Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years in Solitary with the Bard

by Laura Bates

Awareness of multiplicity of interpretation is the key to reading Shakespeare.

“People just put themselves into so many prisons,”

“The hope is that the more insight you get into these characters, the more insight you get into yourself,”

‘So every bondman in his own hand bears the power to cancel his captivity.’ To me, that’s empowering, that we can free ourselves at any time—psychologically, I mean.”

“For me, all my violence, all of it, related to the impression I was trying to make. I don’t think I’ll ever lose that desire to make impressions, but two things have changed. I’ve found different ways to make impressions: with my intellect or whatever.

This is the way they see the world. It’s not like they’re trying to be this person. I know what I know based on whatever my experience is, and they know what they know because of their ordeal, right?”