What is Shakespeare’s larger purpose in his characterisation of Coriolanus in Act I?

In the play Coriolanus, Shakespeare designates his leading character with qualities that correlate with other classical heroes, yet depicts his flaws as well, while setting the stage for further conflicts ahead.

As the main protagonist and central character, throughout who the play revolves around, Coriolanus proves to be a severe, yet highly respected warrior within Rome. Shakespeare illustrates him with great leadership and authenticity to his character  through glimpses within the act 1 in lines such as "Hang em! They say!", the exclamations providing emphasis upon his control over the public. His great hate for the plebeian's or lower class of Rome crafts further exaggeration in this politically centralized play. The text "Hang ye! Trust Ye? With every minute you do change a mind, And call him noble that was now your hate, Him vile that was your garland. What's the matter, That in these several places of the city You cry against the noble senate, who, Under the gods, keep you in awe, which else Would feed on one another? What's their seeking? " contains rhetorical questions, as Coriolanus argues upon the worthiness and significance of the public, speaking of their rapidly shifting emotions and using diction such as "garland" "awe" to emotionally derail the citizens and their perspective of the wealthy.

He can also be categorized as an active character who (throughout act 1) creates various mistakes, one of the most significant being his  avoidance of disposing-off of his arch enemy Aufidius, providing sparks of attitude and self-centeredness. The lines "he's a lion that I'm proud to hunt" contain animal imagery, conveying prowess to Coriolanus's tone of speech, yet is highlighted as irony of circumstance, as he has esteem for his enemy and is aware of the fact that there is non who may challenge him in his quest more than Aufidius, becoming an important form of reasoning as to why Coriolanus leaves him wounded rather than dead.

As a result, Shakespeare uses his characterization to foreshadow key moments to occur as the tale progresses, producing an entrance towards the political scenario of Rome. Shakespeare provides no personal touch of thought towards Coriolanus's character, though, avoiding the implementation of soliloquies, yet crafts an unusual hero, almost unlike the connotations of good, regardless of his strong physical stature. Nevertheless, with lack of rational decision making and slight absence of mind, Coriolanus could walk along the path of evil as the play moves forth.

bell hooks Blog Post

"An unbroken connection exists between the broken English of the displaced, enslaved African and the diverse black vernacular speech black folks use today. In both cases, the rupture of standard English enabled and enables rebellion and resistance. By transforming the oppressor’s language, making a culture of resistance, black people created an intimate speech that could say far more than was permissible within the boundaries of standard English."

Selected Text: What's so wrong with "sounding black?"

The following text correlates with the quote above made by bell hooks as it speaks of the common misconceptions and viewpoints towards African Vernacular English as having wrong or incorrect grammatical rules and forms of speech. The author produces and proves her own claims of AAVE and how certain linguists have categorized and contrasted it to standardized English, leading to false results or conclusions which are usually based upon "racial bias". The text battles with white stereotypes, as the author declares that "I stress that, in this case, I am talking about an accent, not poor diction and not slang, but a distinct cadence and way of pronouncing words.". She urges for such a rebellion to stop, facing away from black vernacular, through comparing and contrasting other dialects in English "The change is largely unconscious mimicry, much like how a New Yorker who now lives in California might find her Brooklyn accent gets a little stronger when she goes back home".

Similarly, this idea connects with bell hook's saying above where she states that there are still distinct features of AAVE and Broken English that separate the two, as she persuades the audience of the fact that the African Americans produced an independent dialect to portray sovereignty to showcase the varied features their society has achieved regardless of the white's. As a result the two authors display the tongue as a form of resistance from the acts of oppression applied towards them in the past, and symbolize the significance of their own rights through the craftsmanship of this dialect.