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The play's eponymous hero is a difficult man with whom to sympathize. His virtues include his military prowess (amply displayed in the play's battle scenes) and his sense of honor—but his honor easily lapses into unpleasant pigheadedness. Among his primary enemies lurk two clever schemers, Brutus and Sicinius, but, as Coriolanus is incapable of scheming himself, he is at a disadvantage from the beginning. Yet the two tribunes are hardly
The plot centers around a class conflict, between the political and economic elite, or patricians, and the poorer but more numerous plebeians. The recent expulsion of
The world of the play is a man's world; the two chief arenas in which one can gain power—politics and war—exclude women. The female characters seem confined to the domestic sphere: We see them sewing, gossiping, welcoming their heroic husbands home from war, and engaging in other appropriately female activities. However, the character of Volumnia, Coriolanus' mother, shows how a strong-willed woman can have an impact in a male-dominated society. Volumnia lives through her son, raising him to be a warrior, delighting in his victories, and, ultimately, hoping to see him reach the peak of political power, the consulship. Through it all, he remains dependant upon her, so much so that she is able, at the end of the play, to succeed where all his male friends have failed—in convincing him to forgive the Romans and spare Rome from destruction. For this feat, she is hailed as her city's savior, while he, the great warrior, slinks off to die in Antium—an ironic reversal and a triumph for maternal and female strength.
