Aspects of Humor in William Shakespeare's The Tempest

Aspects of Humor in William Shakespeare's The Tempest

Act Two Scene Two is a comic sub plot because of the characters

behaviours and actions. It also highlights some of the main themes of

the central plot. Trinculo is a jester, a fool and one of the main

characters, his job is to make people laugh. Stephano is the second

character I am going to be focusing on. He's a drunken butler and

because of his drunken actions, he's funny. Caliban adds humour to the

play because of what he's thinking and doing.

The play is based around colonialism, oppression, usurpation, masters,

servants and magic. It was written by the famous William Shakespeare

during the Elizabethan era.

In the Elizabethan age when the Tempest was performed to an audience,

the audience would've had a lot of different point of views compared

with today. A modern audience may only be laughing at the farcical

humour. They would also be laughing at the colonialism theme in the

play, we today would not laugh at this.

What makes this play funny is the dramatic irony, the stupidity, and

lack of common sense and intelligence.

Caliban has only ever seen and met 3 different people. His mother

Sycorax, Prospero, and Miranda. So this scene is a bit of a shocking

one for him. This scene he starts off as depressed, down and angry.

He's moaning and whining about how Prospero treats him and makes him

work hard. He was at first treated well, educated to a high standard,

and not made to work as much, that is until he tried to sexually

assault Miranda, from that day on Prospero has treated him as a slave.

He walks onto the stage moaning and cursing carrying wood and a cloak.

"…by inch meal a disease" this was Caliban's curse on Prospero. The

irony in the play is that as soon as Caliban has cursed Prospero, he

instantly regrets it as soon as he hears Trinculo even thought he knew

before he heard that Prospero's spirits will hear him and hurt him.