A Comedy of Errors

When I read it I thought it was hilarious - what could be more hilarious than mistaken identity? But it did think having two sets of twins who somehow mysterious end up with each other was stretching it a little bit. We did this play for our "Theory and Practice of Comedy" unit. And this was the essay I wrote on it, about the representation of women. (Btw, I think Mae West was one of the most empowered female protagonists in movie history - she claimed her sexuality wholeheartedly, was all sorts of indecent and always came up on top. Especially when dealing with younger, handsomer leading men - is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?)

In Elizabethan times, Puritan ideas were transforming society, calling into question conventions that had existed for centuries in relation to the treatment of women and their status in a marriage. They recognised the spiritual equality of women and called for new ideals in the middle class context. The double standard in adultery became less acceptable. In The Comedy of Errors, Shakespeare addresses the questions about the nature and status of a woman in a marriage. Although he appears to be pushing conventional wisdom about the subjection of a wife to her husband, I think that, in this play at least, he has represented the characters in such a way as to call that wisdom into question.

Adriana, the main female character in The Comedy of Errors represents the Puritan position on marriage. She questions her relative position and rails at the inequalities she has to put up with. Although she is characterised as a shrew and a scold by her husband Antipholus, her rather colourless sister, Luciana, and finally the Abbess, I think she has a value point of view and not just in a revisionist 21st century context.

Her main fault seems to be that she loves her husband too much and is unable to turn a blind eye, or bear with equanimity, his philandering ways. Knowing that she is no longer young and beautiful, she is, naturally, insecure about his affections. "Hath homely age, th'alluring beauty took from my poor cheek?" However, even as she exclaims against him for his poor treatment of her, she is never unaffectionate or undutiful. I wonder if they noted this, they who seek to condemn her?

When she learns to her horror that he has attempted to seduce her own sister, she calls him names but is moved to say at the end of her tirade that she thinks him better than she says. So it seems that even after the ultimate betrayal, she still loves the bastard. When she later learns that he is arrested, though justifiably angry at this point, she sends the money to redeem him, immediately. When towards the end of the play, she is accused by the Abbess of driving her husband mad by her constant jealousy (an unfair accusation, btw, because she had not driven her husband mad) she was just dealing with his long-lost twin who appeared to be mad in comparison, she does not defend herself but meekly accepts that woman's abuse and feels a pang of undeserved guilt.

At this point it is Luciana who comes to her rescue, telling the Abbess that Adriana's reproofs had been mild and gentle to Antipholus' rough, rude and wild behaviour. "Why bear you these rebukes and answer not?" she demands of her sister.

To which Adriana replies: "She did betray me to my own reproof." Where in any of this can she called a shrew or a scold?

It is telling too, that one of Antipholus' own friends Balthazar speaks of Adriana's wisdom, sober virtue, years and modesty, when he advises Antipholus against breaking down the door and calling his wife's honour into question. This would seem to suggest that the general perception of Adriana in Ephesus is positive rather than negative and that she has never crossed her husband in public.

Adriana is unable to accept Luciana's glib explanations as to the state of marriage that man is master of his liberty while his wife must always be subject to his commands, however unreasonable. Something to the effect of "I wield my cock (over which I have no control) and therefore I rule?" Only in a mad, mad society.

Luciana parrots the party line, based on St Paul's letter to the Ephesians that man is master of his wife, as Christ is head of the church but Adriana questions, this, the most holy of holies, the letter that has been used to oppress women for generations, and the letter that has caused them to bow their heads and accept such oppression even when reason, character and common sense would rebel against it.

When Luciana says that the subjection of women is divinely appointed, Adriana remarks rather wryly that this servitude must be what keeps Luciana unwed. Adriana also points out that if Luciana were to wed she would discover that she would not be entirely powerless in the relation, nor would she bear her husband's perfidy with the equanimity she now adopts while speaking about it hypothetically.

When she meets Antipholus of Syracuse (her husband's twin) and mistakes him for her husband, she begs him to consider his honour, pointing out that if he sleeps around, it contaminates her as well. "For if we be of one and thou play false, I do digest the poison of your flesh, being strumpeted by thy contagion." Which makes sense. If Antipholus contracts a disease through his debauchery, he is liable to pass it to her when they lie upon the marriage bed. She also adds that if she were the one caught in such licentious behaviour, Antipholus would not hesitate to beat or divorce her. She begs him to be true to his marriage vows so she can live "unstained" and he, "undishonoured".

All this seems to demonstrate that Adriana, far from being a shrew or an unreasonable woman, is a good wife. She refuses to accept the status quo because she loves her husband but does not see herself as being inferior to him. If she questions the conventions of the time which others (like Luciana) have accepted blindly, it does not make her a shrew; rather it shows that despite the oppression and brainwashing of society, she is able to think for herself.

Luciana represents the status quo. Pretty, conventional and yes, colourless, she is the perfect virtuous, obedient woman who speaks the way a man would have her speak. In other words, a bloodless, robotic Stepford wife who is not yet wed but soon to be. She advises Adriana to rein in her impatience, forebear with her husband's cruel treatment and be obedient. Her advice is worth little, if anything, as she has shunned marriage, begin afraid of there "troubles of the marriage bed". In other words, she is a frigid little virgin, who remains chaste not out of a sense of virtue, but because she is afraid of sex. Aristotle once advised men to marry frigid women and to deal out sex to them sparingly, maybe three times a month. And to make sure that they hated it. That way, not only would they not object to their husband's philandering, but they would not be driven to seek such solace themselves.

Although Luciana couches her words of advice in a cloak of sweetness and reason, her mask seems to break down when she advises the man she takes to be her brother-in-law, to be a better dissembler, rather than to give up other women altogether. "Or, if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth, muffle your false love with some show of blindness." So she is not appealing to his honour, but rather that he maintain the appearance of it. And there we have it; the perfect woman who is more concerned with appearances than reality. The perfect wife, who would leave your marriage bed cold (but then, how in the world are you going to get that son or heir), but would not stop you from sowing your wild oats, well into the marriage. The man she makes this appeal to, is not her brother-in-law, of course, but his twin, who finds himself irresistibly attracted to Luciana on the strength of her discourse. Evoking the status quo, she appears attractive to him. Adriana, who questions it, leaves him cold. Which tells us a lot more about him than it does about either woman.

While Adriana is warm and passionate, Luciana is cold and detached. But cold and detached seems to be equated with virtue. Love your husband just enough but not too much. That way, nobody gets hurt.

The Abbess represents the traditional point of view, but as we later find, she is a hypocrite, who in her youth, did not heed her own advice. She upbraids Adriana for her jealous fits, accusing her of driving Antipholus mad. Yet we learn later that she is really Aemilia, Aegeon's wife and Antipholus' mother. It was she who was responsible, by her headstrong behaviour, for the separation of the twins early in the story, which brought about these complications. When Aegeon had gone away for business, Aemilia, unable to bear the separation, decides to follow him, despite the fact that she is heavily pregnant and about the give birth. He had not sent for her. She was not being a dutiful wife and staying at home to be safely delivered of their children. Then, when she delivers the twins, she urges him to go home with her, which he accedes to, albeit unwillingly. And on this journey, they are shipwrecked and then separated for over 20 years. If she had been more like the woman she urged her daughter-in-law to be, the family would never have been separated and years of suffering would have been alleviated. Taking all this into account, her castigation of Adriana seems doubly infamous; either she has learned her lesson (but even then, shouldn't she be more compassionate to one who although she perceives her as having transgressed, did not do so, anywhere close to the level she did) or she is simply just another hypocrite, her sons' mother in fact, anxious to urge behaviour that she does not follow herself.

And then, there is the courtesan, a stock figure in comedy, the woman who entertains men for pleasure and profit, the whore with a heart of gold. She seems to represent the silent threat to marriage that runs throughout the text. The moment a husband is discontented with his wife, whose arms does he run to, but hers; even if he has to pay her money (and not a little) for her embraces. Although her actual appearances are few, her presence is tangible. Adriana is anxious when Antipholus is late for dinner because she fears that he may have gone to see the courtesan. When Antipholus (the husband) is chagrined at being locked out of his own house, he does in fact go to see the courtesan, promising to give her the chain that he made for his wife. (the fact that he had a chain made for his wife shows that for all his blustering, he is not completely indifferent to her). She is silently present too, when Adriana speaks of the poison she would digest in her own flesh were Antipholus to betray his marriage bed.

Here, she is a whore with a strong head for business. She gives her diamond rung to Antipholus in exchange for the chain. As the chain is worth 500 ducats and the ring merely 40 ducats, this is a very profitable exchange. Then, when she meets the wrong Antipholus who will neither give her the chain nor return her diamond ring, she decides to appeal to Adriana, the woman she has, in effect, wronged. She amends her story by saying that Antipholus stormed into her house and took her ring by force, and refrains from any mention of the gold chain. Her appeal works and she manages to get Adriana on her side. What is interesting here is that when charged with the story, the wrong Antipholus does not deny the story but merely says, "Tis true, my liege, this ring I had of her."

He later thanks her for the "good cheer" she provided him at dinner. Although she does not profit from the bargain, she does not lose anything by it, either. While the other women seem to think and feel their way through the play, the courtesan has no time for the heart; she is a woman of business. And despite her profession, she is not represented as either evil or reprobate, but is treated with courtesy by everyone. Which I find very interesting. It would seem that a courtesan's lot may be better than a wife's after all. Or so the movie "A Dangerous Beauty" about the courtesans in Venice, who were the only educated women in society, the only ones who could read and write, would have us think.

Man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion

I watched the Kenneth Branagh production of Much Ado About Nothing and found it so perfect that I had difficulty in reading the actual play - because he cut some of the dialogue, some of the scene complications and actually rearranged others that now, whatever he cut seems superfluous to the telling of the story.

I watched it several times. I think it sets up two couples in opposition. The first couple, Beatrice and Benedick claim to hate each other and the opposite sex: one a confirmed bachelor and the other a confirmed spinster who is too shrewd for marriage. But ah, dig deeper. There is something not quite true about the way Benedick rails at marriage. And we soon learn that Beatrice had once felt a certain tenderness for Benedick. In this production, at least, it is obvious that despite her thrusts and parries, she still feels it.

My favourite scenes are the "merry war of words" between the two. I wish there had been more of them. That makes me partly regret the trick played where they had to come out in the open about how they really feel about each other. And despite the self congratulation of the others for bringing about this match, I think that the depth of feeling between the two when finally revealed suggests something older and deeper than what could have come about through means of a trick, be it never so clever.

The other couple on the other hand, the model couple - young and handsome and rich - disgust me. Hero, for being the dutiful daughter with not a speck of spirit to her, trotting along obediently and marrying whomsoever her father should choose, and Claudio, for being a stupid, young, self-seeking bastard. I cannot help but remember that one of the first questions he asked the Prince, when talking about Hero, was what her prospects were. And he firmly established that she was Leonato's only heir before he pursued his suit.

As for Don John, the acknowledged villain of the piece. He found an easy mark in Claudio. That he could fool him not once but twice, is remarkable. It also showed how self serving Claudio was.

And oh, the prize of one-sided virginity insisted upon - upon my honour, I am a maid. The scene Claudio caused at the wedding, denouncing Hero for damaged goods and the stupid Prince, who had until then been so regal and above it all, supporting him. Of course I lost all respect for the prince. Denzel Washington though he may be.

And I liked Benedick even more for taking Hero's part and issuing that challenge on Claudio.

Kill Claudio?

Yes, I think he would have done everybody a favour had he done so.

But enough of that! The drama bit was overdone and I hated the fact that until the last, Hero was traded as a commodity. She was little else in the game, her own father turning upon her with the accusation, not caring to find out the rights and wrongs before he attacked her.

Poor poppet. She was sorely done by.

I can't understand why Margaret allowed her mistress to be denounced in the way she did and why she didn't set them straight at once. Perhaps she would not have been believed.

And Don John was found and brought back and would have to pay for his misdeeds, although, in light of all the merriment, that part was to be conducted offstage. Well and good.

For man is a giddy thing. And this is my conclusion.

Except when he is not giddy enough and insists on his portion.

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad...

OK I am going to cheat on this blog. I did quite a bit of Shakespeare in university, and sometimes, even had to write essays on the various plays. I am presenting the essays here...I though it would be a good place for them.



The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare shows how power circulates in both Venice and Belmont during Elizabethan times in various contexts. In this blog post, I will be doing a cultural materialist reading of the play and comparing it to the movie version of Fight Club, which will serve as my contemporary text. I will be looking specifically at how power operates in male networks which look to be complete in themselves, resisting the inclusion of women except as a commodity to reinforce rather than defuse the patriarchy.

Cultural materialism (for those who are unclear on the concept) is a way of interpreting literary texts as historical or cultural artefacts, emphasising the importance of history in shaping them. It sees literary and cultural criticism as participating in politics, active in reinforcing, dissenting from or opposing cultural orthodoxies.

The Merchant of Venice foregrounds make networks of power within the city of Venice. The men in the group - Antonio, Bassanio, Gratiano, Lorenzo, Salarino, Solanio and Salerio - are gentlemen of Venice and companions to each other and while three of the members of this group eventually get married, they do mention in the text that their first loyalties are to each other. Antonio, the merchant is the only member of the group with money but his money seems to be at the disposal of the rest of the group, particularly Bassanio, who is introduced as his kinsman, although the bond between the two seems to run much deeper. Karen Newman, in her essay, Portia's Ring: Unruly Women and Structures of Exchange in The Merchant of Venice points out that the women in this play are regarded as goods for exchange. When Bassanio speaks of Portia, he mentions her wealth before he talks about her beauty or her virtue:

In Belmont is a lady richly left,
And she is fair, and fairer than that word -
Of wondrous virtues. (Act 1, Scene 1, lines 160-162)

While Bassanio does soften his language to speak of her other qualities, he makes no qualms about stressing the mercenary nature of his suit:

And many Jasons come in quest of her.
Oh my Antonio, had I but the means
To hold a rival place with one of them,
I have a mind presages me such thrift
That I should question less be fortunate. (Act 1, Scene 1, lines 171-175)

Newman argues that Belmont is not a place of love but that it shares the same commercial values as Venice. She points out that the two are characterised by the same "structure of exchange", positing that marriage is the most fundamental form of exchange with men trading women to establish or tighten the bonds of male friendship. The bond that Antonio enters on Bassanio's behalf serves to promote and secure the friendship between them. As Bassanio has assured Antonio before he launches on a panegyric about Portia, his first loyalties lie with his friend, rather than his prospective bride: "To you, Antonio, I owe the most in money and in love..." (Act 1, Scene 1, lines 129-130).

While it may seem like just a lot of high-flown, flowery, ornamental nonsense, the text bears it out. When there is a conflict between what Portia has asked him to do (in terms of keeping her ring) and what Antonio asks him to do (in giving the ring to the lawyer who saved his life), he goes with what Antonio wants. During the trial, Bassanio is moved to exclaim that he would give up everything, including his wife, who is dear to him as life itself, to save Antonio. Portia in disguise who is standing by, remarks rather caustically: "Your wife would give you little thanks for that if she were by to hear you make the offer."

In each case, both with the ring and the offer of his wife's life in exchange for Antonio's, the rather obstreperous Gratiano echoes Bassanio. The message seems to be that the fraternal love between the men is worth more than their feelings for their respective wives. It is at this point that Shylock, who is cast as the villain of the scene, is moved to disgust at the relatively low value Christian husbands place on their wives.

Portia, on marrying Bassanio, finds that she is not only saddled with him, but his friends as well. Almost his first act on marriage is to rush to the side of his friend Antonio. Gratiano marries Portia's companion Nerissa. Lorenzo, fleeing Venice. after having eloped with Shylock's daughter Jessica, also comes to take refuge with Bassanio and Portia. Bassanio then, does not sacrifice any of his male friends on marriage. Rather now, with Portia's money at his disposal, he is able to play the bountiful host and disperse largesse to his friends. Portia acknowledges his right to do so. When he picks the right casket to win her hand, she submits herself to be:

As from her lord, her governor, her king
Myself and what is mine to you and yours
Is now converted. But now I was the lord
Of this fair mansion, master of my servants
Queen o'er myself: and even now, but now,
This house, these servants, an this same myself
Are yours, my lord's. (Act 3, Scene 2).

And thus saying she becomes wholly his to do with as he sees fit.

While, through cross-dressing, Portia has saved Antonio's life and frightened her husband into a true appreciation of her qualities and what might happen if he crosses her, the affair with the ring puts paid to any romantic notion she might have had that Bassanio values her over all else. Quite simply, he doesn't. And what's more, he appears proud of the fact. When all is said and done, male bonds are the most important. Wives are important inasmuch as they produce heirs. Portia's deception that she went to bed with the lawyer who possessed the ring was effective because it forefronted exactly where her value lay. In the bedroom. Producing legitimate heirs for the pauper who had married her.

In David Fincher's cinematic adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel Fight Club, the protagonists attempt to resurrect what they perceive to be a waning masculinity in the face of the "feminisation" of America through the formation of all-male clubs where the members pound on each other, bare-chested and bare-fisted, emerging from combat bloodied and bruised, but feeling like men again.

Susan Faludi, in her book, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the Modern Man has pointed out that consumer culture has emasculated men, pushing them increasingly into ornamental and passive roles traditionally associated with women. She described post-war masculinity with no common enemy and no common missions potentially dangerous. As the male role diminished, Faludi said many men have found themselves driven to more domineering and even monstrous displays in their frantic quest for a meaningful showdown - with a shape-shifting enemy - women, gays, young black men or illegal aliens. This is arguably what happens in Fight Club which foregrounds the lengths men are willing to take to reclaim their dying masculinity.

The first part of the movie sets up the feminised culture of America which the narrator has become enmeshed in. A chronic insomniac, he has found salvation in support groups for various illnesses, which he attends, so he can weep uncontrollably in the arms of another person. In his spare time, he shops voraciously using an Ikea catalogue, looking for the perfect sofa, the perfect coffee table, the perfect salt shaker, that will define him as a person. He is quite happy to go on being a feminised man, but his idyll is invaded by a woman, Marla Singer, who has also discovered the joy of support groups, and like him, is a tourist rather than a real sufferer. Her presence is a mirror to the narrator's own tourist status and he is no longer able to cry freely at these meetings, and as a result, no longer able to sleep. He confronts her and they agree to divide up the meetings. He goes there to cry, she to eat.

When not attending meetings or looking for the perfect salt shaker, the narrator is a "recall coordinator" for a large automobile concern. His job basically consists of mathematically determining whether it would be more profitable for his company to recall automobiles with defective parts or pay out compensation from the lawsuits that would result later.

On his next flight to investigate yet another vehicle crash he meets the enigmatic Tyler Durden, who makes US$20 from each bar of soap he makes using discarded body fluids from a liposuction clinic, "selling rich women their fat asses back to them." This meeting marks the turning point of his life. He moves in with Durden when his apartment is mysteriously blown up with homemade explosives and from then on, imbibes Durden's philosophies which are an antithesis of everything he has ever stood for until then.

Goddamit, an entire generation pumping gas, working tables, the slaves of the white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We are the middle children of history, man, no purpose or place. We have no Great War, no Great Depression, Our Great War is a spiritual war. Our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars, but we won't. And we're slowly learning from the fact. And we've very pissed off. (Tyler Durden)

The narrator and Tyler Durden set out to save the world of the emasculated white collar workers through the late-night, masochistic, bare-knuckled brawling. They start an underground boxing network and under Tyler's leadership the fight clubs become so popular they are transformed into a politicised, revolutionary movement: Project Mayhem, a series of escalating disruptions aimed at businesses, consumer consumption, and the financial system itself. Eventually the narrator, along with first-time readers/viewers, discovers that Tyler Durden is merely his alter ego.

What starts out as a reassertion of masculinity gradually degenerates int a terrorist group undertaking to blow up a dozen corporate credit card buildings to wipe out all record of credit card debt. The men bond through extreme violence and become obedient, unthinking, nameless conformists dedicated to a single cause and under the absolute authority of Durden.

Henry Giroux pointed out that while Fight Club appears to offer a critique of late capitalistic society and the misfortunes it generates out of its obsessive concerns with consumption, profits and commercial values, it is really rebelling against a consumerist culture that dissolves the bonds of male sociality and puts into place an enervating notion of male identity and agency. Krister Friday (in his essay A Generation of Men Without History: Fight Club Masculinity and the Historical Symptom)pointed out that Fight Club stages a narrative of "white male decline", but it is a narrative in which an atavistic notion of masculinity (one based on fist-fighting and terrorism) is first recovered and then offered the chance to regain its efficacy and reconstitute itself through revolutionary action.

Fight Club functions as a rejection of the feminine, which has been set up at the beginning of the movie as "the enemy". The protagonist leaves his upper middle class apartment for a hovel in a toxic dump, he trades his support groups for organised brawling, he arrives at work looking worse and worse everyday until he successfully loses his job.

The only female character in the movie, Marla Singer, is relegated for the most part to the periphery. She is only there to offer her body freely to Durden/the narrator and to be used and rejected at their whim. She is not allowed any volition. In the closing scene, she is kidnapped by Durden's highly trained militia, who bring her to him, kicking and screaming. She forgets her anger, however, in seeing his bloodied face and as they hold hands and watch them buildings around them collapse, he offers: "You met me at a very weird time in my life."

Her only importance in the movie seems to have been to get him out of the feminine support groups to form the more manly fight clubs, but otherwise, she is superfluous.

Here, as in with The Merchant of Venice, it is the relationships and loyalties between the men that matter. These relationships construct the members of the club, taking them from being disempowered men in unimportant, dead-end jobs, to members of a unified, deadly organisation wielding a destructive power which literally brings down an entire financial district. Both texts are about all-male groups which either are, or become sufficient in themselves through mutual support, loyalty and discipline. In either case, no female, however important, is allowed to come between the brothers.