Orlando is the male hero figure in As You Like It though
Rosalind is the true hero, dressed as she is in the garb of a youth. Orlando has latent
abilities and greatness bound within him that have not been fulfilled because he was not
educated or trained according to the conditions of his father's will.
Nonetheless, Orlando finds his strength and courage with
the help of Adam, a long-time family servant and conquers the wrestling champion in a
match. When he has to flee for his life and take refuge in Arden, his sentimental
emotional side is revealed as he laments for the lose of Rosalind's love and writes
untutored, ill-composed poetry on trees and hangs verse on bushes to adorn the forest of
Arden with his musing on Rosalind's beauty and his great love of her. Adam sums up
Orlando's character as he questions:
Why are you virtuous? why do people love
you?
And wherefore are you gentle, strong and
valiant?
Oliver is the
villain and persecutor of Orlando. Oliver is part of Duke Frederick's court and together
they do not hesitate to commit murder. Oliver is greedy, selfish, wrathful, and
vengeful. After Orlando asserts his rights and asks for his inheritance, Oliver plots;
as Adam explains it,
[having] heard [Orlando's] praises, ... this
night he means
To burn the lodging where you use to lie
And you
within it
Nonetheless, being,
along with Orlando, the son of Sir Rowland de Boys, Oliver does have some innate quality
of goodness that allows him to be reformed--and all it takes is a lioness and meeting
Celia.
OLIVER:
'Twas I; but 'tis not I. I do not shame
To tell you what I was, since my
conversion
So sweetly tastes, being the thing I
am.
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