Audrey: Character Analysis in As You Like It

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      Audrey is a country wench who herds goats and who marries Touchstone. She is portrayed as especially ignorant, not even understanding Touchstone's ridicule of her.


‘She is more rustic, homely, ignorant, and ill-favoured.
I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul.’

      Audrey is a homely and ignorant shepherd girl. The courtly manners and motley suit of Touchstone attracted by her rustic simplicity so that she readily casts off her old lover William to attach herself to the witty clown. In intelligence, she is no match for him, but in honesty she is superior;

Well, I am not fair; and therefore I pray the gods make me honest.

      Her love, while it lasts, is as sincere as that of any other character in the play. Audrey looks forward hopefully to the marriage which is to set the seal upon her happiness.

      I do desire it with all my heart: and I hope it is no dishonest desire to be woman of the world.

      Touchstone’s manner of wooing, Audrey forms a contrast with every other love in the play. His marriage with the country slut is as ridiculous as the behavior of the countryman is most mockable at the court.

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