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Week5 段段段 段段段 段段段段段段 段段段段段段 Comedy &

Comedy &

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Comedy &. Week5 段馨君 副教授 國立交通大學 人文社會學系. Comedy. Originated in early phallic rites with dances, songs, and parades of phallic symbols. Emerged in Greece and dramatized the ludicrous or some absurd ugliness in human nature that was not truly destructive of self or others. Theory of Comedy. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Page 1: Comedy &

Week5段馨君 副教授國立交通大學人文社會學系

Comedy &

Page 2: Comedy &

Comedy

• Originated in early phallic rites with dances, songs, and parades of phallic symbols.

• Emerged in Greece and dramatized the ludicrous or some absurd ugliness in human nature that was not truly destructive of self or others

Page 3: Comedy &

Theory of Comedy

• Comic action exposes human folly and celebrates human survival.

• Element: comic action, plot, hero, reversals, recognition, resolution.

• Comedy usually begins with a rigid circumstance.

Page 4: Comedy &

Theory of Comedy

• Two types of self-assertion in comedy– ridiculous figure – individual who removes the

obstacles to happiness and well-being

Page 5: Comedy &

Tragedy V.S. Comedy

• All tragedies are finished by death/ All comedies are ended by marriage.

• Tragedy has consequences in the moral world for individual/ Comic action has consequences in the social world for the group.

• The tragic plot is usually more plausible/ The comic plot is more involved.

Page 6: Comedy &

The Comedy of Manners

• Written between 1660 and 1700, revealed the foibles of a brittle, fun-loving, and witty upper class in London.

• Mirrored the polite behavior and foibles of the society that watched the play.

Page 7: Comedy &

The Importance

of being

Earnest

Page 8: Comedy &

Background

• Written between 1660 and 1700, revealed the foibles of a brittle, fun-loving, and witty upper class in London.

• Mirrored the polite behavior and foibles of the society that watched the play.

Page 9: Comedy &

Background

• An early experiment in Victorian melodrama. Part satire, part comedy of manners, and part intellectual farce.

• This play seems to have nothing at stake because the world it presents is so blatantly and ostentatiously artificial.

Page 10: Comedy &

Background

• A delightful but utterly frivolous and superficial comedy, a view that partly reflects the mindset of a period in which homosexuality remained a guarded topic.

Page 11: Comedy &

Background

• An utterly improbable play with virtually no connection with life as we know or feel it.

• See the play as unique, the one farce that depends on language rather than physical action.

Page 12: Comedy &

About the play• author · Oscar Wilde• genre · Social comedy; comedy of

manners; satire; intellectual farce• time and place written · Summer

1894 in Worthing, England• tone · Light, scintillating,

effervescent, deceptively flippant• setting (time) · 1890s• setting (place) · London (Act I) and

Hertfordshire, a rural county not far from London (Acts II and III)

Page 13: Comedy &

Topics of the play

• Money• Education• Sincerity

• Class relationship• The Nature of Marriage• The Constraints of

Morality

Page 14: Comedy &

Character John (Jack/Ernest)

Worthing, J.P. - The play’s protagonist. Jack

Worthing is a seemingly responsible and respectable young man who leads a double life. In Hertfordshire, where he has a country estate, Jack is known as Jack. In London he is known as Ernest.

Page 15: Comedy &

Algernon Moncrieff The play’s secondary

hero. Algernon is a charming, idle, decorative bachelor, nephew of Lady Bracknell, cousin of Gwendolen Fairfax, and best friend of Jack Worthing, whom he has known for years as Ernest.

Character

Page 16: Comedy &

Gwendolen Fairfax Algernon’s cousin

and Lady Bracknell’s daughter.Gwendolen is in love with Jack, whom she knows as Ernest.

Character

Page 17: Comedy &

Cecily Cardew Jack’s ward, the

granddaughter of the old gentlemen who found and adopted Jack when Jack was a baby. Like Gwendolen, she is obsessed with the name Ernest, but she is even more intrigued by the idea of wickedness.

Character

Page 18: Comedy &

Lady Bracknell Algernon’s snobbish,

mercenary, and domineering aunt and Gwendolen’s mother. Lady Bracknell married well, and her primary goal in life is to see her daughter do the same.

Character

Page 19: Comedy &

Plot Overview

• A young man and a young woman wish to marry, but an apparently insurmountable obstacle interposes.

• Wilde doubles the lovers, giving us two young men and two young women.

Page 20: Comedy &

Plot• rising action · Algernon

discovers that Jack is leading a double life and that he has a pretty young ward named Cecily.

• The revelation of Jack’s origins causes Lady Bracknell to forbid his union with Gwendolen.

Page 21: Comedy &

Plot• Identifying himself as “Ernest,”

Algernon visits Jack’s house in the country and falls in love with Cecily.

Page 22: Comedy &

Plot• climax · Gwendolen and Cecily

discover that both Jack and Algernon have been lying to them and that neither is really named “Ernest.”

Page 23: Comedy &

Plot• falling action · Miss Prism is

revealed to be the governess who mistakenly abandoned Jack as a baby and Jack is discovered to be Algernon’s elder brother.

Page 24: Comedy &

Film-DVD

• Director: Anthony Asquith• Leading actor: Michael Redgrave• Year: 1952• Showing Part: Both girls found

their men lying to them• From 60:00 to 60:10

Page 25: Comedy &

Film-DVD

• Director: Anthony Asquith• Leading actor: Michael Redgrave• Year: 1952• Showing Part: Both girls like the

name Earnest• From 15:49 to 19:56• From 54:10 to 55:37

Page 26: Comedy &

Film-clips

• Director: Oliver Parker• Leading actor: Rupert Everett

and Colin Firth• Year: 2002• Showing Part: Algy’s proposal• From 03:13 to 06:50• http://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=horJHn-AQq8&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Page 27: Comedy &

Film-clips

• Director: Oliver Parker• Leading actor: Rupert Everett

and Colin Firth• Year: 2002• Showing Part: Cigarette case• From 00:00 to 06:03• http://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcnbutsPmyM

Page 28: Comedy &

Conflict

• major conflict · Jack faces many obstacles to his romantic union with Gwendolen. One obstacle is presented by Lady Bracknell, who objects to what she refers to as Jack’s “origins” (i.e. his inability to define his family background).

• Another obstacle is Gwendolen’s obsession with the name “Ernest,” since she does not know Jack’s real name.

Page 29: Comedy &

Themes, motifs and symbols

• Themes · The nature of marriage; the constraints of morality; hypocrisy vs. inventiveness; the importance of not being “earnest”

• Motifs · Puns; inversion; death; the dandy

• Symbols · The double life; food; fiction and writing