IDENTITY
In:
The Comedy of Errors
The Taming of the Shrew
A Midsummer Night’s dream
Rocío García Viguer
In this paper
I will deal with the theme of identity in the first three plays we have
studied: The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I have chosen
this theme because I think it is a common feature in the three plays and
because it also appears in most of Shakespeare’s comedies in which he utilized
several ingenious techniques resulting in effective pieces of work. One of the
more unique and creative methods is the use of mistaken identity. With the use
of mistaken identity, Shakespeare has successfully given the plays an element
of humour from the beginning to the end..
In this three plays we find different treatments of the same theme and
that is what my paper is going to focus on, the different ways of presenting
the theme of identity depending on the plots of the comedies.
The first play we will be dealing with is The Comedy of Errors in which right from
the very beginning we are presented with what will be the basis of the mistakes
of identity between the two pairs of twins, Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse
and Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus, masters and servants respectively. In the
first scene of the play the father of both Antipholus, Aegeon, tells his story
of how he lost his wife and with her one Antipholus and one Dromio in a storm
at sea and that Aegeon’s only son and his servant went travelling to find their
twin brothers five years ago. Since then Aegeon has been looking for them but
has not found them and now has arrived to Ephesus and Solino, the Duke of
Ephesus, has to kill him because of some law
existing between Ephesus and Syracuse, or Aegeon has to pay a one
thousand-marc fine for being in Ephesus having been born in Syracuse.
The first “error” occurs in Act 1, scene ii, when Dromio
of Ephesus is looking for his master and he finds Antipholus of Syracuse
instead believing it is the one he is looking for[1].
And then
follows a dialogue where Antipholus asks Dromio for the money he gave him
before, but of course it was not to this Dromio to whom he gave the money and
Antipholus ends beating Dromio, and he runs away. Dromio of Ephesus goes to
where Adriana and Luciana stay and tells them about the incident in the market,
to which Adriana answers him to go back and bring her husband back. Here the
plot begins to be more difficult: now Adriana and Luciana also believe that
Antipholus of Syracuse is Antipholus of Ephesus. The plot is even more
complicated when Dromio of Syracuse comes back with Antipholus and does not
understand anything of what Antipholus is saying to him[2].
A bit later
in the scene, Adriana and Luciana appear looking for Antipholus of Ephesus, and
they find Antipholus of Syracuse and “his” Dromio and this encounter provokes
another “error”: Adriana and Luciana think that they are Antipholus and Dromio
of Ephesus, but they are not and Antipholus and Dromio think they are dreaming[3]
and in “fairy land”[4].
We can
observe here the introduction of the theme of dreaming and the supernatural
world, which is very recurrent in Shakespeare comedies, specially in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which we will
analyse later.
In the next scene we have the encounter of Antipholus and
Dromio of Ephesus, and here we have another mistaken identity when Dromio says
to Antipholus that he beat him before and of course he is referring to
Antipholus of Syracuse, not to this one, but they do not know. After this they
head to Antipholus’ house, but he is going to find that some others have
occupied his personality and home and do not let them go into the house.
Adriana and Luciana keep believing that Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse are
who they think they are, but they are not.
In Act III, scene ii, we read how Antipholus of Syracuse
has fallen in love with Luciana and wants to marry her, which again is another
“error” provoked by the mistaken identities that rule the development of the
plot. Then Dromio meets the woman-cook, who also thinks that he is Dromio of
Ephesus and says he belongs to her. Angelo, the jeweller, also confounds
Antipholus of Syracuse and gives him the chain he had made for Antipholus of
Ephesus. When he finds the real Antipholus of Ephesus and asks him to pay the
chain he gave to Antipholus of Syracuse. Antipholus of Ephesus says to him to
bring the chain to his wife and she will pay for it, but Angelo does not have
the chain because he gave it to the other Antipholus. Then Antipholus of
Ephesus is imprisoned because of another mistake while Dromio of Syracuse,
thinking that he was his master, says to him that he has found a boat to depart
and later in the scene, Dromio of Syracuse finds his real master and does not
understand why he is not in prison. After this, comes the most hilarious part
of the play, when all begins to be clear. Adriana calls a doctor because she
thinks his husband is mad but the abbess let Antipholus and Dromio into the
abbey but does not let Adriana with the doctor in, so Adriana goes to complain
to the Duke and Aegemon appears also at the end and resolves all the errors by
recognising his two sons and the abbess as his lost wife.
Now I will
talk about The Taming of the Shrew in
which the mistaken identity within the two induction scenes must have been
quite humorous for the upper-class who watched the play. When the lord finds
Sly he immediately plots a joke to play on him. The lord decides to treat Sly
as a nobleman and see how he reacts. In addition to ordering his servants to
treat Sly as their master, he too pretends to be a servant. The most amusing
part of this induction occurs when Sly becomes convinced that he really is a
nobleman. Although Sly does not understand the lifestyle of the upper-class, it
is obvious that he is enjoying it while it lasts.
There are
several cases of mistaken identity present in the subplot which involves Bianca
and her teachers. One humorous situation caused by mistaken identity arises in
Act I, Scene ii, when several of the characters meet each other. Here, the
audience learns how gullible Gremio is when he is tricked by Lucentio into
believing that Lucentio is a schoolmaster. Gremio does not realize that he is
actually giving a competitor an opportunity to court Bianca. Also, when Tranio,
pretending to be his master, introduces himself to Gremio and Hortensio that he
too intends to woo Bianca, the two do not realize that Tranio is just there to
draw Bianca’s attention away from them. By doing this, his master Lucentio will
have a best chance of courting Bianca. Later in the play, when Lucentio and
Hortensio are trying to court Bianca as they teach her, it is comical the way
they become suspicious of each other.
In Act IV,
Scene ii, Tranio effortlessly convince the pedant into pretending to be
Vincentio. Tranio makes the pedant believe that he is being nice and doing him
a big favour so that the pedant will not be killed: “To save your life in this
extremity, This favor will I do you for his sake.”[5]
The pedant does not realize that everything Tranio says is false and that he is
being tricked into helping Tranio and Lucentio.
The final and
most humorous part of the subplot occurs near the end of the play. We see a
great confusion when all the characters and pretenders meet, and everybody is
confused about the real identity of each other[6].
The mistaken
identity in the main plot between Petruchio and Kate is the question of who the
real shrew is. The audience first believes that Kate is the shrew because of
the way she treated everybody. Also, the comments and opinions of the other characters
describe Kate negatively. But later, when Petruchio and Kate marry, we realize
that the real shrew is Petruchio. In the last scene of the play we also realize
that Bianca and The Widow are also shrewder than Katharina was, so this play is
also full of mistaken identities.
Finally, I will analyse A
Midsummer Night’s Dream in which mistaken identities cause an uproar of
emotional mix-ups. The background of the play is a simple love
"square" involving four people.: Hermia loves Lysander and Lysander
loves Hermia, but Demetrious also loves her, and Helena loves Demetrious.
Hermia and Demetrious are engaged to marry against Hermia's will. They all end
up running off into the wood on a magic spring evening when fairies turn
everything upside down.
While they are asleep, Puck squeezes the juice from a magic flower that
makes whomever's eye it enters to fall in love with the first person they see.
He puts it onto Lysander's eye, thinking he was Demetrius. This begins the game
of mistaken identities, because Helena is the first person Lysander sees, which
causes him to fall in love with her instead of Hermia. So now, Lysander loves
Helena, Helena loves Demetrius, Demetrius loves Hermia and Hermia loves
Lysander. The confusion increases. Every encounter the couples have gets more
confusing and exasperating. Then Puck realizes his mistake and puts the flower
juice on Demetrius' eyes, making him fall in love with Helena as well. Helena,
whose love towards Demetrius has been in vain, thinks that Lysander and Demetrius
are mocking her, because they are both, suddenly, mysteriously in love with
her. Her exasperation is ironic, because now she has too much love instead of
too little. Her anger and verbal abuse of the lovers and of Hermia, whom she
suspects of joining them in humiliating her, is also very funny. In the end
Puck corrects his error and joins the couples as they should have been:
Lysander loves Hermia and Hermia loves him and Demetrius loves Helena, and she
does also, as she did before.
We observe another funny mistaken identity in the subplot, which is that
of Bottom when he is turned into a man with a ass’ head and Titania falls
desperately in love with him.
As we have observed through the study of these plays, the theme of
mistaken identities is treated thoroughly in Shakespeare’s comedies, as well as
the theme of love, which in most of the cases serves the purpose of preparing
the audience for the next confusions and mistaken identities which will take
place throughout the play.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
-
Shakespeare, William. Las Alegres Comadres de Windsor/La Comedia
de las Equivocaciones. Colección Austral, Espasa-Calpe Argentina S. A.,
Buenos Aires, 1944.
-
Shakespeare, William. Los Dos Hidalgos de Verona/Sueño de una
Noche de San Juan. Colección Austral, Espasa-Calpe Argentina S. A., Buenos
Aires, 1947.
-
Shakespeare, William.. La fierecilla domada/La Comedia de las
Equivocaciones. Biblioteca Edaf, Edaf S. L., Madrid, 2007.
-
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/5804/comedy.htm
-
http://www.onlineshakespeare.com/comedies.htm
-
http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/shakespeare/midsummernightsdream.htm#21