Jacques As An Antagonist

In the play As You Like It, by William Shakespeare, there is a high amount of antagonism. The most obvious instance of this is Oliver at the beginning of the play, when he is mistreating Orlando. Another instance is Duke Frederick, who exiled Rosalind from his house. This are very typical forms of antagonistic archetypes, with them being openly hateful. This is a form of antagonism that is commonly shown in films produced by Disney and Pixar, where the ideas of good and evil are very black and white. There is another form of antagonist, however, one that is shown in films such as the Bourne Ultimatum, where the lines between good and evil are blurred. The antagonists in these sorts of films are very gray, with their ideas being well intentioned and not just being evil for evils sack. This is the sort of antagonist that Jacques is. He is being antagonistic towards the other characters in the play simply to help them understand that the way they are thinking is wrong. Of course, this idea is something that you would imagine from a supervillian, who says that they intend to fix the world, but go about it in the wrong way. Villains such as Lex Luthor and Ras Al Ghul have good views such as this, but want to meet their goals through killing millions. While Jacques doesn't take it to that extent, he still makes his good intentions known through attacking the other characters points of view. He is very pretentious in his views, at one point making fun of the verse that Orlando has been writing on the trees. He says that he lacks wit, and shouldn't be ruining the trees with his poetry. Along with being insulting towards Orlando, Jacques is very covetous of Touchstones position, even going so far as to pitch his wit against him. However, Jacques seems to be lacking in wit, something that has made him even more angry with Touchstone. This lack of wit is shown in his famous speech, 'All The Worlds A Stage'. Doing research, it appears that this way of thinking was very well known before this speech was made, which possibly highlights that Jacques simply was re-purposing somebody else way of thought to further his own ends. Also, the fact that he is very proud of giving up his wealth and estate, as shown in Act 2 Scene 5, he takes to show that he is better than everybody, again highlighting how he believes he is vastly superior to all the other characters in the play. All of this factors show how Jacques is an antagonist, not only through action, but through his way of speaking as well. He is shown as being disliked and hurtful, and feeling very superior to the other characters, traits that are almost universally shared between antagonists in fiction.