Characteristics of the Comedy Of Menace :-
Hello Everyone, I'm a student of the Department of English,M.K.B.U. This blog is a part of a thinking activity which is assigned by Yesha Ma'am. In this blog I'm going to write about the characteristics of the Comedy of Menace with the reference of Harold Pinter's one famous work 'The Birthday Party'.
Points To Ponder :-
Introduction
About the 20th Century
Various Types of the Comedy
About the playwright
Characteristics of the Comedy of Menace
'The Birthday Party' As a Comedy of Menace
Conclusion
Introduction :-
The phrase “comedy of menace” as a standalone description inspires both positive and negative feelings. Comedy is used during a dangerous situation to cause audiences to draw judgments about a particular character or communication. The words used are the focus of often powerful stories that create conflicting emotions from its audience. The title “Comedy of Menace” immediately brings contradictions to mind, because comedy is generally something that makes people laugh, and the word "menace" implies something threatening. Quite literally, then, this phrase involves laughing at an ominous situation.
Comedy of menace is the body of plays written by David Campton, Nigel Dennis, N. F. Simpson, and Harold Pinter. The term was coined by drama critic Irving Wardle, who borrowed it from the subtitle of Campton's play The Lunatic View: A Comedy of Menace, in reviewing Pinter's and Campton's plays in Encore in 1958. (Campton's subtitle Comedy of Menace is a jocular play-on-words derived from comedy of manners—menace being manners pronounced with somewhat of a Judeo-English accent.)
About the 20th Century :-
The first two decades of the 20th century were marked by enormous industrial, economic, social, and cultural developments.
International trade brought with it increasing growth and prosperity, along with a rise in poverty and slums in major cities. Urbanisation, advances in science and technology, and the spread of goods and information were markers of the times.
With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, art became heavily influenced by the desire to abstract life and escape the horrific possibilities of the human condition. Artists began to question and play around with themes of reality, perspective, space, and time.
Various Types of the Comedy :-
Definition of Comedy :- Comedy is a literary genre and a type of dramatic work that is amusing and satirical in its tone, mostly having a cheerful ending. The motif of this dramatic work is triumph over unpleasant circumstances by creating comic effects, resulting in a happy or successful conclusion.
There are seven types of comedy which were written during that time. That are like .,
Comedy of Humours :-
Comedy of Humours was introduced by Ben Jonson, in English Drama. The Comedy of Humours was the natural expression of his genius.
A form of drama typical at the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century; based on the mediaeval and Renaissance belief that people's actions are governed by their dominant bodily humour (blood, phlegm, bile or black bile), its characters are ruled by a particular passion or trait.
Satirical Comedy :-
A form of comedy whose main purpose is to expose the vices and shortcomings of society and of people representing that society.
Comedy of Errors :-
An event or series of events made ridiculous by the number of errors that were made throughout
The project was a comedy of errors. In this comedy laughter is evoked by the characters.
e.g., Alexander Pope's Works
Farce :-
A form of low comedy, whose intention is to provoke simple mirth in the form of roars of laughter (and not smiles); it uses exaggerated physical action, character and absurd situation, with improbable events, a complex plot, with events rapidly succeeding one another, pushing character and dialogue into the background.
e.g., Ramesh Maheta(Indian actor, comedian and scriptwriter. He is considered to be the "Charlie Chaplin of Gujarat".)
High Comedy and Low Comedy:-
While low comedy is a simple and physically more expressive form, it is also easier to understand and caters to a larger number of readers. High Comedy is a more refined and sophisticated form of comedy.
It appeals on a more intellectual and literary level with heavy usage of witty dialogues, historical and literary references and artistic representations.
Examples of High comedy would be Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest and ,'Indian Bhavai' while low comedy would be , Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe Laurel and Hardy( a British-American comedy duo act during the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema).
Comedy of Manners :-
Depicts a stylish society, mainly the middle and upper classes, its focus is on elegance, with characters of fashion and rank. It satirises the hypocrisy of the society.
e.g., Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest
Comedy of Menace :-
A tragedy with a number of comic elements. A comedy of menace is a play in which the laughter of the audience in some or all situations is immediately followed by a feeling of some impending disaster. The audience is made aware of some menace in the very midst of its laughter.
e.g.,
Harold Pinter's ,'The Birthday Party'
John Osborne's,'Look Back in Anger' (1956) (a realist play)
'Menace' means a threat, danger, risk, intimidate, terrify, and ominous.
Characteristics of the Comedy of Menace :-
'O' shape plot is there in this comedy('O' shape plot means first scene is the last scene)
Horror things,Day to day life,mostly it is based on the situations of middle class, audience or readers get serious in this comedy
Actual violence,threat, absurdity,horror and doubts are at the centre in this comedy
menace is produced throughout the play from potential or actual violence or from an underlying sense of violence throughout the play.
The audience feels uncertainty and insecurity throughout the play.
'The Birthday Party' as a Comedy of Menace :-
Harold Pinter was a British playwright whose comedies project the comedy of menace. The comedy of menace literally establishes the outer reality as a force of threatening to the inner space of an individual. The situation and circumstances look absolutely perfect and normal but a kind of unsettling horror and uncomfortable feeling is set beneath the action in the play. Pinter uses his own unique style called Pinteresque which the language and language becomes important as it gives insight into the prevailing situation. The long pauses and gaps actually show the tension and horror of the outside world that the characters seems to be bothered about, reflecting the lack of communication and detachment from outside reality.
The Birthday Party has been described as a comedy of menace because the consistent flow of fear and horror is symbolically presented in the characters mind. Pinter actually exposes the state of modern man and the idea of fear that exists in the human mind. Pinter characters struggle from the fear of society and the criticism of other people. Stanley is such a character who tries to protect himself from the outer society and Pinter’s play often does not give a brief description of the past of characters life.The play is actually the mingling of comedy with a perception of danger that pervades the whole play. Stanley, the central protagonist, always finds his life beset with danger. Meg is the owner of the boarding house away from the society where Stanley stays temporarily as a tenant. Meg arranges a birthday party in Stanley's honour though Stanley denies it being his birthday. Two gentlemen called Mr. Goldberg and Mr. Mc Cann come to stay in the same boarding house for a couple of nights. Their appearance fills Stanley's mind with unexplained fear and tension. Stanley attempts to disturb the strangers so that they will be forced to go away. The feeling of menace is reinforced when Stanley scares Meg by saying that some people would be coming that very day in a van. They would bring a wheelbarrow with them to take someone away. Eventually no one comes but Mr. Goldberg and Mr. Mc Cann take Stanley with them. In fact Goldberg and Mc Cann represent parts of Stanley's own subconscious mind. Nothing is stated or hinted about Goldberg and Mc Cann and about their attitude towards Stanley. At best they seem to be agents of some organisation which has sent them to track down Stanley.
In this work we can also find an 'O' shape plot. This comedy starts with the serving of food by Mag and at the middle of the play we also find the same scene . We also see the reputation of various scenes , some background voices also we can see in the movie ,which is based on this play, that voices also represent horor,fear ,and doubts.
Conclusion :-
'The Birthday Party' and 'Look Back in Anger' perfectly reveal the individual and social problems and doubts that Great Britain was moving through during the postwar era. Both these two famous plays indicate the spirit of times and become vehicles or instruments for dramatic action.
Word Count :-1492
Images :- 01
No comments:
Post a Comment