Rosalind In Shakespeare's As You Like It

Three Lover for One Beloved: Rosalind in Shakespeare’s As You Like It Shakespeare’s As You Like It is a play that puts several women in its centre. Three of these women, Rosalind, Celia, and Phebe, with one male character, Orlando, form an interesting group of lovers who form different romantic pairs in the matter of gender and sexuality. Rosalind, as the one person who explores different genders and gets involved with both sexes, is at the core of these unusual pairings. First, as a woman, with Celia experiences something closer to a homosexual relationship, falls in love with a man in the process, and gets the attention of a woman, Phebe, while posing as a man. The last part gets even more unusual when considered her “act” gets rather feminine in front of Phebe, and that is potentially what gets her attention.

Similar to Phebe’s situation, he also experiences different sexualities through Rosalind’s changing gender performances. At first the young girl, then the pretty youth enamour Orlando both under the name of Rosalind. It again can be seen as a suggestion of homoerotic love, however, considering Butler’s “gender is performative” theory, it does not go beyond appearance. No matter how man-like she looks, she still acts feminine at the core, since at this point she is a female, acting like a male, acting like a female. Even though out of her “Rosalind” love game she assumes the role of Ganymede with Orlando, in their game, she is still Rosalind, a female. The fact that Orlando does not completely see Ganymede as his Rosalind can be understood by their parting scene in Act 4, where Orlando promises to come by stating “if thou wert indeed my Rosalind” (4.1.182). He does not completely lose himself in the act, and can freely discuss “his Rosalind” with this fake one. However, this part is open to interpretations and ambiguous since these are scenes that take place in the non-binary