The Importance of Adriana in

The Comedy of Errors

Taking as a reference the website http://www.novelguide.com/TheComedyofErrors, we are going to describe the character of Adriana, her feelings, her way of thinking, etc.

Adriana is one of the main characters in William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors. The play starts when Aegeon has been arrested in Ephesus and, being an enemy of the state as a Syracusian merchant, he is forced by the Duke to explain why he is there: Aegeon and his wife, Aemilia, had twin sons, both named Antipholus, and twin slaves for their sons, both named Dromio. A shipwreck had separated one Dromio, one Antipholus and Aemilia from Aegeon and the others. Now Aegeon has lost his remaining son and the slave, since they went to look for their twins. While Aegeon is forced to find the ransom money in order to avoid his death for being in Ephesus, all the twins meet in Ephesus accidentally (one of the Antipholus lives there). As such, this comedy of errors is about mistaken identities until the resolution comes[1].

Adriana plays a very important role, being responsible for all the mix-up in the play. She sends Dromio of Ephesus to ask his master, Antipholus of Ephesus (Adriana’s husband) to go home for dinner, but it is Antipholus of Syracuse who Dromio speaks with. It is right in this moment when the confusion starts.

Adriana is portrayed as a young woman, married to Ephesian Antipholus. She lives in Ephesus with her husband, her sister Luciana and her servants. She is fierce and jealous. Her marriage is not happy because her love for her husband is so possessive that she feels there is a half left when he is not at home.

Regarding the question of identity, Adriana is a complex mixture: on the one hand, she asserts her independence and power within the marriage, but on the other hand, she believes that she and her husband are one indivisible whole because her role as wife has covered her identity. In the words she says to Antipholus of Syracuse (thinking that he is her husband), we realise that her anger and jealousy have made that her mind invents that her husband has been unfaithful, so her life has no sense if her husband does not love her. She says that husband and wife are indivisible, taking up the image of the drop of water introduced by Antipholus of Syracuse in I,ii,35-36:

How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it,
That thou art thus estranged from thyself?
Thyself I call it, being strange to me,
That, undividable, incorporate,
Am better than thy dear self's better part.
Ah, do not tear away thyself from me!
For know, my love, as easy mayest thou fall
A drop of water in the breaking gulf,
And take unmingled that same drop again,
Without addition or diminishing,
As take from me thyself and not me too. (II,ii,112-122)[2]

Then, she continues and tells him that if she commits a sin, she is as responsible as him because they are one:

My blood is mingled with the crime of lust:
For if we too be one and thou play false,
I do digest the poison of thy flesh,
Being strumpeted by thy contagion.
Keep then far league and truce with thy true bed;
I live unstain'd, thou undishonoured. (II,ii,134-139)[3]

Again we can see the complexity of Adriana when, in IV,ii,17-22/25-28, she is able to curse her husband, but immediately she admits to love him:

I cannot, nor I will not, hold me still;
My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will.
He is deformed, crooked, old and sere,
Ill-faced, worse bodied, shapeless everywhere;
Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind;
Stigmatical in making, worse in mind.

(Luciana speaks)

Ah, but I think him better than I say,
And yet would herein others' eyes were worse.
Far from her nest the lapwing cries away:
My heart prays for him, though my tongue do curse[4].

Dealing with her sense of identity within marriage, which Shakespeare develops in the debate between Adriana and Luciana in II,I,4-41, she talks as the archetypal “shrewish” wife, saying that wives should have power over their husbands and as much freedom as they have. Here there is a contrast between her and her sister, as Luciana believes that men are lords over their wives and women must be submissive in their relationship. According to Luciana, women have to be dutiful, patient and uncomplaining, to which Adriana answers that she is talking from the point of view of inexperience:

Adriana. Why should their liberty than ours be more?

Luciana. Because their business still lies out o' door.

Adriana. Look, when I serve him so, he takes it ill.

Luciana. O, know he is the bridle of your will.

Adriana. There's none but asses will be bridled so.

Luciana. (...)

Adriana. This servitude makes you to keep unwed.

Luciana. Not this, but troubles of the marriage-bed.

Adriana. But, were you wedded, you would bear some sway.

Luciana. Ere I learn love, I'll practise to obey[5]

At the end of the play, the Abbess is in charge of restoring the order. The characters have their own identities back and Adriana decides to change her attitude towards her husband and stop driving him mad with her jealousy, as the Abbess has said:

I will attend my husband, be his nurse,
Diet his sickness, for it is my office,
And will have no attorney but myself;
And therefore let me have him home with me.

(Aemilia speaks)

I will not hence and leave my husband here:
And ill it doth beseem your holiness
To separate the husband and the wife.(V,I,98-101/109-111)[6]

To end with Adriana’s description of her behaviour, her feelings, her way of thinking, etc we must add that she is a dynamic character. Taking into consideration the definition of a dynamic character: “character that does undergo an important change in the course of the story. More specifically, the changes that we are referring to as being "undergone" here are not changes in circumstances, but changes in some sense within the character in question -- changes in insight or understanding (of circumstances, for instance), or changes in commitment, in values.”[7] In Adriana there is a change at the end of the play, when she decides to be gentler to her husband, changing her behaviour towards him.

79 lines are devoted to Adriana’s speech in the play, she is the third character who has been given more lines (the characters who speak more than Adriana are Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse[8]. Her speech throughout the text is humorous and entertaining. Her character is essential for the whole play. She is the one who brings passion, love and tenderness, but at the same time, anger and jealousy.

As commented above, she is a very complex and complete character, which is of great importance for the development of the confusions and the final resolution of the errors, having the order restored with happiness. Her essential good nature is a convention of comedy, where negative emotions of the beginning of the play are generally transient and soon give way to love and forgiveness.

Bibliography

FIRST SOURCES:

-NovelGuide: The comedy of errors. NovelGuide.com. 1999-2006. 22 Nov.2006.

<http://www.novelguide.com/TheComedyofErrors>

-Bibliomania: Free Online Literature and Study Guides. Bibliomania.com Ltd.2000. 22 Nov.2006.

www.bibliomania.com/0/6/3/1054/frameset.html>

-Open Source: Shakespeare. Bernini Communications LLC 2003-2006. 21 Nov.2006.

=ADRIANA&WorkID=comedyerrors&cues=1> (used 6 times).

-Critical Concepts: “Static” and “Dynamic” Characterization. Lyman A.Baker 2000. Last updated 7 March 2001. 24 Nov.2006.

REFERENTIAL SOURCES:

-Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. GNU Free Documentation License. Last modified 23 Nov.2006. 24 Nov.2006.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Comedy_of_Errors>

-Shakespeare Resource Center. The Shakespeare Resource Center 1997-2006. Last updated Oct 26, 2006. 24 Nov.2006.

<http://www.bardweb.net/plays/errors.html>

-The Comedy of Errors: Adriana’s Monologue. Monologuearchive.com 2003. 21 Nov.2006.

<http://www.monologuearchive.com/s/shakespeare_019.html>

-Sparknotes: The Comedy of Errors. Sparknotes LLC 2006. 22 Nov.2006.

<http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/errors/>

-The Literature Network: Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare. Jalic Inc, 2000-2006. 23 Nov.2006.

<http://www.online-literature.com/shakespeare/errors/>

-Gradesaver: ClassicNote: Comedy of Errors Study Guide. Gradesaver LLC, 1999-2006. 22 Nov. 2006.

<http://www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/titles/comedyoferrors/>

Academic year 2006/2007
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Ana María Palacios Palacios
amapapa@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press