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Act 1, Scene 10
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in If We Were Villains, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Fate vs. Free Will
Identity and Disguise
Love and Sexuality
Theatre and Corruption
Summary
Analysis
September and October move quickly. The fourth-years admit their strengths and weaknesses in Gwendolyn’s class one by one: Alexander is convincingly scary but maybe too villainous, Wren is emotionally intelligent but too sensitive, Richard is confident but too egotistical, Filippa is versatile but too difficult to categorize, and James is talented but too easily lost in his roles. When it’s Oliver’s turn, he says that his weakness is his lack of acting ability relative to the others, but he can’t think of a strength. James chimes in and tells him that he’s a good person and a “generous actor” who makes others on stage look good.
The fourth-years’ strengths and weaknesses are generally in line with their typecasts. As the novel progresses, the fourth-years’ weaknesses begin increasingly to drive the action. Oliver’s inability to think of his own strengths suggests his insecurity, which may be at the heart of his close relationship with James. As he does here, James often reassures Oliver and bolsters his confidence, and because Oliver puts James on a pedestal, his compliments are particularly meaningful to him.
Themes
In Frederick’s class on October 16, the students argue over the tragic structure of Julius Caesar and Macbeth. A discussion of ambition as a tragic flaw devolves into a heated argument over which character in Julius Caesar is the “tragic hero”: Caesar, the titular character; or Brutus, the civic-minded man who betrays him. Richard asserts that Caesar fits the mold of a tragic hero better, since he has one clearly defined flaw (ambition), while Brutus has many. When he describes Brutus as proud and vain, James implies that Richard himself has the same qualities. Richard threatens him icily, but after Frederick cuts in, both boys apologize, and Oliver believes that all is well. Still, he notes that it’s the first true aggression he’s seen between his friends, musing that “actors are by nature volatile.”
James and Richard aren’t really fighting over Brutus and Caesar, the characters that they respectively play; rather, this conversation is an argument over whether James or Richard is the “hero” of their group (i.e., the most important). Again, the line between themselves and their characters is blurred—they even insult each other through comparison to their stage counterparts. The conflict is resolved through apology again, but Oliver’s narration leaves the incident on an uneasy note. His attribution of the aggression between Richard and James to the natural volatility of actors makes the argument sound as though it were always going to happen, implying that James and Richard might have been on a collision course for a while. It also absolves them of responsibility for their actions, implying that they can’t help but act that way since it is their “nature.”
Themes
