Shakespeares Comedy vs Tragedy
Certain parallels can be drawn between William Shakespeare's plays, "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and "Romeo and Juliet". These parallels concern themes and prototypical Shakespearian character types. Both plays have a distinct pair of 'lovers', Hermia and Lysander, and Romeo and Juliet, respectively. Both plays could have also easily been tragedy or comedy with a few simple changes. A tragic play is a play in which one or more characters have a moral flaw that lead to his/her downfall. A comedic play has at least one humorous character, and a successful or happy ending. Comparing these two plays is useful to find how Shakespeare uses similar character types in a variety of plays, and the versatility of the themes which he uses. In "Romeo and Juliet", Juliet is young, "not yet fourteen", and she is beautiful, and Romeo's reaction after he sees her is: "O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night As a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear Beauty to rich for use, for the earth too dear!" Juliet is also prudent, "Although I joy in thee, I have no joy in this contract tonight. It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden." She feels that because they have just met, they should abstain from
Prohibited love, romance, controlling families, both plays have it all. With a few simple modifications, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" could have been a tragedy, and "Romeo and Juliet" could have been a comedy. Shakespeare however, uses many of the same character types, young, prudent, rebellous lovers, and controling family members, in both comedies and tragedies. The end results are character molds, along with theme molds that can be easily translated into almost any plot, in any play. Likewise, "Romeo and Juliet", could have been a comedy. The first two acts of this play qualifies it as a comedy. In act I, Sampson and Gregory, servants of the Capulets, "talk big about what they'll do the Montagues, make racy comments, and insult each other as often as they insult the Montagues." ("Barron's, 45). In act II, Romeo meets Juliet. All is going well until Tybalt, a Capulet kills Romeo's best friend, Mercutio. Things go continue to go wrong from here, until at the end of the play Romeo, thinking that Juliet is dead (she is in fact alive, she took a drug to fake her death), drinks poison, and when Juliet awakens from the spell of the drug, seeing her dead lover, stabs herself. If the families' pride had not been so great that they would murder one another, or prohibited true love, this play could have been a comedy. This play is a tragedy, not because one character has a flaw, but both families have a flaw- pride. The stories of "R
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 972
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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