Oliver

Play

As You Like It

Summary

Oliver de Boys is Orlando's tyrannical elder brother who has denied Orlando his inheritance, his education, and basic dignity. Driven by unexplained but intense jealousy toward Orlando, he plots his younger brother's death by enlisting the wrestler Charles and later conspires with Duke Frederick. His transformation is one of the play's most sudden and emblematic conversions: when Orlando saves the sleeping Oliver from a lioness in the forest, Oliver is overwhelmed by shame and genuine gratitude, becomes a new man, and falls instantly in love with Celia (Aliena).

Notable Quotations

"I hope I shall see an end of him; for my soul — yet I know not why — hates nothing more than he." *(I.i)*

Cross-references

• As You Like It — the play
• Comedies — genre
• character_orlando — his younger brother, whose mercy transforms him
• character_celia — his love interest after his reformation