Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Bring in the Clowns
In Act 5, Scene 1, Borachio confesses to Don Pedro and Claudio about his deception of them. In the process he makes an observation about Dogberry, the constable and clown of Messina, and his charges: "I have deceived even your eyes. What your wisdoms could not discover, these shallow fools have brought to light, . . . "(5.1. 242-3). What is Borachio saying in this observation? Is it applicable to that other clown of comedy, Lancelet Gobbo of Merchant? In general what features do these two clowns have in common? Are there significant differences? Do you have any ideas about the role or purpose of the clown in Shakespearean comedy?
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The fools in both Much Ado About Nothing and Merchant of Venice are responsible for both shedding light on a heavy time in the plot bur also developing characters they have interactions with. Lancelet Gobbo is directly introduced to us as the fool. He is first introduced on stage in the second scene of the second act, alone, speaking to the audience. His opening lines inform the reader that he is not independent, and that he serves Shylock. He fantasizes about running away from his Jewish master:
ReplyDelete“Certainly my conscience will serve me to run from this Jew my master./
The fiend is at mine elbow and tempts me, saying to me, ‘Gobbo,/
Lancelet Gobbo, good Lancelet,’ or ‘good Gobbo,’/
or ‘good Lancelet Gobbo, use your legs, take/ the start, run away. ‘” (2.2.1-6)
We are provided with this humor after being confronted with a tense first scene of the act. Lancelet appears to be sensible and is only labeled as the fool because it is stated when he enters. He is having a moral battle in his first speech. He ruminates over whether he should listen to his conscience or do what his legs are urging to do. In addition to have an internal feud, he makes fun of Jessica, saying that her life is damned. Here we see an example where what Lancelet is saying is funny, because it is true. According to people during the time this play is written, not being born Christian does cause a damned life.
Unlike Lancelet, Dogberry appears to be senseless, and more of a dunce than Lancelet. Although Dogberry is skilled in his foolery, he and his team essentially save the play. Without the ridiculous antics of Dogberry and his squad, the play could have turned tragic in a hurry. While Borachio is confessing what he has done to stop the marriage between Claudio and Hero, he is overheard and captured. Where Dogberry displays his foolishness is when he makes an attempt to tell Leonato about the admission of the crime. Dogberry instead of confessing that Boarchio has been caught, Dogberry misspeaks and trails off topic. For example Dogberry responds to Leonato by saying “Comparisons are odorous” (3.5.15) and means to say odious.
We see that Lancelet have in common that they are fools, but Lancelet seems to be more concrete than Dogberry, but in contrast, Dogberry is one of the most significant characters of the play.
Indeed, the Clown or Fool figure in Shakespearean plays is among the more interesting devices employed by the Bard. At first glance, these men are indeed foolish, blabbering figures who do little more than ramble, confuse the rest of the cast, and add humor to the work. However, the brilliance of Shakespeare’s interpretation of these characters is that, ultimately, they are the ones who really get it; the Fool can perceive blatantly obvious ideas that the more “sophisticated” characters cannot and can cleverly speak the truth in a way no one else is capable. Both Lancelet Gobbo and Dogberry are examples of this role, though they definitely have their differences.
ReplyDeleteFirst let us examine Lancelet in The Merchant of Venice. This is a play that, despite being labeled a comedy, has some incredibly dark events and undertones. Anti-Semitism, racism, and sexism (may) abound, flickers of homosexuality appear, and of course there is the infamous trial scene in which Shylock comes moments away from cutting up Antonio onstage. Lancelet personifies this duality, as he very humorously explicates on some pretty profound issues. His first speech, in which he wrestles with his conscience about running away from Shylock, sets this tone right away. The topic is a serious one, and one of Shakespeare’s favorites. Should Lancelet obey his conscience? How does a conscience even function? However, he frames and narrates his dilemma in a rather hysterical way, as a battle between his conscience and the devil (an early example of the angel and devil on the shoulders). As he explains, “’Budge,’ says the fiend. ‘Budge not,’/says my conscience. ‘Conscience,’ say I, ‘you/counsel well.’ ‘Fiend,’ say I, ‘you counsel well’” (Merchant II.2.19-21). The battle between good and evil is one of the most fundamental conflicts in western civilization, but Lancelet looks at it as a simple chat among individuals. This perspective is not only quite insightful, but remarkably funny. Later in the play, Lancelet probes another fairly heavy topic: damnation. In Belmont, as Jessica and Lorenzo enjoy their perceived bliss, he grills the young woman about the fact that she, being born a Jew, is going to go to hell. His grim prognosis, so casually uttered, is to, “be o’ good cheer, for truly I think you/are damned” (III.5.5-6). After Jessica and Lorenzo’s elopement, it would seem everything has worked out nicely for them. They have each other, and they are living in a magnificent island mansion. However, Lancelet’s humor reminds both them and the audience that there are still larger problems to be considered. Whatever happens, Jessica is a Jew by birth, and thus she is doomed (unless of course she was born illegitimately, but then she will there also for that sin). Lancelet Gobbo may rarely tell his comrades what they want to hear (he would be a pretty bad Fool if he did), but, if you move past his goofy tone and language, he offers some of the most meaningful, dramatic explanation of big spiritual issues in the entire play, issues which his companions really seem to not comprehend.
Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing is interesting because he is not necessarily a Fool in the classic sense. Like most Fools, he does speak in riddles and, as mentioned in the post, he manages to unearth the fairly obvious truth that no one else in the play seems to be able to figure out. However, unlike Lancelet and the majority of Shakespearean Fools (as seen in King Lear, Hamlet, and Macbeth, to name a few examples), he reveals hidden things through his actions basically unintentionally, not through his wit. While Lancelet cleverly recasts the battle between good and evil, Dogberry’s language gains its humor not through is creativity or metaphors, but through his simple inability to use correct words and his completely contradictory meaning. He informs one guard, “You are thought here to be the most/senseless and fit man for the constable of the watch… you shall comprehend all vagrom men” (Much Ado, III.3.22-3, 25). The man is the most “senseless”, so he should “comprehend” the vagroms? Huh? Dogberry has a knack for using opposites and similar-sounding words in the place of those he means to say. While this trait can be highly amusing, it does rarely create much deeper meaning, instead only confusing the guards and amusing the audience. His orders to the men are also completely counterintuitive. When someone ignores their command to stop in the Prince’s name, he tells them to, “take no note of him, but let him/go, and presently call the rest of the watch together/and thank G-d you are rid of a knave” (28-30), since the man is clearly not one of the Prince’s subjects. Is that response not completely opposed to the point of asking the person to stop in the first place? Dogberry does not care; he manages to provide a justification for everything, often one featuring many mixed analogies of its own. His failed attempt to inform Leonato of the arrest of Borachio and Conrade, the men’s eventual trial, and his revelation of their confessions to Claudio and the Prince also are loaded with strange linguistics and bizarre conclusions. In the trial especially, he almost completely misses the mark, at one point earning a reprimand from the judge due to his mishandling of the interrogation. However, his guards’ capture of the deceivers and the confession they overhear is what grants the play its happy ending and saves the day for everyone. Dogberry gets the job done, unwittingly, and thus in a way fulfills the Fool’s role of understanding what others cannot. However, Dogberry hardly understands, he really just proceeds.
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