Shakespeare Final Paper
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final_proposal.docxYateem 4
Ali Yateem
Professor Carol Mejia LaPerle
English 4200
November 22, 2016
Insults and Humor in Shakespeare: Proposal
Abstract
The Shakespeare plays have stood a test of time in the field of comedy. Insults and jokes are the major plot devices that affect the outcome in of Much Ado about Nothing, and The Merchant of Venice plays. This paper will discuss the different situation in which insults and humor are used by the play characters in the two plays. The research will primarily concentrate on how Shakespeare utilizes insults and humor/jokes in these two plays to communicate his message; to amuse his audience and shows the relationships between the characters. Shakespeare communicated his comedy through humor and his plays are full of metaphors, shrewd word play and insults that are culturally in his era and his community.
Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice is a romantic and funny play that has a lot of witty characters. In Shakespeare’s times, people found different things funny like insulting foreigners. The play contains many examples that insult Jews since they were the minority in London in Shakespeare's era. From Adelman’s book, the Christian insulted the Jew as animals. The Shylock’s heart can never be softened because all he wants is revenge (Adelman 78). However, according to information collected from a review done by Halio regarding the play, Christians do not recognize their own institutional partiality and abuse fuel Shylock's fierceness. (Halio 66).
Despite being insulted, the shylock demands that the law be carried on because he is doing no worse than the Christians. Shylock believes that the Christians limit his life in endless ways and even his agreement with Antonio limits Antonio's life. Despite the fact that Shakespeare figures out how to entertain his audience, his play has a lot of inconspicuous insults. One more insult in the play is whereby Antonio was viewed as gay person.
Portia is the character with most jokes. During the first staging of the play, the shylock actor would have been costumed in a red wig with a prosthetic nose, looking not at all like the Venetian characters. In this context, Portia asks in humorous way who is the Jew and who is the Jew. Again, when she was welcoming Antonio, Portia joked that she hoped Bassanio is just figuratively bound to him since, last she has listened, Antonio was bound to his companion by an extremely risky contract in reality. In the play, the male Christians are portrayed as sexist and arrogant (Heschel 417). They only expect to be entertained and not insulted.
Another clear humor is seen on Gratiano's rough sexual joke which was portrayed in form of a ring as a symbol for the vagina. This made the play to hit a comic final note. According to Ellis, this poses question on how better they can destroy shylock with their sexual jokes. Ellis believes that they cannot do it better than the shylocks thirst for revenge and love of money (Ellis 412).
Generally, the play is an anti-Semitic one in light of the fact that the Jews are looked upon as dishonest and evil. In accordance with Ghoses’ book, the entire play does not portray the Jew as a good person. Each character in the play abuses the Jew and when Jew had his thoughtful lines, they were only intended to be witty.
Much Ado About Nothing
The play is tragicomedy which mostly concentrates on self-dramatization, self-deception, self-awareness and self-love. The play has the mockery and raillery of the dignified class. With its far-fetched metaphors and similes, the hyperbole, the arrogances and insults, the play has a constant absurdity. Closest to mind of the dignified sort and regularly not effectively to be recognized from it, Benedick the humor of the play. He has logical perverse, impudent mockery and shrewd humorousness (Margolies 47).
In this play, Benedick and Beatrice are the most fascinating characters despite their humorous subplot. Beatrice's unexplained anger toward Benedick can be seen even from the start point (Shakespeare 456). Benedick has been hurting Beatrice and this results to her greeting him with anger, weariness and scorn. In the end we perceive that affection and desire for him are still covered inside her. She has figured out how to utilize jokes and insults to mask deeper emotions.
In this upside down world, there is a consistent feeling of oddity and fun loving disagreement. People tell home truths under the cover of veils and truth is misread as trickery. Beatrice insults Benedick, pretending not to know it was him. According to their reaction, everybody was anticipating a response from the other (Bowles 326). Despite the fact that their insults are gnawing, their capacity to keep up such cunning, interconnected fighting appears to outline the presence of a solid bond between them.
Conclusion
Insults and humorous jokes in these two plays are to communicate important messages to readers. The twinkling affiliation between the humorous lovers Beatrice and Benedick has made Much Ado about nothing the most enduring romantic comedies. This means that the problem to romantic love is not external. The plays portray romantic as a nature consumed by women. But they also sanction male-female relationships this is shown in Antonio and Bassanio, Don Pedro tells Claudio that he will woo Hero on his as shown in merchant of Venice and Much Ado About Nothing respectively. The two plays are used to show how really the writer used humor and insults to communicate to the readers. The comparison between the two plays brings the really allusions used by the writer. “I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes,” illustrates sexual climax when and shows the really affection when Benedick tells his lover, Beatrice.
Works Cited
Adelman, Janet. Blood Relations: Christian and Jew in The Merchant of Venice. University of Chicago Press, 2008.
Antinora, Sarah. "Please let this be much ado about nothing:'Kill Claudio'and the laughter of release." Ceræ: an Australasian Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 1 (2014): 1.
Bowles, Robin. Culture Clashing in William Shakespeare's Much Ado about Not (h) ing. University of Portland, 2009.
Bloom, Harold, and Michael G. Cornelius. Much Ado about Nothing. Infobase Publishing, 2010.
Ellis, David. Shakespeare's practical jokes: an introduction to the comic in his work. Associated University Presse, 2007.
Ghose, Indira. Shakespeare and laughter: A cultural history. Manchester University Press, 2013.
Halio, Jay L. "The Merchant of Venice (review)." Shakespeare Bulletin 24.2 (2006): 63-68.
Heschel, Susannah. "From Jesus to Shylock: Christian Supersessionism and “The Merchant of Venice”." Harvard Theological Review 99.04 (2006): 407-431.
Margolies, David. "Much Ado About Nothing." Shakespeare’s Irrational Endings. Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2012. 36-55.
Shakespeare, William. The Arden Shakespeare. Much ado about nothing. Eds. Claire Elizabeth McEachern, et al. Methuen, 2007.
