- All's Well That Ends Well
- Antony and Cleopatra
- As You Like It
- The Comedy of Errors
- Coriolanus
- Cymbeline
- Hamlet
- Henry IV, Part 1
- Henry IV, Part 2
- Henry V
- Henry VI, Part 1
- Henry VI, Part 2
- Henry VI, Part 3
- Henry VIII
- Julius Caesar
- King John
- King Lear
- Love's Labor's Lost
- A Lover's Complaint
- Macbeth
- Measure for Measure
- The Merchant of Venice
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Othello
- Pericles
- The Rape of Lucrece
- Richard II
- Richard III
- Romeo and Juliet
- Shakespeare's Sonnets
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Tempest
- Timon of Athens
- Titus Andronicus
- Troilus and Cressida
- Twelfth Night
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- Venus and Adonis
- The Winter's Tale
The narrator has explained that the Important Person might not objectively be particularly important, but that he deliberately increases his own authority by requiring his subordinates to imitate him. The narrator adds that this is a common practice "in this Holy Russia of ours."
Once again, the story reveals the way in which a certain code of behavior is embedded within society for no logical reason, yet goes unquestioned despite its absurdity. Indeed, the "mania for imitation" seems to promote irrational, inefficient, and corrupt behavior, as people fail to think for themselves and instead simply copy what their superiors do…