Shakespeare transformed the character of Malvolio into several different personas as the play progresses, displaying the different emotional and mental levels within the character. Twelfth Night begins with introducing Malvolio as a very simple person- a puritan, a stiff and proper servant who likes nothing better than to spoil other people’s fun. He has a poor opinion of drinking, singing, and recreational amusement, which becomes annoying and highly irritating to some characters. “My masters, are you mad? Or what are you/ Have you no wit, manners, nor honesty but to gabble/ like tinkers at this time of night?
Many people today, make careless decisions based on their impulsive and rash emotions which usually leads to disaster. In the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, Romeo Montague was a great example of this. His rash emotions and decisions caused him suffering and ultimately his own destruction. The fact that Romeo is overly dramatic, impulsive, and stubborn proves that he is nowhere near being admirable nor is he heroic. Throughout the play, Romeo exemplifies many instances of where his emotions take over.
You can tell that nobody takes them seriously, especially when Leonato shows no sign of gratefulness that he has captured two men by simply saying “go drink some wine” (Shakespeare 46) As we look into the theories of comedy for the play, it is clear that an option is Freud’s theory. He believes that the essence of comedy and laughter come at the extent of others. Comedy is often a disguised form of anger or aggression. We find ourselves, as well as some of the characters in the play, laughing at the fact that some of the characters are being manipulated into believing one thing from another. Much Ado About Nothing was a difficult play for me to understand at first, but after watching the play and going back and reading it again it definitely helped my understanding of the sarcasm happening by the characters.
Of course MAAN follows Shakespeare’s traditional comedy structure but modern critics have their own agenda that a comedy, being such a complex genre, should conform to. Since the time of the ancient Greeks critics have struggled to define it, Plato described it as a series of events you would ‘blush to practice yourself’. Susan Snyder who writes for the Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare Company, states that - ‘Comedy involves men of middling estate, its perils are small scale, its outcomes peaceful’. This is an excellent summary for the majority of Shakespeare’s plays; however it is not necessarily accurate in relation to MAAN. It is true to say that a comedy involves ‘men of a middling estate’, in MAAN the protagonists share the company of the Prince Don Pedro, and are socially superior to the watchmen such as Dogberry and Verges.
Early on in the play (Act 2 Scene 3) the audience enjoys the jovial atmosphere alongside the characters until Malvolio abruptly ruins the mood. “Have you no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers at this time of night?” Malvolio seems to relish scolding Sir Toby and the others as he includes the simile “gabble like tinkers” which proves he has taken the time to select the right words to insult them with. The audience dislikes him for disrupting the fun of the scene whilst it provides a specific motive for the conspirators to plot his deception. Shakespeare uses one detail about Malvolio to instantly turn the audience against him: Malvolio is a puritan. At the time the play was written, puritans were not popular with the general public because of their miserable rules against most forms of entertaintment.
A trademark occurrence of a comedy play is that usually justice is done in the end; however in Measure for Measure it can be argued that this is not the case. Angelo, a manipulative and abusive character is seemingly pardoned instantly for his inexcusable crimes. Justice cannot be achieved in Measure for Measure when a character who has caused much unnecessary pain and terror, is given mercy by all of the characters on the stage. This unconventional conclusion suggests that as various characters are reprieved from their flaws and crimes and not punished, Measure for Measure is more of a problem play than it is a comedy. Upon comparing the leadership of the Duke and Angelo, we can see that Angelo’s cruel and severe methods are unpopular against the Duke’s lenient approach.
5. In contrast to Romeo, Mercutio is lively, cynical and level-headed. He has little time for love games. In fact, he does not seem to like women at all. In Act 2, Scene 4 he says “… runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole”, comparing love to cheap jewellery.
Romeo Montague, the male protagonist, is very fickle when it comes to deciding who his true love is. In the beginning of the play, Romeo hides himself from the light of the day because he is in a mode of depression due to Rosaline’s rejection to love him. He is so in love with the idea of loving Rosaline that he goes to an extent of not being himself around his close friends. However, when he meets Juliet at the masquerade ball, he begins to doubt who his love truly is.
When Romeo, extremely depressed about his situation with Rosaline, and his friends went to a dance at the Capulet house, Benvolio attempted to help Romeo get his mind off Rosaline and cheer him up when he promised to make him "think thy swan (Rosaline) a crow" (I, ii, 94). Because of this promise, Benvolio tried to keep Rosaline off Romeo's mind and keep Mercutio from reminding Romeo of her all night. Benvolio's character keeps the play balanced by representing the good that keeps the other characters
Creon becomes too vain that he assumes Haemon “is hopelessly on the woman’s [Antigone’s] side” (224). Creon’s ignorant qualities evolve him to make imprecise choices. Creon is the “real tragic hero” in the play Antigone because of his insensible defects and his destiny which evolves