A single reading of Shakespeare’s The Comedy Errors may lead one to believe that the play is a simple retelling of Plautus’ The Brothers Menaechmus, with Shakespeare making superficial changes in order to update the play for the current, at the time, audiences and social context. After all, Errors retains Menaechmi’s basic plot structure and characters. However, further viewings and analysis reveal that the changes made in Menaechmi’s adaptation in Errors add new thematic layers to the play that were not present in the original. The most important of these changes is the Egeon frame plot. While this frame plot has been criticized for being disjointed from the main, more farcical plot, Egeon’s inclusion transforms the story from one about a …show more content…
Both are comedies, but Errors incorporates other genres over the course of the play while Menaechmi is more consistent. The Egeon frame plot in particular introduces elements of tragedy and romance into the play while the main play retains its comedic roots. These shifts between genre and tone are what cause critics to “complain that the frame plot it poorly integrated into the rest of the play” (Freedman 362). However, these shifts are what allow the play to assert its point about the importance of the family unit. For example, a particularly significant change made in Errors is the exact circumstances surrounding the separation of the twins. In Menaechmi, when the twins were “seven or so” their father “packed on of the twins” on a ship going to Tarentum in order to seel their merchandise at a market. The boy, Menaechmus I, became “lost in the crowd” and “wandered away”. He was picked up by another merchant and taken to Epidamnum, where he was raised as the merchant’s son. The boys’ father grow so depressed after he had lost his son “A few days later he was dead”. While this is an undeniably sad backstory, this moment is undermined by the in-text reactions to this moment, with the chief actor saying “It was that bad”. This allows this moment to become comedic by administering a, as Bergson would refer to it, “momentary anesthesia or the heart” …show more content…
Once Antipholus of Syracuse arrives in Ephesus, he is suddenly beholden to a group of strangers who somehow know his name and the name of his slave. These strangers - Antipholus of Ephesus’s wife, Adriana, and her sister, Luciana - attempt to hold Antipholus S. to his brothers obligations and criticize him for not fulfilling his brother’s responsibilities as a husband and a brother-in-law, saying that he has “quite forgot/A husband’s office”. But Antipholus S. has “no wife” and therefore does not have to follow or even be aware of “a husband’s office,” just as Egeon was unaware of the new law, which leads to the conflict between him and his brother’s family. At the same time, these misunderstandings that Antipholus S. creates are attributed to Antipholus E. and, like Egeon, Antipholus E. is held responsible for mistakes and errors that he did not even make. Antipholus E. can be forgiven for his confusion during this whole situation. The “unjust divorce” of Egeon’s family occurred when the twins were newborns. It is entirely possible that he did not know he had an identical twin brother, at the very least he had no idea his brother was looking for him, so Antipholus E’s bewilderment is justified. Antipholus S., on the other hand, has spent the last five years searching for his brother and yet he
In Sophocles play, Antigone, the reader explores many aspects of a Greek tragedy. In this play, a complex family follows a series of mishaps after hearing from a “seer.” After the family thinks they have overcome the worst, they then endure two brothers fighting over both of their rightful places on the throne. In the end, both of them die, but one, Eteocles, was buried a king, and the other, Polynices was left to be untouched a “traitor.” Their sister, Antigone, feels it is her rightful to disobey her uncle, Creon, who sets a decree that declares Policies was to be left unburied. She called this “the doom reserved for enemies marches on the ones we love the most” (Fagles 1984, 59).
Antigone’s two contradictory roles, as a sister to Polynices and as a female of Thebes, gives rise to her problem. It can be argued that it is not Antigone that enforced this impact. Antigone not unfairly declares that ruler has no right to keep her distant from her own brother and she was simply satisfying her ordinary responsibility by providing Polynices some resemblance of
Shakespeare's first tragedy has been a topic of discussion since the day it was written. Titus Andronicus "was staged on 24 January 1594 by the Earl of Sussex's Men at the Rose Theatre" (Welsh 1). Though this tidbit of information seems somewhat irrelevant to Titus, we must note that there are certain standards and practices established by a play from its first performance. It is also important to establish the general attributes that audiences attribute to Shakespearean performance.
The works of William Shakespeare have been one of the diligent hotspots for adaptation and appropriation. We see dramatic adaptation of Shakespearean playtexts began as early as Restoration period. Different fields like poetry, novels, advertisements, and movies have connected themselves with Shakespeare as well. The adaptation of Shakespeare makes him fit for new social settings and distinctive political philosophies.
In the play Antigone Sophocles presents the tragic consequence of a bloated ego. The play is set in Thebes, Greece before the Common Era. King Oedipus renounces his throne after discovering that he has unknowingly married his mother and inadvertently killed his father leaving the thrown to his wife’s brother, Creon (725). Oedipus’s two sons, Eteocles and Polyneices, die in war. The newly crowned King Creon, buries Eteocles with full honors for his support of Thebes and refuses the burial of Polyneices as punishment for fighting against Thebes. The play’s name sake and daughter of Oedipus, Antigone, is forced to go against the command of her uncle to bury her brother and is sentenced to imprisonment until death for defying his command. Haimon, Creon’s son, hears of his future bride’s sentence and attempts to reason with his father. However, blinded by rage and ego Creon will not listen to reason.
Antigone, the product of incest between her mother Jocasta and father Oedipus, is now faced with the fact that she may have to keep the tradition going with the marriage of her first cousin, Haemon. The difference is that they both know they are related, something her parents did not know until it was too late. Antigone is scheduled to wed, but that may cost her a lot in return. Antigone must evaluate her life and reason with herself if she should marry Haemon or decide another way out. Antigone finds a way out, but it may not be visible to the reader right away. Antigone commits a crime and is sentenced to die, justifying in her mind that is the only option.
Being a part of a family forces one to have responsibilities and duties that are needed to be fulfilled. In Sophocles’ Greek tragedy, Antigone, Antigone has the responsibility of being loyal to her brother, Polynices. Her intuition and strong will discourages her from listening to the power of the state and to disobey some of her family to respect another part of her family. Her devotion leads to the destruction of Creon and herself, but her role as a part of her family does not stand in her determination to do what she believes to be right. It is for this reason that she is willing to destroy herself and Creon to fulfill her duty to both her immediate family and the Gods above.
...elm. Criticism on Shakespeare s Tragedies . A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature. London: AMS Press, Inc., 1965.
In Greek society following the king's rule and laws put forth was commenced and even expected however adhering to one's family and most importantly the gods is a compulsory act. By contrasting the notions of the two sisters- Antigone and Ismene- as both give importance to family- Antigone follows her dedication to her bloodline, while Ismene favors obeying authority. Antigone does not falter with her actions even when Ismene firmly argues against her stating: “Bury him! You have just said the new law forbids it.” Antigone: “He is my brother. And he is your brother, too.” (PAGE NUMBER) Antigone is determined to honor her family member although he was considered a traitor to Thebes- overlooking the King and the laws set forth. She outshines her sister, as she remains unyielding even
The notion of honor and justice is prevalent throughout all types of literature. In Greek culture, honor is essential for creating a solid foundation within a society and family. Honor will follow you until the day you perish, and beyond. The honor for men in Greece is spiritual in that loved ones show respect to the deceased by giving them a proper burial. Nevertheless, when a man acts upon betrayal of the city, that man looses the privilege to die in such honor. This is evident in the life of Antigone when her two brothers, Polyneices and Eteocles, both die at each other’s hands at war when deciding the ruler of Thebes. Polyneices cannot have a proper burial, because the new king, Antigone’s uncle, Creon created a law that decrees that anyone who tries to give Polyneices a proper burial will have a dire consequence: death. In Sophocles’ Antigone, the quest that Antigone endures to stay true to her pure intentions of honoring Polyneices by giving him a proper burial is in juxtaposition with the fact that her defiance towards Creon is not only to do with Polyneices, but also to show appeasement to the gods.
These differences in character, though seemingly small, lead the audience to draw two very different conclusions about the characters’ situations and why they are placed in them. The analyzation of the characters changes from Shakespeare’s written play to Hoffman’s rendering of A Midsummer Night’s
Schlegel, August Wilhelm. Criticism on Shakespeare s Tragedies . A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature. London: AMS Press, Inc., 1995.
Who gets more confused than a group of elders with Alzheimer's? Only the characters in The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare. Coincidence occurs all throughout the play and is the main cause of all the issues that go on resulting in a domino effect creating mass confusion. The two Dromios get confused with the two Antipholus and create a lot of misunderstanding through coincidental situations. Emilia becomes an abbess in the same city where her lost son is living. The Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse thinks Ephesus is full of witches and sorcerers, which are why everyone seems to know and recognize the two.
People marry to increase their property and to secure its inheritance. Wise parents, who may dispose of their children in marriage, will of course try to avoid matches which the contracting parties find intolerable, but there are limits to this. On the other hand, children have a duty of obedience. And the husband Egeus proposes for Hermia is by no means unattractive; his chief defect is that he is not Lysander, whom Hermia loves, perhaps intemperately. The play shows how the ideal relationship is that in which the affections and the reasonable mind are both in harmony.
One of Shakespeare's earliest plays (its first recorded performance in December 1594), The Comedy of Errors has frequently been dismissed as pure farce, unrepresentative of the playwright's later efforts. While Errors may very well contain farcical elements, it is a complex, layered work that draws upon and reinterprets Plautine comedy. Shakespeare combines aspects of these Latin plays with biblical source material, chiefly the Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline Epistle to the Ephesians. While Menaechmi is the most frequently cited classical source for Errors, Plautus' Amphitruo is just as relevant an influence; Shakespeare's treatment of identity and its fragility is derived from this latter work. Of course, there are many other structural and thematic resonances between the three texts: each of the plays, to varying degrees, deal with the issues of identity, violence and slavery, while displaying a keen awareness of aspects of performativity, specifically the figure of the playwright, and the role of the audience.