The Comedic Value of the Play, Pseudolus

The qualities a tragic hero, in Shakespeare's plays, normally displays consists of the hero falling from a place of glory, or rank, or happiness. We are astounded by the extent to which they fall, or allow themselves to stoop. The resulting catastrophe from the hero's mistake is of monumental proportions. With the discussed play Julius Caesar, Cassius exhibits Jealousy, Rashness, and Impulsive behaviour. Cassius makes mistakes, each with a disastrous effect.

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Prince Hamlet serves as one of the most multi-faceted characters in the entire play with critics often deeming his personality “paradoxical”. Ultimately, Hamlet provides the audience with the epitomy of internal contrast and instability by rapidly transitioning through periods of caution and rash action, introversion and extroversion and calculation and spontaneity.

Bastard, a child born out of wedlock, an illegitimate descendant that "deserves to be slapped." Don John, coined as “Shakespeare’s most passive villain” is plagued by the society of Messina that rejected him from the very moment of birth. Looking through the idea of predetermined roles in life, we can come to realize the roots of Don John’s agitation arises from his illegitimacy, stacking him at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Here he feels obliged to act the part of the villain, delegated by his very own blood.

In the play The Tragedy of Julius Caesar the main character, Brutus, experiences many things that lead him to become a tragic hero. From the interactions between Cassius and Brutus, the two characters contract each other, Brutus’s character develops into a tragic hero, and the plot advances and a theme is also created.

Susan Snyder once said that comedy is “the ground from which, or against which, tragedy develops… comedy and tragedy function as polar opposites, or as two sides of the same coin.” (Snyder. Print). The prototypical comic clash between blocking father and youthful beaus, which underlies the activities of numerous Shakespearean comedies, illuminates one strand of the activity of Hamlet: the relationship between Polonius, Ophelia and the Prince. Also unmistakable in different tragedies, such as Romeo and Juliet and

Although their scheme with Pseudolus takes vastly different measures to achieve their goal, the behavior and attitudes of Calidorus and Hero are practically identical. Both characters possess such an intense love that it could be described as torturous, have absolute trust in Pseudolus’s advice, and achieve their goals through deception. Finally, both Calidorus and Hero are depicted similarly; both being of young adult age and sons to wealthy a father.

In addition to Ralph’s dynamic character, in “Julius Ceaser” the character, Marcus Brutus, is a dynamic and round character. Throughout the play, Brutus’ character experiences a

Many aspects of the film pay clear homage to New Comedy. The plot is simplistic, focusing on the desire of a young man to get around the restrictions of his parents and gain the affections of the girl he loves. The characters, although not boring, are one-dimensional. Hero, the love-sick youth, has one hope in the film: to unite himself with Philia. Pseudolus, his slave, only wishes to earn his freedom. The life's work of Erronius is to find his children, each bestowed with a ring bearing an engraved gaggle of geese; and so on through the inhabitants of this depiction of Rome. Each character does whatever it takes to achieve their one goal in life, and this is what builds the frenetic disposition of the plot, causing twists and turns especially where the very determined instigator Pseudolus is concerned. There is no character development, however, and every character finishes the film with same endeavor he

  Well aware that several hours of unrelenting angst would be a bit much for his audience to take, William Shakespeare strategically placed several humorous scenes throughout his masterpiece, Hamlet.  In particular, the character of Polonius fills the role of the comic fool; he is in two essential comedic scenes, one with his own children and then one with Hamlet.  Shakespeare's acute ability to weave humor into this very heavy play is noteworthy, as his use of comedy goes beyond merely providing much-needed comic relief.   In fact, the rather numerous comedic scenes serve as a foils to, as well as reflections of, the intense action of the play.   In every case where humor is used in Hamlet, it is

In Shakespeare’s play, Twelfth Night or What you Will, the characters are involved in a plot complete with trickery, disguise, and love. Each character is defined not by his or her gender or true identity, but by the role they are forced to take because of the complicated situation that arises. Unlike their gender, the speech the characters give an insight to their true personalities. In the Twelfth Night, the character Duke Orsino uses flowery and over-dramatic language, long poetic sentence structure, and melodramatic metaphors to display his overemotional romantic nature despite the different emotions in his various speeches.

One can disrupt the natural order to a certain extent but cannot totally recreate it. Perhaps that is why it is called the “natural” order. Just as the sun cannot be made to rise from south, sunshine cannot be demanded from the moon and the wind cannot be asked to not to sway the trees, Caliban cannot be ‘civilized’ enough to behave like a human being. He cannot be trained to love like Ferdinand or serve like Gonzalo with utmost loyalty. These unchangeable characteristics of this extremely interesting yet barbaric persona of Shakespeare’s lights a green spark in the mind and calls for a greener reading of the play The

Shakespeare is one of the world’s most renown play writers in the world, for, his playwrights discuss almost all forms of error found in human nature. His play, Hamlet, is one of the second most famous plays out of all which conveys that man cannot always be courageous and content. Throughout the play, Shakespeare creates numerous conflicts between characters. Mainly, Hamlet himself has tensions between other characters. The reason Shakespeare may do this is to exemplify the differences between Hamlet and another character. Through the use of soliloquies, Shakespeare highlights the cowardice, gloomy traits of Hamlet which ultimately allows the audience to determine that Hamlet is a cowardly, miserable man in comparison to another character in the play like Prince Fortinbras.

There is an certain recurring flaw of characters in western media that is ever present throughout the ages. The ubiquitous aspect that mars a character, leading to their usually plot driven downfall is ego. Western media has a tendency to promote rational humility over irrational egoism. From the sufferers of the ninth circle of Dante’s hell to the Ayn Rand’s unorthodox support for egoism in Anthem, this identity stemming from one’s self plays on repeat. The major characters of Sophocles’ Antigone and Shakespeare’s King Lear, Creon and King Lear, respectively, are actually both very similar characters, and both demonstrate egos that ultimately detriment them. They both deny reality and attempt to trump destiny to protect their deleterious egos.

According to critic Mark Esslin, the concept of “Theatre of the Absurd” relates to the “playwrights loosely grouped under the label of the absurd attempt to convey their sense of bewilderment, anxiety, and wonder in the face of an inexplicable universe” (“The Theatre”). Esslin stressed the fact that plays and stories belonging to the “Theatre of the Absurd” were composed of situations dealing with the way a human reacts to an event, without any form of importance, thus only stressing over insignificant things and rejecting the notion of “logic.” Albert Camus, a major writer of the “Theatre of the Absurd”, construes the “Absurd” by completely varying this concept through the human personality, exemplified by The Stranger and “The Myth of

There is considerable sameness in his plots, which simply accentuates the viewpoints that he held and matters which he deemed important and non-changing. While Plautus is clearly by no means indifferent to social conditions, nor does he refrain from commenting on the growing estrangement between rich and poor as an element of danger to the State, he does not write solely to highlight these things. His works come from his desire to represent the passing humors of the day and to amuse those who wish to be amused. While the work of Plautus riddled with good sense and good humor, as well as includes occasional touches of pathos and elevated sentiment, there is no trace of any serious purpose behind his comedic scenes, plots and