Comedy In Shakespeare Essay, Research Paper

Shakespeare

wrote many plays during his lifetime. Some of his plays have similar comedic

characteristics and then other plays are the exact opposite of comedy.

Shakespeare wrote tragedies, romance, history, comedy and problem plays all

with great success. During the performance of these plays there was no scenery

so great time was taken when developing the characters and the plot so the

plays would be entertaining. A Midsummers Night’s Dream and Much Ado About

Nothing are just two of the comedies Shakespeare wrote. These two plays have

many things in common where as Measure for Measure is a problem play with a

totally different tone. Comparing and contrasting these three plays will help

us to understand what Shakespeare thought comedy was in the 1600’s and to see

if our views on comedy are the same today.A

Midsummer Night’s Dream is a festive comedy. The play takes place in June and

this is a bewitched time. In the spring the custom is to celebrate the return

of fertility to the earth. During this time the young people spend the night in

the woods to celebrate. Shakespeare uses the greenworld pattern in this play.

The play begins in the city, moves out to the country and then back to the

city. Being in the country makes things better because there is tranquility,

freedom and people can become uncivilized versus when they are in the city and

have to follow customs and laws and behave rationally.Comedies

contain blocking figures and in this play it is Egeus. If he was not in the

way, Hermia could marry Lysander. Since he is causing problems in his daughters

life by trying to make her marry Demetrius, this begins the journey into the

woods. Egeus threatened Hermia with death if she were to marry Lysander so she

thinks the only way they can be together is to run away. One strange element is

why Egeus was so set on Hermia marrying Demetrius. Lysander came from as good a

family as Demetrius. Both were well possessed with property and money so

Egeus’s power is made to seem senseless.The play

moves into the woods which is haunted by fairies who are there to bless the

wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta. The quarreling between Oberon and Titania

over the changeling boy leads to the king wanting to embarrass Titania with the

love juice by making her fall in love with a monster. The first person she sees

is Bottom and she falls violently in love with him.Oberon is

making a spectacle of Titania and Bottom. It is ridiculous that she is in love

with him because he is from such a lower class than her, he is human and she is

a fairy, and he has the head of an ass. She is also a queen and he is an

uneducated working man and a match like this would never happen. Bottom has

such a problem with language. He speaks in malapropisms. He tries to say one word

but always comes up with the wrong one. He is a working man who tries to act

more educated that he really is . Through Bottom and Titania we see that love

is blind. Also, while Titania is under the influence of the love juice she

releases the changeling boy to Oberon so he did accomplish his goal.The

confusion between Lysander, Hermia, Helena, and Demetrius because of the love

juice is full of funny occurrences. When Lysander wakes up and thinks he is in

love with Helena, Hermia is ignored and treated badly by Lysander. Then not

only was Lysander saying he loved Helena, Demetrius was also treating Hermia

badly. This left poor Hermia so upset but we as the audience know this is a

prank and soon the spell will be lifted.The main

characters in the play are all developed to a point where the audience can

identify with them. We learn things about them individually so we can feel

happy or sad when things happen in their life. I felt sad for Hermia when she

was jolted by Lysander because their love for each other had seemed so strong

and she was so confused by his behavior. Even though the audience knows the

truth it is easy to feel sad for her.As the

play nears the end, Oberon lifts the spell and everyone seems to believe they

have had a rare vision and then their lives go on just as if none of this had

happened.The play

brings closure to the reader by having the traditional ending of a comedy. They

usually end in weddings and a feast which is exactly what happens in A

Midsummer Night’s Dream. Lysander and Hermia, Helena and Demetrius, and Theseus

and Hippolyta all get married which signifies a new beginning. The working men

end the play with a Bergomask dance and the fairies join in the dance and bless

the marriages.A

Midsummer Night’s Dream contains many elements of a comedy. The most important

ones to me are that the play ends happily, it is funny and it made me laugh.Shakespeare

wrote Much Ado About Nothing which is also a comedy, but it is a different type

of comedy than A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Although these two plays share some

common elements, they also have differences.Much Ado

About Nothing is a comedy of intrigue. It involves suspense, question and has a

detective story element. Within the comedy of intrigue, there is social comedy

involving Beatrice and Benedick. Through this couple and Claudio and Hero, the

play explores the was people interact with each other.Shakespeare

shows that love can be very logical but also very passionate. Claudio and Hero

have a love that is soft, delicate and logical. Beatrice and Benedick on the

other hand, are very passionately in love with each other and show this by

quarreling constantly.Claudio’s

obsession with Hero is from a distance. He worships her and is astonished with

her beauty. His love for her is very shallow because he does not know her as a

person. Claudio is being logical about marriage by inquiring about Hero’s

financial state and social standing. After finding out she is an only child, he

agrees to let Don Pedro woo Hero in his favor so she would be his wife.When

Claudio and Don Pedro put their plan into action at the masked ball, Don John

appears. He acts as a blocking figure in this play and causes many problems. He

tells Claudio that Don Pedro wants Hero for himself, which is a lie, but Claudio

acts like "easy come easy go". He is not very upset that he just lost

his soon to be bride. When the truth comes out, the wedding day is set and the

planning begins. Don John is once again planning to ruin things. He is a

jealous, sour and unhappy person. The greenworld is also used in this play but

not for festive activities. It is used for plotting bad things that will hurt

people.After

Claudio is led to believe Hero was cheating on him, he becomes malicious and

wants revenge. Claudio disgraces Hero at the wedding. He refuses to marry her

in front of all the guests and accuses her of already having sex with someone

else.This

serious act of revenge causes the audience to feel sorry for not only Hero, but

her family as well because we know that was not her kissing Borachio. The

audience may have felt worse for Hero if her character had been more fully

developed but she hardly ever spoke even when agreeing to marry Claudio. We can

feel sorry for her but not really identify with her because we do not know her

very well. Hero is made a spectacle of for no truthful reason and disgraces her

family.After Hero

faints at the wedding, Beatrice is furious. She wants revenge against Claudio.

Finally she and Benedick declare their love for each other which was made

possible by being under tension and emotional stress and she was finally able

to let down her guard. She feels out of control because she needs a man to kill

Claudio. She is usually able to take care of things herself but not this time.

Thankfully Benedick will not kill Claudio and the truth comes out because of

Dogberry and Verges.When the

night watchmen overhear Borachio talking about the scheme Dogberry and Verges

bring him and his comrade to their superior. It is funny this watchmen could

catch anyone doing anything wrong. The watchmen are like Bottom and are

comical. They have the same problem as Bottom and have great difficulty

communicating.After the

truth is out that Claudio was fooled into thinking that Hero was cheating on

him, he is full of grief because he believes Hero is dead. He agrees to marry

Leonato’s niece, who is supposed to look just like Hero, to make up his

terrible mistake to he family. After he marries the masked bride, he is happy

to see it is Hero. This certainly is a marriage of convenience. He did not know

Hero anyway so it would not have mattered if he knew the bride to be. In a

sense, Hero was resurrected from the dead and Claudio ends up being a very

lucky guy.Most of

the characters are fully developed, except Hero, so we can identify with their

grief and then their joy. As the play comes to an end everything is wrapped in

a neat package. Don John is captured and brought back to be punished, Claudio

and Hero, and Beatrice and Benedick are married and the dance and the feast

begin.Measure

for Measure is a play that is very different from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The comedy in this play is very raw. The atmosphere of the two plays are

different but they both deal with the same issue of sexuality.After the

Duke has left the city in Angelo’s hands, he wants to show his power by

condemning Claudio to death because he got Juliet pregnant. Angelo is not being

reasonable because he has let the power go to his head. Angelo has also had sex

out of wedlock, he just did not get Mariana pregnant. In this play sex is

portrayed as much more dangerous than it has been in the other two plays.After

Claudio is jailed, he makes a plea to his sister, Isabella , to help him obtain

a pardon for his offense. Isabella had not yet taken her vows to become a nun

so she agrees to help him. Isabella and Angelo are parallel characters. Both

live with great restraint.After

Isabella pleads with Angelo to pardon her brother, he comes up with the idea of

an exchange for Claudio’s freedom. He wants Isabella to sleep with him so he

could have her virginity and then he would pardon Claudio. Angelo is a very

cold person with no feelings and has restrained himself tremendously throughout

his life. He has a problem with women and he is tempted more by a virtuous

woman than a frivolous one. In a soliloquy, he talks to himself and tries to

understand his lust for Isabella. He has a violent image of sex with her

because he wants to destroy her virtue.Angelo is

very cruel. He is going to torture and kill Claudio and he is getting pleasure

by controlling Isabella. this play is dealing with power and who has the most.

After the Duke, disguised as the Friar, over hears Isabella telling Claudio she

will not sleep with Angelo, he comes up with a plan. Isabella would agree to

meet Angelo at midnight and they would send Mariana instead because the two of

them were supposed to have been married before but her dowry was lost at sea

and Angelo had backed out on the marriage.The plan

works but Angelo goes back on his word and orders Claudio’s head delivered to

him at once. The Friar helps keep Claudio in hiding so everyone would think he

was dead. The Friar then returns as the Duke and Angelo’s world begins to

unravel. He is publicly exposed so everyone will know what king of a person he

is. He has been tricked into marriage and is now a very miserable person.

Although he had the ultimate power for a brief time, heabused it and now has to

suffer the consequences for a lifetime. After Claudio is produces and allowed to

marry Juliet, the Duke asks for Isabella’s hand in marriage.The satire

in this play looks at the two extremes and the audience tries to believe

something in the middle. The language used in this play is crude when they are

discussing sex. The men in the city talk about sex in a nasty ways discussing

how many diseases they have gotten from the hoars. Sex is portrayed as a vile

and nasty thing.Measure

for Measure is visually unlike other plays. There is insistence on laws that

are very extreme. People are being measured in judgement. It shows that you

should be reasonable and weigh things out before actions are taken.These

three plays all have different messages which are told in various ways. As a

writer, Shakespeare was so talented he could write different types of stories

with such grace. These three plays are just a few examples of the different

extremes he was capable of. Writing and defining comedy can be very difficult.

Many elements of comedy are in his plays and this makes they very enjoyable reading.

Comedy helps me to identify with stories since I like happy endings much better

than tragic endings. After finishing a book, I like to have a feeling of

closure and in these comedies my need is fulfilled.