- 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
Here, Anthony explains his mother’s “Evil Rays”—his nickname for the judgmental looks she often gives him. According to Anthony, the rays contain “contempt, accusation, disdain, [and] puzzled faux-innocence,” which is to say that his mother expresses her hostility nonverbally and passive-aggressively rather than saying what she thinks. This creates a dynamic in which Anthony is essentially paralyzed: he knows that his mother disapproves of him but can’t do anything to defend himself or placate her, since she rarely says anything outrightly rude.
Notably, Anthony decides to “thwart [his mother] with unrelenting good cheer” rather than confronting her about her behavior…