The Humanity of Violence: A Girardian reading of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors
Creators: name: Wall, Imogen
Publisher: name: The Australian National University
Year: 2021
Subjects: 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

description: 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