The reader second guesses their first opinion of him and sees a selfish side to him, as he is drunk at his cousins funeral with no regards to other peoples feelings. These are not the expected actions of a character whose sole purpose is to be comic. Act 2, Scene 3. Throughout this scene, Toby continues to show a different side to the funny personality he is assumed to have. There is something unpleasant about him and he is certainly not simply comic although he does provide some comedy.
Further to this, it would also depend on at which point in the play we are making our judgement. For example, Katherina may be offending against her society’s expectations about women at the start of Taming of the Shrew, but does not necessarily do this towards the end of the play. It could be argued that in Much Ado about Nothing and The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare presents Beatrice and Katherina as offending against their society’s expectations of women – the expectation that women should be submissive and act somewhat inferior to the male members of society; this also includes the view that women should not be outspoken. One of the only female characters who speak in the first scene of Much Ado is Beatrice, which portrays her to the audience as an outspoken character, and in this way she would be offending against her society’s expectations of women. Beatrice is a woman who openly defies both the courtly and bourgeois traditions of this time, ‘No, uncle, I’ll none: Adam’s sons are my brethren; and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred’, (II i, 431-55) in this speech to Leonato, Beatrice explains why
Friar Lawrence offers advice that hehimself does not follow. While his advice is well meaning, because he doesnot follow it, terrible events occur. The death of Romeo and Juliet, and,indirectly, Tybalt and Mercutio, are due to Friar Lawrence’s inability to backup his own advice with action. For example, had Friar Lawrence gone with hisown advice that marrying Romeo and Juliet would be too hasty, Romeo andJuliet would not have ended up dead. But, in the end, he married the coupletoo soon, eventually resulting in a disaster.
As well as the Athenian law, gender played a role in the course of love, as women were not allowed to confess their love or speak up against a man. A woman’s gender also prevented her from experiencing the freedom of the choice of love a man had. In the play Hermia is forced to obey her father because she is female and Helena who loves Demetrius has no say for her love. “We cannot fight for love as men may do”. Helena says this because she cannot gain her lost love back who has been unfaithful to her in spite of her faithfulness to him, such as when Lysander “loved” her when he was under the influence of magic because of the fairy, Robin Goodfellow’s careless mistake while he was intervening in the love life of the couples.
In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare shows the futility in trying to control love. Not even the person in love can control it. Shakespeare constantly demonstrates the issues in trying to control love. Hermia attempting to control her love and she also has other people attempting to control it. Laws and social expectation can control people’s actions but they cannot control people’s feelings.
This is dramatic irony because the audience know who the masked characters are but the actual characters don’t. This adds to the discourse comedy of the play because the characters are using different identities whilst protecting their real selves also the characters can actually gain somewhat such as what the other characters think of them. However, this plan could also be portrayed as disingenuous and untruthful because Don Pedro woos Hero due to his status and the fact that he is able to speak with royalty unlike Claudio. Don Pedro is the most elusive character in the play. He never explains his motivations for instance wooing Hero for Claudio during the masked ball.
In the time of Shakespeare, men and women were not looked at as equal members of society. This can be seen in any history book of our time and it can also be seen in Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. But he does not always support the theme of females being subservient to males. There are some examples in this play that demonstrate females standing up or against their male counterparts. A Midsummer Night’s Dream has many relationships between men and women that show women as both submissive and self-assertive, indicating that even in that time, it was not considered impossible to Shakespeare that a woman can and will go against the approval of her male dominant figure.
These two excerpts from the plays, while both recognisably depicting the Shakespearean lover, are doing so in very different forms, with language and theatrical issues creating different forms of ‘the lover.’ Several distinctions between Richard’s exchange with Queen Elizabeth and Hermia and Lysander’s conversation easily highlight the differences between the Shakespearian lovers. First, Richard’s declarations of love are directed towards a third party, Queen Elizabeth. Richard is attempting to obtain her favour and/or permission to woo her daughter, Elizabeth. His amorous words about Elizabeth are directed towards Elizabeth’s mother, not Elizabeth herself. This indicates that there is not a strong bond between Richard and his potential wife, rather he is marrying for convenience, she is the ideal wife for his situation.
In this sense, it is solely their personality that makes them so amusing. They are oblivious as to how one should behave around others and are guilty of committing social faux pas on several occasions. Abiding to social conventions is not of concern to the fools. This, therefore, makes for a highly humorous situation. Another way in which the Shakespearean fool entertains the audience is through dramatic irony.
Mistaken Identity William shakespear use of Mistaken identity is a imporant instrument to the play twelfth night because it provides confusion, mystery and humor to the play. In Shakespeare’s time mistaken identity played a role in his plays when female roles were played by males, and the idea of a male having a female role created a greater comic element. In the play twelfth night many characters have disguises and have their identities mistaken. Many characters in twelfth night have their identity mistaken , begginging with viola who dressed up as a male and assumed the name Cesario in order to succeed and work for the duke. Olivia also had her identity mistaken by her brother's best friend antonio.