The Morality play can be defined as an “allegorical play popular especially in the 15th and 16th centuries in which the characters personify abstract qualities or concepts which involve a direct conflict between right and wrong or good and evil and from which a moral lesson may be draw (Webster).” Today, the morality play Everyman, is occasionally performed or read at colleges and church organizations. These productions are usually academic in nature or focused on religious ideology. Ron Tanner author of Humor in Everyman and the Middle English Morality Play argues that this play has value beyond such narrow focus. A closer evaluation of the plot and characters would support his assertion. Therefore, Tanner sets out to prove the critics wrong and unveil the humor in the morality play Everyman by comparing it with two other morality plays, Mankind and Youth.
Morality plays have a reputation of being dreary, grim and didactic, but Tanner knows this not to be true. He begins his argument by asserting his disgust towards the critics and their opinions about the morality play Everyman. He tells us that today’s critics underestimate the use of humor in morality plays and have given them a bad name. He offers three examples of humor in just the beginning of the play; Everyman’s attempt to negotiate with death; Everyman’s conversations with Fellowship, then with Kindred and Cousin.
“The playwrights main instrument of humor in these plays is irony, particularly dramatic irony” Tanner explains. Tanner claims that this sets a collusion between the audience and the unaware characters and this draws the audience in. It also creates sympathy from the audience towards the characters. Tanner claims that the introduction to the play and E...
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...ved the play to be humorous if perhaps you lived in medieval times. Tanner’s argument described the humor the medieval audience would have recognized but did not support his assertion that the play can be anything more than educational and religious today. Even after his emphasis on certain areas the play he lacks support in relating the humor to today‘s society. Several times he mentions how the medieval audience would perceive the characters but today’s audience would not understand or relate in the same way. The elements that drew the medieval audience in and made the play humorous to them can not be sensed by a contemporary audience because it does not relate to today’s society. Although Everyman proved very popular with medieval readers I am not convinced that the play is anything more than religious and educational (or) can be found humorous in today’s society.
This whole play by Arthur Miller shows how our community will turn on each other to save ourselves no matter if it’s right or wrong and it’s true in our society today. It also shows how a good man regained his happiness and holiness by standing up for what’s right against the lies and sacrificed himself for the truth.
In conclusion I think that the stage directions and dramatic irony are significant to the play, and without them there would be no need for a lot of the events that happen in the play.
Paul as well as those of Erasmus that bring to focus various dimensions that are aligned around Shakespeare’s perception of comic faith in the play. The characters of Bottom, Theseus and lovers give out an insight to epistle paradoxes on religious faith coupled with a slight touch of romantic faith which is set out in thee wholesome imaginative experience. Celebration of limitations sits as the precursor for comic happiness in the play; there is an epistemological appeal that focuses on the mannerisms of characters. Most obvious of all allusions of comic faith in the play is Pauline and sets out the central attention that is meant to be captures. Upon waking up from his dream, Bottom has a delightful monologue that sets out a clear difference between ridicule and the sublime of the play, “I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass of he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was – there is no man can tell what. Methought …I had – But man is but a patched fool if he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report what my dream was (Shakespeare and Foakes 203).” Herein we see Bottom considering himself as an ass and he fails to expound further on the meaning of his dream whole his hands
... of all time, with a protagonist that is plagued with indecision, but spurred by a desire to avenge his father’s death. At the time of the play’s writing, religion was by far the largest influence on the lives of ordinary people, and the protagonist’s defiance of God for most of the play could only end in tragedy.
In I Henry IV and II Henry IV, William Shakespeare brings together drama and comedy to create two of the most compelling history plays ever written. Many of Shakespeare's other works are nearly absolute in their adherence to either the comic or tragic traditions, but in the two Henry IV plays Shakespeare combines comedy and drama in ways that seem to bring a certain realism to his characters, and thus the plays. The present essay is an examination of the various and significant effects that Shakespeare's comedic scenes have on I Henry IV and II Henry IV. The Diversity of Society
In both A Streetcar Named Desire and Hamlet, Tennessee Williams and William Shakespeare, respectively, demonstrate their abilities to create engaging plays which work on several levels in order to produce the desired effect. One of the most important characteristics of these plays is the playwrights' success in using their words to create the worlds surrounding their works. Both Shakespeare and Williams effectively use irony in the aforementioned plays, both in the plot and with specific symbolism, to create mildly existential environments where effective irony is a confirmation of fate and justice. Immediately apparent to the reader upon completion of these two works is the glaring appearance of irony in the plays' plots. For example, in A Streetcar Named Desire, a great deal of dramatic irony is created when the audience is made aware of details that characters are ignorant to.
In the play Othello, Shakespeare uses many literary devices to help the reader understand the theme of the story. One of those many literary devices used in the play, is the wide range of irony. Throughout the pages of the book the reader will see the use of dramatic, situational, and verbal irony. Shakespeare does not use irony in an understated way, it is very direct, and can be found on almost every page of the book. The use of irony creates suspense, and adds interest as to what will happen.
To conclude, reading the plays of Shakespeare is not only about an entertainment, there is more about learning manhood and the importance of the role that morality plays in everyday life. That is the reason of Shakespeare’s plays are so popular because through his work, he illustrates that: life is a play, which is performed on the earth stage, and his world stage will continue influences the past, modern and further.
... and ambiguity. Shakespeare uses the ironies found in the play so that we will remember his play's limits. It cannot produce an ideal, nor can we as an audience.
...erpreted as dark and significant to the period. The comedy Wilde achieves is at the expense of the characters who are seemingly intelligent adding to the ironic structure that much of the comedy is based on. Many of the comic elements of the play are shown through human reactions to Victorian repression and the effect it has on the men and women of the time. Love seems to be nonexistent within the finds of the fierce and brutal Aristocracy when so many of the qualities they value are not based on human qualities but that of the class’s social norms. Wildes Characters are at often times not subtle about their distaste in marriage and love, Algernon is no exception to this “In aried lie, three is company, two is none” showing that they all have distorted views on many of the social practices that make them morally sound, thus adding to the satire elements of the play.
Snyder, Susan. "Beyond the Comedy: Othello" Modern Critical Interpretations, Othello Ed. Harold Bloom, Pub. Chelsea House New Haven CT 1987.
This paper is a critique of a production of The Last Night of Ballyhoo, a play written by Alfred Uhry, which was performed and produced by the Ball State University Theatre. Gilbert L. Bloom directed the production and was very successful with producing a truly entertaining, comedic play with an important message about the personal dilemmas that we as individuals with different beliefs and values must encounter in our daily lives.
The play, set in the 1600’s during the witch hunt that sought to rid villages of presumed followers and bidders of the devil is a parallel story to the situation in the US in the 1950’s: McCarthyism, seeking the riddance of communist ideologists. Miller sets this story more particularly in a village called Salem, where the theocratic power governed by strict puritan rules require the people to be strong believers and forbid them to sin at risk of ending up in hell. However, the audience notices that despite this strong superficial belief in God, faith is not what truly motivates them, but it is rather money and reputation.
Snyder, Susan. "Beyond the Comedy: Othello" Modern Critical Interpretations, Othello Ed. Harold Bloom, Pub. Chelsea House New Haven CT 1987.
Snyder, Susan. "Beyond the Comedy: Othello" Modern Critical Interpretations, Othello Ed. Harold Bloom, Pub. Chelsea House New Haven CT 1987.