The Humanity of Violence: A Girardian reading of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors
Abstract
While R. A. Foakes, in his survey of Shakespeare’s most violent plays, suggests extreme violence is an aberrant impulse emerging from unfathomable shadows, René Girard sees it germinating in quotidian, comic, domestic routine. This thesis applies Girard’s model of human relations, which maps violence from its inception in intimate relationships to climactic community crisis, to William Shakespeare’s play, The Comedy of Errors, prompting a deeper look at the hilarious comedy. Girard’s theory centres on the human propensity for spontaneous mimesis, which supports bonding but also provides a basis for desire and rivalry to create interpersonal conflict. Girard shows how mimesis spreads hostility in communities, dividing them into volatile warring tribes, until the crowd’s antagonism is projected on to a single arbitrary scapegoat, who is killed. These processes are shown to be highly evident in Shakespeare’s lightest, shortest play, despite its absurd plot revolving around two sets of identical twins. The thesis shows this darker sacrificial structure underpins the play’s slapstick mayhem, and its twin motif references myth’s archetypal ‘warring brothers’. Girardian analysis reveals habitual mimetic conflict in both Errors’ domestic and civic arenas, potently emblematised in Act 3, Scene 1 by twins positioned each side of a locked door escalating hostilities by matching insults. The play proceeds towards community crisis and victimisation, but instead, the revelation of the twins shows the angry mob to have been gripped by a mass illusion of enmity. This Christian-feeling finale is explained in terms of Girard’s unusual material reading of biblical scripture, and shown to present an alternative to community violence that circumvents scapegoating. The notion of innocence is explored, as the play presents the Christ-like victim Egeon and engineers simultaneous innocence and culpability for all its protagonists. The thesis finds rich correspondence between Shakespeare and Girard who drew on similar sources in articulating the dynamics of human relating – myth, drama, literature. Both show a radical acceptance of violence as a formative force in human relations. Whether or not Shakespeare was cognisant of the specific social processes Girard describes, The Comedy of Errors provides a concise dramatic blueprint of those processes, indicating the value of a Girardian analysis. The thesis builds a valuable bridge between Girard and Shakespearean scholarship, in respect of The Comedy of Errors
Description
Keywords
Girard, Rene Girard, Shakespeare, Shakespeare and mimetic theory, The Comedy of Errors, Elizabethan drama, social violence, violence in culture, origins of violence, slapstick, comedy, farce, Elizabethan comedy, Elizabethan farce, violent farce, mimesis, farce and violence, slapstick and violence, community crisis, mimetic theory, rivalry, envy, Theatre of Envy, Girardian, mimetic violence, women and violence in Shakespeare, female violence, female violence in Shakespeare, women in Shakespeare, twins, doubles, Girard and twins, Shakespeare and twins, mimesis and twins, mimetic theory and twins, community violence, sacrificial violence, scapegoat, innocence, Christ, Christianity, Shakespeare and Christianity, the sacred, warring brothers, victimisation, myth, scripture, human relations, Shakespeare and sociology, Shakespeare and anthropology, anthropological, catharsis, Meredith Skura, Meredith Anne Skura, R.A. Foakes, casual violence, offhand violence, Adriana, Luciana, Antipholus, Dromio, Solinus, Egeon, Shakespeare and violent contexts, Shakespeare and conscience, sacrificial victim, The Horrible Miracle of Apollonius of Tyana, Gesta Grayorium, cathartic violence, Shakespeare and culpability, Shakespeare and guilt, Shakespeare and accusation, identity mistake