Common Features of a Shakespeare Comedy Essay Example

Common Features of a Shakespeare Comedy Paper Common Features of a Shakespeare Comedy What makes a Shakespeare comedy identifiable if the genre is not distinct from the Shakespeare tragedies and histories? This is an ongoing area of debate, but many believe that the comedies share certain characteristics, as described below: * Comedy through language: Shakespeare communicated his comedy through language and his comedy plays are peppered with clever word play, metaphors and insults. 1. Love: The theme of love is prevalent in every Shakespeare comedy. Often, we are presented with sets of lovers who, through the course of the play, overcome the obstacles in their relationship and unite. Love in Shakespearean comedy is stronger than the inertia of custom, the power of evil, or the fortunes of chance and time. In all of these plays but one (Troilus and Cressida), the obstacles presented to love are triumphantly overcome, as conflicts are resolved and errors forgiven in a general aura of reconciliation and marital bliss at the plays close. Such intransigent characters as Shylock, Malvolio, and Don John, who choose not to act out of love, cannot be accommodated in this scheme, and they are carefully isolated from the action before the climax. * * Complex plots: The plotline of a Shakespeare comedy contains more twists and turns than his tragedies and histories. Although the plots are complex, they do follow similar patterns. For example, the climax of the play always occurs in the third act and the final scene has a celebratory feel when the lovers finally declare their love for each other. We will write a custom essay sample on Common Features of a Shakespeare Comedy specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Common Features of a Shakespeare Comedy specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Common Features of a Shakespeare Comedy specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Moreover, the context of marriage—at least alluded to, is the cap-stone of the comedic solution, for these plays not only delight and entertain, they affirm, guaranteeing the future. Marriage, with its promise of offspring, reinvigorates society and transcends the purely personal element in sexual attraction and romantic love. * Mistaken identities: The plot is often driven by mistaken identity. Sometimes this is an intentional part of a villain’s plot, as in Much Ado About Nothing when Don John tricks Claudio into believing that his fiance has been unfaithful through mistaken identity. Characters also play scenes in disguise and it is not uncommon for female characters to disguise themselves as male characters, seen in Portia in the Merchant of venice. Shakespeare’s 17 comedies are the most difficult to classify because they overlap in style with other genres. Critics often describe some plays as tragi-comedies because they mix equal measures of tragedy and comedy. For example, Much Ado About Nothing starts as a Shakespeare comedy, but takes on the characteristics of a tragedy when Hero is disgraced and fakes her own death. At this point, the play has more in common with Romeo and Juliet, one of Shakespeare’s key tragedies. The 18 plays generally classified as comedy are as follows: 1 Alls Well That Ends Well 2 As You Like It 3 The Comedy of Errors 4 Cymbeline 5 Loves Labour’s Lost 6 Measure for Measure 7 The Merry Wives of Windsor 8 The Merchant of Venice 9 A Midsummer Nights Dream 10 Much Ado About Nothing 11 Pericles, Prince of Tyre 12 The Taming of the Shrew 13 The Tempest 14 Troilus and Cressida 15 Twelfth Night 16 Two Gentlemen of Verona 7 The Two Noble Kinsmen 18 The Winters Tale 2. 3. Comedy is a drama that provokes laughter at human behavior, usually involves romantic love, and usually has a happy ending. In Shakespeares day the conventional comedy enacted the struggle of young lovers to surmount some difficulty, usually presented by their elders, and the play ended happily in marriage or the prospect of marriage. Sometimes the struggle was to bring separated lovers or family memb ers together, and their reunion was the happy culmination (this often involved marriage also). Shakespeare generally observed these conventions, though his inventiveness within them yielded many variations. 4. Eighteen plays are generally included among Shakespeares comedies. In approximate order of composition, they are. These works are often divided into distinct subclasses reflecting the playwrights development. The first seven, all written before about 1598, are loosely classed as the early comedies, though they vary considerably in both quality and character. The last four of these—Loves Labours Lost, the Dream, the Merchant, and the Merry Wives—are sometimes separated as a transitional group, or linked with the next three in a large middle comedies classification. The Merry Wives is somewhat anomalous in any case; it represents a type of comedy—the city play, a speciality of suchwriters as Ben Jonson and Thomas Dekker—that Shakespeare did not otherwise write. The next three plays. Much Ado, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night, are often thought to constitute Shakespeares greatest achievement in comedy; all written around 1599-1600, they are called the romantic, or mature, comedies. The next group of three plays, called the Problem Plays, which include Alls Well that Ends Well, Troilus and Cressida, and Measure for Measure that were written in the first years of the 17th century, as Shakespeare was simultaneously creating his greatest tragedies. The final cluster, all written between about 1607 and 1613, make up the bulk of the playwrights final period. They are known as the Romances which include Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winters Tale, The Tempest, and often The Two Noble Kinsman. (The problem plays and romances were intended to merge Tragedy and comedy in Tragicomedies. Many minor variations in this classification scheme are possible; indeed, the boundaries of the whole genre are not fixed, for Timon of Athens is often included among the comedies, and Troilus and Cressida is sometimes considered a tragedy. 5. Shakespeares earliest comedies are similar to existing plays, reflecting his inexperience. The Comedy of Errors—thought by many scholars to be his first drama, though the dating of Shakespeares early works is extremely difficult—is built on a play by the ancient Roman dramatist Plautus. Characteristically, Shakespeare enriched his source, but with material from another play by Plautus. The Subplot of The Taming of the Shrew was taken from a popular play of a generation earlier, and the main plot was well known in folklore, though the combination was ingeniously devised. The Two Gentlemen of Verona likewise deals with familiar literary material, treating it in the manner of John Lyly, the most successful comedy writer when Shakespeare began his career. 6. However, the young playwright soon found the confidence to experiment, and in Loves Labours Lost, the Dream, and the Merchant, he created a group of unusual works that surely startled Elizabethan playgoers, though pleasurably, we may presume. In the first he created his own main plot and used a distinctively English variation on the Italian Commedia Dell’Arte traditions for a sub-plot. He thus produced a splendid array of comic situations. The plays abundant topical humor was certainly appreciated by the original audiences, although today we dont always know what it is about. In any case, the major characters are charming young lovers, the minor ones are droll eccentrics, and the closing coup de theatre, with which a darkening mood brings the work to a close, is a stunning innovation. Already, the eventual turn towards tragicomedy is foreshadowed. A Midsummer Nights Dream mingles motifs from many sources, but the story is again the playwrights own; moreover, the plays extraordinary combination of oddity and beauty was entirely unprecedented and has rarely been approximated since. The Merchant of Venice mixes a social theme, usury, into a conventional comedy plot to deepen the resonance of the final outcome as well as to vary the formula. Here, the threat that is finally averted is so dire as to generate an almost tragic mood, again anticipating developments later in the playwrights career. . The mastery that Shakespeare had achieved by the late 1590s is reflected in the insouciance of the titles he gave his mature comedies (Twelfth Nights subtitle—What You Will—matches the others). That mastery is accompanied by a serious intent that is lacking in the earliest comedies. Shakespeare could not ignore the inherent poignancy in the contrast between life as it is lived and the escape from life represented by comedy. I n Much Ado, as in The Merchant of Venice, a serious threat to life and happiness counters the froth of a romantic farce. Even in As You Like It, one of the most purely entertaining of Shakespeares plays, the melancholy Jaques interposes his conviction that life is irredeemably corrupt. Feste’s song at the close of Twelfth Night gives touching expression to such sentiments, as he sends us from the theatre with the melancholy refrain, the rain it raineth every day (5. 1. 391). We are not expected to take him too seriously, but we cannot avoid the realization that even the life of a jester may be a sad one. The mature comedies thus further a blending of comedy and tragedy. 8. In the end, however, all of Shakespeares comedies, including the later problem plays and romances, are driven by love. Love in Shakespearean comedy is stronger than the inertia of custom, the power of evil, or the fortunes of chance and time. In all of these plays but one (Troilus and Cressida), the obstacles presented to love are triumphantly overcome, as conflicts are resolved and errors forgiven in a general aura of reconciliation and marital bliss at the plays close. Such intransigent characters as Shylock, Malvolio, and Don John, who choose not to act out of love, cannot be accommodated in this scheme, and they are carefully isolated from the action before the climax. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 9. In their resolutions Shakespeares comedies resemble the medieval Morality Play, which centeres on a sinful human who receives Gods mercy. In these secular works, a human authority figure—Don Pedro or Duke Senior, for instance—is symbolically divine, the opponents of love are the representatives of sin, and all of the participants in the closing vignette partake of the plays love and forgiveness. Moreover, the context of marriage—at least alluded to at the close of all but Troilus and Cressida—is the cap-stone of the comedic solution, for these plays not only delight and entertain, they affirm, guaranteeing the future. Marriage, with its promise of offspring, reinvigorates society and transcends the purely personal element in sexual attraction and romantic love. Tragedys focus on the individual makes death the central fact of life, but comedy, with its insistence on the ongoing process of love and sex and birth, confirms our awareness that life transcends the individual. 10.

Extended Definition Essay on Kindness

Extended Definition Essay on Kindness When asked to write an extended definition essay on kindness, you should know that looking for the meaning of the word kindness in a dictionary is not going to help much. What you may find is a single sentence that defines kindness, or maybe two or three sentences defining the word. In either case, the information you find in a dictionary will not be enough to help you construct a full essay that defines the word kindness. Your can begin writing this type of essay by looking in the dictionary to get the true meaning of the word, but then you should seek additional details, comparisons, examples and other explanations. This is quite a traditional beginning of a definition essay – but try to select a reliable and solid dictionary edition, not a doubtful one you have found in the World Wide Web. The credible dictionaries are known around the whole world, so you will easily find the one to be cited. This will help your readers understand the subject matter in a way they would not have if they were only referred to the dictionary definition. When defining a subject, use more than just a phrase or a sentence or two to define your idea. This is the essence of writing an extended definition to a word. The words that one uses to write an extended definition usually depends on the needs of the targeted reader and the complexity of the subject being discussed. Most people find it easy to write this type of essay paper by providing specific examples intended to shed more light on the subject they are discussing. By giving examples, you will actually be giving the reader an opportunity to become more familiar with the subject in the essay paper.< For instance, you could decide to make use of an analogy, and in so doing, provide a lengthy comparison between two subjects, one of which the reader should find familiar and the other being one the reader may not be familiar with. You could then demonstrate or illustrate the relationship between the two subjects you are defining to help the reader make sense of the unfamiliar subject, using your own knowledge. In some cases, it may be easy to define complex subjects by breaking them into smaller subjects. You could then make the concept clear to the reader by discussing its phases of development and subtypes of the issue. You could also decide to use cause and effect reasoning to place the concept under discussion, in relation to the other concepts you are discussing in the essay paper. Whatever the method selected, it is always a good idea to engage the reader in the discussions. You can get professional definition essay writing help from academic writers. Just order a custom essay at CustomWritings.com!

The Enhancing Community Health Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Enhancing Community Health - Essay Example Presently, the consumers have been deciphering a greater inclination towards eco-friendly products and are also willing to pay more for these products, deciphering a quality concerned attitude rather than a price-centric motive. On the global context, individuals are immensely attracted to eco-friendly commodities for safety and health concerns. Subsequently, increased consumptions of eco-friendly products have assisted in maintaining the health of the community, which denotes that there might be a linkage between community health and the purchase trends deciphered by consumers to favor eco-friendly products (Connolly & Prothero, 2010). Correspondingly, the essay emphasizes on determining the impact of individual decisions in relation to eco-friendly commodity choices towards the health of the community. The demand for products and/or services if often argued to be depending on the needs as well as preferences of individuals in the worldwide market segments. Reflecting on the same concern, the report published by the European Commission (2006) signified that decisions of individuals are based on different factors, which commonly include product information and product preferences. The consumers are thus concentrated towards social and environmental developments due to increased concern of climate changes. Moreover, individuals are also perceived to make their purchase decisions based on safety and health factors that are attached to products and/or services. In this regard, the consumers in the worldwide market segments are encouraged towards consuming healthier as well as quality products (European Commission, 2006). According to Ahmad & Juhdi (2008), in the recent era, individuals are identified to change their lifestyle and are decisive in making purchases of products and/or serv ices for self-fulfillment. Individuals make purchase decisions of eco-friendly products due to increased concern towards environmental factors and their accountability towards its stability.

Advertisement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Advertisement - Essay Example In this paper, the effects and purposes of an advertisement will be analyzed. The analyzation will be based on a fragrance advertisement from the international fragrance and designer clothing producer, Calvin Klein. In this advertisement there are various themes which have been put into consideration and have been considerably used to put forward the message intended by the seller to the probable buyers. Some of these themes include love and romance, relationships, and beauty or overall physical appearance. The purpose of these themes is to pinpoint and draw in an audience, one that is interested in the thing being advertised. The advertisement is meant for a new product in the market from the Calvin Klein chain of companies. The product in this case is a fragrance which is meant to be advertised in a magazine based on fashion, one that both sexes would read, such as Osmoz.. In this advertisement, the target audience is both sexes. According to the photographs on the advert, we can clearly see that both these people are young, so the advertisement is meant for the young generation.

Consumer decision-making models Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Consumer decision-making models - Assignment Example However, in case of holiday decision making, the process is not that logical and uniform. The need for a holiday is a luxury for most people and hence their decisions are very flexible. The decision to go on a holiday is dependent as much on external factors as the aspiration of the customer. Many times, the decisions are made due to other co-customers. Also the actual purchase decisions are often made very late in the process in order to avoid risks and regrets. While in traditional models, the customers search for a product before buying it, in case of holiday decision making the search may actually continue during or even after the experience. The decisions regarding holidays are more emotional than rational and are often dependent upon right opportunity and adaptability. Most of the holiday customers tend to fall in the ‘Affective’ quadrant of the FCB grid (Erasmus et. al. 2001). 2. The information search process for a household appliance is quite different from that of a holiday planning. In case of a household appliance, the customers recognize or feel the need of the appliance due to an unmet need say not able to have fruit juices because juicer is not available at home. However, in case of holiday planning, a holiday may simply be planned because a friend or a relative is going.

Harley Davidson PESTLE Analysis

Harley Davidson PESTLE Analysis This section of the report is concerned with understanding the strategic position of Harley Davidson Inc. in an attempt to formulate strategic options for the company. It identifies three areas: First the changes that is occurring in the environment and how these changes affects H-D and its business activities. Second the resource strength and capabilities of H-D. Finally the expectations and influences of H-Ds stakeholders. THE ENVIRONMENT In order to understand the environment which H-D operates in the following frameworks are used with the aim of helping to identify key issues and challenges and ways of coping with complexity and change. PESTLE ANALYSIS In 2009 H-D stood to gain from the Economic Stimulus Package, passed into legislation by the Barack Obama Administration. The federal stimulus package gives taxpayers breaks if they purchase a new car, light truck, RV, or motorcycle.(Wachter, 2009). In addition, Coachman industries also a manufacturer of leisure vehicles, and a competitor of H-D was eliminated from the New York Stock Exchange. According to the Datamonitor report the Motorcycle Industry segment has had economic growth for the past three years, and has only recently been experiencing decline. In 2007 it declined 2.3%, yet is forecasted to recover 4.3% by 2012. An economic factor in favor of H-D, despite this decline, is that the U.S. industry generated total revenues of $10.2 billion in 2007, of which 98.8% were of motorcycles (not scooters, minibikes, etc.). Furthermore, within the U.S. economy H-D holds the majority of motorcycle sales. Therefore, even while industry growth is declining, H-D sales and other motorcycle sales are still continuing to increase. (DataMonitor 2007). Figure 1 shows motorcycle industry growth versus sales. The Motorcycly Industry Council (MIC) discloses that leisure product industries are facing steep decline however the motorcycle segment though declining ,is not doing so at a steep rate. Tim Buche, President of the MIC says Overall motorcycle sales were down 7.2%, not nearly as sharp a decline as many other consumer products in todays economy/ (Wasef, 2009). Socially H-D has a competitive edge which is owed to its customer base, strong brand loyalty and demographic trends such as the increse in female operators. This loyalty is indicated in the average age of H-D consumers. H-D average consumer buying age is 42 years old and increasing (Gauvin 2005). H-D aspires to increse it consumer demographics, howevr à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦although the younger generation below 35 years of age has posted the largest gains in owernship, the generation that is on the edge of the baby boomer segment will be the main catalyst of growth for the industry (Koncept 2007). One social factor that may negatively affect the sale of H-D motocycles is the stigma that has been attached to these leisure vehicles. Alot of people believe that motorcycles are dangerous and this belief is strengthened due to the high rate of fatalities and crashes. H-D stands the chance of escaping this stigmatisation if the public views their bikes as cruisers and not speed bikes. Technologically H-D can take advantage of antilock brake systems. Antilock brakes cold help riders avoid fatal crases according to a study done by the insurance industry. 2.1.2 PORTERS FIVE FORCES MODEL Rivalry H-D operates within the Recreational Vehicles industry along with five other major competitors: Winnebago, Polaris, Thor, Arctic Cat and Marine Products. The top performers within the industry and hold 92% of the market share by volume with a market capitalization of 64.653 Billion of a total Industry of 7 Billion (Yahoo Finance, 2009). Other firms in different industries that are direct product rivals include Honda Motor Company Limited, Yamaha Motor Co, Ltd., and Suzuki Motor Corporation (Datamonitor, 2007). The presence of these large multinational corporations with exceptionally high assets boosts the degree of rivalry within the industry. Because of the small number of material rivals, the markets revenue is shared between fewer firms and enhances the degree of rivalry for bottom line profit. This rivalry forces most competitors to try and diversify their business models through geographical expansion or vertical expansion, leading to interests and investments in a variety of other segments such as the automobile, watercraft, industrial and farming equipment areas. (Datamonitor, 2004). Threat of Substitutes The Recreational Vehicle industry faces threats from the Automobile Industry, from public transportation options and from Bicycles. The threat is largely dependent on the indispensability of motorcycles and other lifestyle products to the end user (Datamonitor, 2008). In most developed countries, motorcycles, jetskis and other recreational vehicles are leisure items that lack necessity and are therefore largely dispensable or substitutable by more practical items such as cars or more cost effective means of transportation such as bicycles. This lack of necessity increases the threat of substitutes and illustrates why the external market goes into decline during economic recession. However, even though there is a lack of necessity, when a consumer owns a motorcycle or other product, switching costs to a substitute can range from low to high. Switching to public transportation can be cheap, but switching to a luxury vehicle involves a high cost factor. Because switching costs vary depending on the alternative means of transportation chosen, the overall threat of substitutes within this industry is moderate. Buyer Power Buyer power is weakened by a high level of product differentiation and customer loyalty to dominating brands (Datamonitor, 2008). Because customer loyalty with respect to dealers is high, as is the demand for specific and/or customized products, buyers power is weakened since the consumers rely on companies to produce their preferred product. This high demand allows companies to increase their price due to high product differentiation and low standardization. Relatively large numbers of buyers within the US, coupled with a high level of product differentiation weakens buyer power. This gives Recreational Vehicle manufacturers a competitive edge in the industry because they can produce a product based on customer demand. An increasing factor of buyer power is the fact that over half of recreational vehicles sold in the U.S. are sold and bought through non-retail channels. This provides consumers with an option for cheaper purchasing, and becomes a major threat to the industry if they cannot move their new products. Fortunately for the large competitors, who rely on product differentiation, their customers desire customized products that arent available on the second-hand market. Overall, buyer power is low due to sustainable competitive advantage of product differentiation which is impossible for other brand competitors to match. Supplier Power Competitors within the Recreational Vehicle industry rely mostly on commodities such as metals. There is a highly stressed importance on the quality of these raw materials which enhances supplier power. Also, as global prices of primary raw materials (ie: steel, aluminum) increase, pressure is put on the manufacturers to increase their margins. Furthermore, the increasing consolidation of the steel industry has the potential to lead to even higher raw material costs and product differentiation. The competitors often deal with this high power of suppliers by signing contracts with manufacturers to ensure the delivery of quality raw materials at a set market price. Power of suppliers is decreased by the competitors large size and the fact that manufacturers account for only a small portion of the suppliers revenues. Large multinational corporations such as Harley-Davidson and others can receive materials from many different international suppliers and face low switching costs due to minimal product differentiation. This presence within the international market boosts Industry leaders power. (Competitive Landscape, 2009) Overall, supplier power is moderate. Threat of New Entrants The industry faces moderate threats of new entrants because of moderate industry growth levels and high barriers to entry. The Recreational Vehicle industry is continuing to grow, especially in America, as consumers are traveling shorter distances and on weekends with less planning. New entrants are lured by good market growth, especially in the budget or low-cost areas due to consumer, ownership and demographic trends towards convenient travel patterns. (RVIA.org, 2009) Barriers to entry include large capital requirements and high fixed costs for set-up of new production and provider facilities, an exceptionally high level of brand recognition and customer loyalty. Modes of entry include starting a new company, diversifying and existing companys operations into motorcycle or other vehicle manufacturing, and beginning to export into the host country. Another barrier is the global tightening of emission standards that further ramps up costs as motorcycle and other recreational vehicle redesigns are required, increasing research and development costs. (Competitive landscape, 2009) Along with the tightening of emissions standards is an increase in the global costs of raw materials such as steel. As standards and product costs increase, barriers to entry become larger hurdles for new entrants. In order to be profitable, new entrants must pass on large capital requirement, RD costs and raw material costs to their customers and reflect these in the costs of the finished product. In the current economic recession, this becomes problematic because average consumers and not willing to spend their small disposable income on leisure items. Since sales are sensitive to price, another mode of entry is possible in the sale of budget vehicles. However, these companies would still be subject to the large capital requirements and high fixed costs, resulting in a business that would not be sustainable and therefore becomes undesirable. Overall, this threat is moderate.

Stereotyping Girls Who Drive Trucks :: Sociology

Stereotyping Girls Who Drive Trucks There is nothing more thrilling to me than being a girl who drives a truck. The sense of power you get almost makes up for the harassment. Driving a truck as a female automatically places you in one of two categories, whether they're true or not. You are either the cute lil' thang in Daddy's big pick-up, or you are a bull dike. Don't worry; there are ways to tell which category you're in. Should you be the cute lil' thang, you might be a little chunky or just plain little. You cannot however, be fat. One probably wouldn't want to be very tall either. Your pants should always be really tight, and skirts should be really short. These should always be worn with really small shirts. It should be noted that just tight or short, etc. is not accepted. "Really" must precede any adjectives. You should also thoroughly enjoy being called "sugar," and "darlin'" by mechanics trying to rip you off. Your truck must be really big and new. Even ridiculously big, and you should have trouble driving it (or at least give the appearance of such). Acrylic nails are big with this group, but not too long, and always maintained. The best advice is to imagine this group the cheerleaders of the road workers. The second group of lady pickup drivers is a substantially less desirable category. To be in this group, you need to be either skinny or fat. There is no in between. The hair should be worn in a ponytail or braid; a buzz cut is also acceptable. The lady mullet makes an occasional appearance as well. Cowboy hats (not the cute kind) and roper boots are good, and a big belt with lots of keys. If this is too much, a t-shirt and khaki shorts work too, as long as you promise to wear ankle socks and sandals. You truck should never be 4-wheel