Dynamic Characters

Oliver: "O that your Highness knew my heart in this!
              I never loved my brother in my life" (III.i.34).

Oliver is one of the dynamic characters that changes as a result of the story's action. At the beginning of the play, he wanted to sabotage his brother Orlando. He wants his brother to lose in the wrestling match against the mighty Charles and he wishes pain upon his brother. When Orlando beat Charles in the wrestling match, Oliver is furious. According to Adam, Oliver planned, "To burn the lodging where [Orlando] used to lie, And [him] within it: if [Oliver] fail of that, He will have other means to cut [Orlando] off." (II.iii.21). Yet in Act III, Duke Frederick tells Oliver that he will be the one that dies if he doesn't find Orlando. Oliver starts to feel remorseful for how he treated his own brother and how he threatened to kill him, once he realized how it felt to be threatened. As a result, in Act IV, Oliver seeks out his brother and and delivers the bloody napkin to Rosalind for Orlando. His attitude toward his younger brother is changes due to his realization of what it feels like to be threatened.
Another dynamic character in As You Like It was Jaques. He seems to have two different sides to him. On one hand, "The melancholy Jaques" grieves at the sight of a dead deer (II.i.18). He is rather emotional and yet he is carefree when he is with Amiens, encouraging him to continue singing songs. To me, Jaques seems easily inclined toward different emotions--He is excited upon telling Duke Senior about how he met a fool in the forest and he gives a huge explanation about his encounter with the fool. Yet, the other side to Jaques is a more serious side, which contrasts what the audience is previously exposed to. His "All the world's a stage" speech is one of the most famous Shakespeare speeches, and it's somewhat surprising that it is given the character Jaques, because it is not the type of speech one would expect from him. Nonetheless, Shakespeare shows that Jaques is a dynamic character through Jaque's ability to discuss the seven stages of human life in a rather profound fashion.