...sprinkled with diverse elements of comedy. By setting off laughing in the audience, Pinter drives the attention to the instability of characters’ relationships. Yet, the comedy darkens when facing the human perpetual struggle to handle these fragile relations. The Homecoming is articulated by comic cross-talking enlightening human relation. Thus the audience can be amused by the shouts of Teddy hoping to be listened to. The exclamations “She’s my wife! We’re married!” are vain, and even the silence imposed by the pause is not enough to be heard, he has to repeat himself. Pinter by creating this absurd and comic dialogue, in which nobody is listening to anyone, underlines the miscommunication that dominates human relations. If sometimes the protagonists seem to have a pertinent discussion, actions might reveal contradictions. For example, despite the clarity of Ruth’s brief refusal “No, thanks.”, Lenny “takes the glass to Ruth”. Along with inappropriate actions, the unsuitable and vulgar appellation “dirty tart” used by Max to designate his daughter in law creates an awkward mood, hilarious for the audience. Besides, Pinter introduces unexpected changes of topic. Whereas Ruth presents herself, Lenny cuts short by declaring “I’ve been having a bit of rough time with this clock”. The interest switching suddenly from Ruth to Lenny, punctuates the dialogue with off beats. These comic devices are used to reveal the misunderstanding messing up human relations. Moreover, the inability...
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...wrong, at the time we can be furious but eventually we are usually able to look back and laugh, even if it is a rather wary laugh. Black comedy may position an audience to laugh at something they’re not ready to laugh at, or at something they’re not really allowed to laugh at. Black comedies can show us the errors and misjudgements that lead to our downfalls and give us an opportunity to laugh at the silliness of human existence. The only difference between comedy and black comedy is the seriousness of the consequences of the misunderstanding. Black comedy explores modern comic plays from different countries that deal with what is often uncomfortable or suppressed. The nature of comedy and the use of humour is used to confront an audience with human experiences of pain, loss, forms, styles, techniques and conventions. Black Comedy is all about how you get your audience into a position to observe the confusion, to be aware of the misunderstanding leading to these terrible events. And the difference (sometimes) between the confusion and the reactions of the confusion is what creates the comedy. The term for the positioning the audience so they are aware of a significance that the characters are ignorant, is of course Dramatic irony. Dramatic irony is a theatrical technique that can be used in a variety of styles of theatre, from tragedy to comedy. It is the form of irony where the audience is aware of the significance of something that the characters are ignorant of. Within the plays...
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...during the latter stages of Greek literature, specifically in the new comedy of Menander; preceded by the creation of Theophrastus’ stock characters, which were based on observation of everyday life. First introduced to audiences in 1666, Moliere staged The Misanthrope in the upper-class salon of Celimene. Essentially, the salon is a microcosm of the royal court. In between duties at Louis XIV’s court, the elite townspeople gathered to converse, trade compliments, exchange insults, and scrutinize one another. French society was defined by courtly norms, which, amusingly were being refined on a constant basis. The Misanthrope, often referred to as not only a comedy of manners, but a comedy of character, as well, was theater that functioned as a reflection of its spectators in order to enact social change. Moliere based his plays on French farce and commedia dell’arte. Plots of deception interspersed with objective play represented French farce, while commedia dell’arte had set situations, unrehearsed dialogue, and actors in masks representing a specific character type. The combination of the two was perfectly aligned in The Misanthrope as Moliere utilized the stock characters to introduce stylized production and dialogue. By placing the stock characters into a society of his own time with dialogue reflective of his present day circumstances, Moliere created individuality in his characters that allowed comedy to come through the dialogue without such a heavy reliance on the plot...
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...What is comedy? Funk and Wagnalls New Encyclopedia says: "A comedy depicts the follies and absurdities of human beings." Webster's Dictionary defines comedy as: "A drama or narrative with a happy ending." Shakespeare's play, Measure for Measure, fits both of these descriptions. Follies and absurdities are present in the play: Lucio slanders the Duke, not realizing that his crude remarks are being spoken to the Duke himself; Angelo abuses his power thinking that the Duke is not present to know; and Ragozine happens to die in prison the day a head is needed to substitute for Claudio's. The play also ends on several merry notes, consistent with the definition of comedy. For example, Angelo's life is spared and he is forgiven; Mariana is married to Angelo; the Duke punishes Lucio humorously with marriage; Barnardine is pardoned; and Claudio is saved. The parallels between Measure for Measure and three other Shakespearean comedies, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night, also help to classify Measure for Measure as a comedy. In Measure for Measure, like in The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night, an arbitrary law or obstacle is eventually overcome; a disguised character affects the outcome of the play; a clown adds humor to the plot; a female character bears a large responsibility for the final resolution; and forgiveness and reconciliation mark the conclusion of the action. Some critics consider Measure for Measure a "dark"...
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...This year, comedy and entertainment have taken on a new form, a 6-second form, to be exact. Vine is a smart phone application owned by Twitter that debuted back in January as one of the many video clip shooting and sharing applications available online. Setting itself apart from other applications of practically the same function like Instagram and Keek, Vine was the most-downloaded free application on the iOS store in April and had 11% of iPhone users as active users by May (Souppouris, 2013). Vine was then released for Android in June, further increasing its user-base as well as its fan-base through the publicity of the “Best Vines” communities on Facebook and compilation videos on Youtube. Why have a “Best Vines” public community when other applications have nothing of the sort? As “young” as it is, Vine has already created (perhaps intentionally or unintentionally) an image for itself as an application for short and comedic video clips, as opposed to Keek, which caters more to simple video bloggers, and Instagram, which is more for sharing clips and photos for aesthetic viewing pleasure. Similar to Twitter that has a 140character limit for posts, Vine’s 6-second limit is said to spawn creativity given the time constraint and the desire for one’s post to be noticed in the massive sea of social media and as Shakespeare said, “Brevity is the soul of wit.” The application’s features, publicity and fastgrowing fan-base (not necessarily user-base) helped Vine users to do just that...
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...are all the slave of the good behavior. We all dress alike, we talk alike, we eat alike and our routines are very much alike each other. Therefore we need the humor to break the daily life. “The Penis” is a very good example for breaking up with taboos that live in today’s society. Here we see something that is so absurd, so the only way to react is to smile. It is so far away from our daily life, as a modern human being, in a modern society. “The Penis” is about a guy who gets hammered in the city, and the next day he finds a penis in his pocket. At the same time a famous porn star wakes up, also after a heavy night a drinking, realizing that his penis is missing. We later find out that the penis wasn’t happy with the porn star and decided to get its own life, which is very absurd because in reality a penis can’t “jump” off the body and get its own life. The porn star realizes that he is nothing without his penis, and the adventure of finding the penis and getting it operated back on the body is clearly described in “The Penis”. The taboos Taboos are often used in comedy. Mainly because it is breaking some personal lines for the reader/participant, and many people reacts on taboos with laughter or smiling. In today’s society there are a lot of taboos. Many of them are based on sex. We don’t talk about sex, we don’t see sex in the street picture, we don’t hear about sex etc. The title alone in “The Penis” is breaking a taboo. Because of the sex taboo that is a reality in our...
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...The Use of Satirical Commentary in William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure and John Gay’s Beggars Opera In William Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure” William Shakespeare uses satirical comedy to allude to both political and religious topics during the 1600s. The telling dramatic comedy unfolds as an absent leader creates chaos through electing a corrupt leader to temporally taking his place, thus illustrating how easily society can become corrupt through poor leadership. While set in Venice Italy, Shakespeare uses his comedy to allude to his ideals of justice and morality for England under the new leadership of King James I in 1604. Similarly, in John Gay’s “Beggars Opera” gay uses political satire to comically “play” at the political issues...
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...We all laugh, we laugh about a great number of things, but why? There are multitude of reasons why we find something funny and basic rules and protocols for creating a hilarious piece. Lysistrata, an ancient comedy piece that was originally preformed in 411 BCE uses rich and numerous of different methods to create an overall humorous play. The overall plot is that Athens and Sparta are at war and the wives of both city-states want the conflict to end so they go on a sex strike in order to persuade their husbands to attempt to end the war, due to the bankrupt situation of the two city-states. The play uses various methods such as bringing certain stereotypical character types that are found in a great number of comedies. One example is the use...
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...Contents Introduction…………………………….……….…………….…………………... 3 FIRST PART 1. What is Humour?..................................................................................................... 5 2. Humour and Culture…………………………….……………………………...… 6 3. What amuses Britain?……………………………….…….……….………...…… 7 4. Comedy…………………………………………………………………………… 8 4.1 British Comedy………………………………………………..………………..… 9 5. British Television Comedy.……………………………..……………………...… 9 5.1 Sitcom - situational comedy……………………………………………………. 10 5.1.1 Britcom……………………………………………………………….…….…… 11 SECOND PART 6. What makes Britain laugh?..……………………………………………..…… … 11 6.1 Madness & Surrealism………………………………………………………….. .12 6.1.1 Monty Python's Flying Circus…………………………………..………….…… 12 6.2 Political Satire…………………………………………………..…………….…. 14 6.2.1 Yes, Minister……………………………………..………………….……. …….. 15 6.3 The Race……………………………………………………….…………….. …. 17 6.3.1 Da Ali G Show……………………………………………………………….. … 18 6.4. The Family………………………………………………...…………….…… … 20 6.4.1 Only Fools and Horses………………………..……………..……... .. 21 THIRD PART 7. It’s Monty Python!.………………………………………………... ….… 24 8. Manipulation in Political Life……………………………………… ……. 26 9. “Boyakasha!”..................................................................................... 27 10. "This time next year, we'll be millionaires!"………………………. .… ….. 30 Conclusion…………………………………………………………. 33 Appendices Appendix A……………………………………………………………….. 35 Appendix...
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...Lysistrata Lysistrata, the play is about the war between Athenians and its allies and the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta, which is resolved by the women of both sides refusing to have sex with their husbands. The show goes after the idea that humans are naturally very, very hornny. This show is excellent for anyone who enjoys below the belt comedy. Personally I enjoyed this show, but that maybe due to the fact that I know a lot about ancient cultures. However you do not need to know very much about the Greek culture to enjoy this show. The only thing I did not like about this show was the modern refinances and I was hoping they had on grand masks on through the whole play. This show is one of the better comedies I have seen manly because the director Kendra Helton knew that the scrip was already over the top, so with the addition of some props it pushed it gave it the right amount of cheese. The acting was well done because it did mirror some of ideas of how we thought the Ancient Greek plays were like. Christine Coran did a good job making Lysistrata dramatic, this help lead her compatriots through the seen by giving them the proper motivation to deliver their lines properly. The men in this play truly portrayed the male gender as it was intently written; this set up many of the jokes of the show and helped the overall performance of the leads. At some points in the play the stage was over crowded with ensemble, this sometime made it hard to track what was going on. This...
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...ourselves in their shoes and wonder “What would I do?”. Austen uses subtlety to guide us through moral difficulties, avoiding the preachy tone of “You SHOULD do this”, and instead incorporating the delicate air of “This is a possibility.” Our need for guidance and role models relates back to the inescapable human desire for valid instruction from an influential leader; In her time, when unmarried women were virtually invisible on the social scale, Austen was not a typical body for a role model, and so many of her readers would not have uncovered, or expected, the moral messages written into her storylines. Contemporary readers, however, can easily unpick the subtleties in Austen’s work and indentify the intricacy in her “comedy of manners”. Another perfectly valid reason we still read Austen today is simply because she is an eloquent and articulate writer. She writes with wit, flair, irony, and an unmatchable humour in her tone. Her novels, albeit not popular in her own lifetime, are now greatly appreciated for their hilarity and tinkling mockery of society. Her characters are entirely three dimensional, not cardboard; she uses stock characters, typical in all comedies of the era, but has made them utterly her own by combining several stereotypes or roles into one person, giving them more magnitude and making their actions somewhat...
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...The notion of humour is a broad, multifaceted, and controversial phenomenon which presupposes cultural, social, linguistic, psychological, cognitive etc. constituents. It’s is a pervasive notion in human life and thinking therewith constant in literature and always culture bound. Thus translators always face a challenge when in need to reproduce humour. Jaques Snider Denton in his article The System of Shakespeare's Dramas outlines three most important constituents of Shakespearean comedies. Those are the comic individual, the comic action, and the solution. The character of constable Dogberry from the play Much Ado About Nothing falls into the category the comic individual. Dogberry often utters malapropisms (the ludicrous misuse of words,...
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...Most comedies can be criticised for a lack of seriousness - Is this affirmation true or not? By definition, comedy is a species of the dramatic genre which satirizes events, be them social or moral (moral conduct of a people, a social group). It does that by ridiculing characters, among which conflicts can arise. Comedy aims to straighten those hard (defects) social and human laughter, therefore, having a moralizing role. The main ways of achieving comic are irony, satire and sarcasm. used to create a ridiculous grotesque, illustrating both immoral aspects (standards) that happen in our society as well as human character dominated by strong moral. The main artistic medium is comic, an aesthetic category includes situations and ridiculous characters, vices and habits, being sanctioned by laughing and watching it, so straighten them. Comedian illustrates the contrast between essence and appearance. of serious and ridiculous, between illusion and reality, between effort and its results, between goals and means, etc. Forms of comic are very different: the comic situation, comic character, comic language, manners comic, comic cover, comic name etc. Comedy appeared as tragedy, in ancient Greece, manifesting as a joyful procession with the public in the end of a party organized in honor of the god Dionysus, with acid jokes, satirical songs with lyrics lines causing ironic laughter and fun needed for the revival of this God. Tragedy and comedy are the oldest theatrical events...
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...Organizational Behavior Behavioral Analysis TOPIC: HUMOUR Organizational Behavior Behavioral Analysis TOPIC: HUMOUR INDIVIDUAL WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT: Organizational Behaviour Behavioural Analysis: Humour Introduction: An old lady, who was very stingy at spending money and would refrain from spending a single dime unnecessarily, was gifted a cell phone on her 80th birthday by her grandchildren. To their surprise, she would call them almost every day and speak to them for hours at a stretch. When they finally asked her how she was spending so much money on paying the cell phones usage bill she replied, ‘All my calls are free because this phone has no wires and is not connected to anything!’ Humour is a good note to start the day on. It instils a feeling of happiness at the very beginning of the day which sometimes helps you last throughout the day. I personally am a huge fan of humour, may be not the most humourous of them all but would take up every chance to have a good laugh and take off some of the pressure that’s been piling up! What is Humour? Humour essentially means taking delight in the mirthful and the ludicrous. I have many a times experienced from encounters with some very humourous people, that they are the most popular and desired category of people in a social get together or for that matter even formal gatherings. Their presence in any gathering is highly welcomed, at family get-togethers, religious ceremonies,...
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...Its is simple human nature to avoid uncomfortable subjects. The only people that address these types of situations regularly are comedians, which is fitting because the gut human reaction to uncomfortable situations is to laugh. Humor is entertaining, something funny or witty, and often unexpected. Humor can be light, dark, physical, convoluted, in your face, and offencive. Making it the perfect platform for addressing delicate issues. It is fairly rare to find a “clean comedian”, because profanity adds many layers to a performance and offers easier access to touchy issues. However, “clean comedians” are still doing it. One of the most recognized “clean comedians” is Jim Gaffigan. Gaffigan is not known for his bits about racism or classism or sexual harassment, he is most known for his bits about food. Often talking about his love and obsession with different types of food and food places. In throwing his weight and physical condition into the bit, Gaffigan is addressing the issues of obesity and the fast food industry. He also addresses religion, constantly bringing up his very catholic wife and poking fun at catholicism and other...
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