Cue for Treason: Question V

Question Number V:


5. Students often have difficulty relating to Shakespeare or other writers from the past. However, they do not have as much trouble relating to characters that are set in the past, as in historical fiction. Choose one of the main characters, Peter, Kit, Sir Phillip or another, and persuade the audience that as characters we can still relate to them today. You may want to start with their characteristics and then think of present day examples that are similar.

      Sir Phillip will be the character that I will be analyzing today. Sir Phillip is the landlord in Cumberland from the book Cue for Treason. He was that guy that had everything, but also wanted everything. By this, I mean that he was very rich. He inherited estate from his grandfather. He also owned lots of land, and lived in a large mansion, as he was part of the noble class. Even though he had much more than he needed, he still wanted more. He charged people living on his land much more than what they always payed, trying to make more money. He built a wall around citizens' land forcefully, claiming that it was all his, even though it wasn't. He even planned to try to assassinate the Queen, so that he could obtain more power.

     Sir Phillip is a greedy, shallow, and selfish person. He abused his power by taking people's land forcefully and raising land rent rates, just for more money. Even though we see him as the very bad, mean, greedy antagonist, we aren't that different from him. It isn't ALL of Sir Phillip's fault for being greedy. It's in our nature. As humans, we are all greedy. We want more, even when we have what we need. As a Canadian citizen, I am very thankful for having a roof over my head, healthy water and food, a car, a computer, and much more many things that would take too long to list. I have all I need! No, I have more than I need! But I still complain and always want more and more things. African children would give up everything just to have fresh water. American girls would give up everything to meet Justin Bieber. See the difference? We are no different from Sir Phillip Morton!


Kronos, or Cronus (from Ancient Greek Myths), was the leader and the youngest of the first generation of Titans, descendant of Gaia and Uranus. He, in my opinion, relates to Sir Phillip Morton. Kronos envied Uranus' power, as Uranus was the ruler of the universe. From this envy, greed took over Kronos. He [Kronos] got a great stone sickle, and cut Uranus into a thousand pieces, so that Kronos could rule the universe.

   A present day example would be the warlords in Somalia. As Somalia is in a devastating famine, international aid is mandatory. But all humanitarian aid sent to Somalia is either rejected, taken, or stolen by the warlords, just for their gain, and not thinking about all the dying Somalians.

    Even if it seems like Sir Phillip is not like us, or related to us in anyway, in the end, we can relate to him in many ways.