading his works. I feel young adults do not get engaged in Shakespeare because of the language, and different dialect of the time period. In addition, teachers, or at least my high school teachers, do not make any connections between the play and the topics that young adults can relate too. This play is full of topics young adults are battling with, such as growing up, loneliness, homogenous friendships being threatened by heterosexual relationships, love sickness, and independence. Many of these topics are addressed in //King of Shadows// as well, and an interesting connection exists between the two texts. Therefore, this text serves as a good starting point, or even a substitute for //A Midsummer Night’s Dream.// The text not only discusses the play and includes many quotes from it, but is ultimately the same plot. The characters are in the real world where they are suffering from a conflict, so they travel to the “green world” where they can grapple with this conflict and work to resolve it. Finally, they return back to the real world where everything around them has significantly changed due to their transformation.  Overall, I feel this text has a powerful effect on the reader. It is the type novel that pulls one into the story because of the interesting events going on. By following Nat’s journey, the reader feels like they have been transported to Shakespeare’s England. Cooper achieves this by using powerful depictions of the scenery, tastes, and smells. The reader does not only see what Nat is seeing, but can smell the horrid odors of poor sanitation, and taste the foods they have never experienced eating. I like the line Nat’s aunt speaks towards the end of the novel. She says, “Poets find truth by writing about what they love” (180). I think this detection, along with Shakespeare’s help, guided Nat to truly come to terms with his father’s loss. In addition, Nat realizes Shakespeare loved him too, since he modeled Ariel after him. Other than the story, I think readers can take this quote and interpret it in their own light. We not only write about what we love, but are influenced by our love in every action of life.