essay prompts

1. ESSAY QUESTIONS: Comedy/History
Discuss one of the following in a three to six page essay:
The Comedy of Errors
1. William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors contains three sets of siblings. Even
though two sets are twins, each character is a distinct individual. Compare and contrast
each set of siblings, giving special attention to the distinguishing character traits that
separate the brothers and sisters.
2. Watch the movie Big Business or another adaptation of The Comedy of Errors. Compare
and contrast the film with Shakespeare’s original text. How does the filmmaker make--or
try to make--his film more 'relevant' or up-to-date? Consider aspects of race, gender,
class, or sexuality. Do contemporary artists make Shakespeare more appealing? Or is the
Bard the best in the original form?
3. Evaluate the view of marriage presented in William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of
Errors. While the focus of your essay should be on the relationship between Antipholus
of Ephesus and Adriana and the comments on that relationship made by Luciana,
consider also the marriage of Egeon and Emilia.
4. In William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors, the two leading female characters,
Adriana and her sister Luciana, represent two different aspects of female behavior. Which
of the two views of womanhood does the playwright favor? Consider both the speeches
throughout the play and the ending in developing your essay.
5. Magic is often mentioned in William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors, not only in
the incident involving the charlatan Pinch, but also in attempts to explain the bizarre
occurrences that confuse the characters in the play. How does this idea contribute to the
theme of the play, and what does it say about the worldview of Shakespeare’s audience?
Keep in mind that a biblically-literate audience would have remembered that the city of
Ephesus in the book of Acts was a hotbed of sorcery.
6. Discuss the significance of the frame story in William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of
Errors. Why did Shakespeare choose to place his raucous farce in the context of
impending doom and potential tragedy? Would the play have been as meaningful had he
simply let the confusion of mistaken identities move toward its inevitable conclusion but
eliminated the threat to the life of Egeon? Why or why not?
7. William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors is full of comic violence, though no one is
ever seriously hurt. Why does Shakespeare include them? Why is this violence funny?
Evaluate the response of the audience to acts of comic violence on stage, and support
your assessment with specific incidents from the play.
8. Discuss the issue of identity as it appears in William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of
Errors. The confusion created by the two sets of twins leads the four of them, as well as
others in the play, to question who they really are, and in the process to question their

2. own sanity. In your essay, consider the relationship between a person’s identity and the
way he or she is perceived by others, using specific incidents and quotations from the
play to support your discussion.
9. William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors moves the central characters from a state
of estrangement and alienation to one of harmony and community. What kinds of
alienation does the play portray, and how do these forms of alienation damage both
society and the individual? What does the play therefore suggest about the elements
necessary for a harmonious society? Use specifics from the play to support your
discussion.
10. Discuss the role of fate in William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors. To what extent
are the characters in control of what happens to them, and to what extent are they the
victims of circumstances beyond their control? What message do you think the
playwright is communicating through his treatment of this theme?
Twelfth Night
1. Watch the movie She’s the Man or another adaptation of Twelfth Night. Compare and
contrast the film with Shakespeare’s original text. How does the filmmaker make--or try
to make--his film more 'relevant' or up-to-date? Consider aspects of race, gender, class, or
sexuality. Do contemporary artists make Shakespeare more appealing? Or is the Bard the
best in the original form?
2. Reflect on Viola's interest in disguise, beginning with her adopting the role of Cesario.
What prompts and sustains her reliance on being Cesario? Catherine Belsey states:
“There are no identities, Jacques Derrida points out, only identifications; we learn to be
the cultural subjects we become by imitating others. To the degree that Cesario comes
into being by incorporating a trace of Sebastian, he is both sister and brother, a
paradoxical figure who embodies the difference within the interminable process of
identification" (Why Shakespeare? 140).
3. Sir Toby Belch vows "I'll confine myself no finer than I am" (1.3.8; 2.3). Speculate on
the philosophical/sociopolitical implications of this declaration of identity and evaluate
Toby's confident self-assertion. Describe his relations with (use of/need for?) Maria and
Sir Andrew.
4. Explain Feste's role/position/perspectives (1.5ff). What does he do or want? For example,
Karin Coddon argues that Feste is an "ironic commentator" on aristocratic myth,
including the myth of a feudal world of loyal, ideal service. Feste also destabilizes or
"corrupts" the words of his noble superiors to expose the slipperiness of ostensibly stable
categories, ranks, and values.

3. 5. Analyze Malvolio's situation and desires. Respond to Olivia's claim that Malvolio is "sick
of self-love" (1.5.77)1
and note Maria's sense of Malvolio's character (2.3.131ff). What
provokes Malvolio's interests in Olivia, and why (how) is he duped by "M.O.A.I." (2.5).
Donna Hamilton (and also John Astington) argues that Malvolio is a scapegoat for those
attacking puritans; Greenblatt says that "Malvolio is scapegoated for indulging in a
fantasy that colors several of the key relationships in Twelfth Night (Norton Shakespeare
448 or 1764). What are the relations among gender, erotic desire, social mobility, and
religious nonconformity in the scenes involving Malvolio?
6. What does the play disclose about gender roles, desires, and identities? Does Orsino love
Olivia or Cesario? Does Olivia love Cesario or Viola? Compare Viola's behavior with
Orsino (e.g. 2.4) to her exchanges with Olivia (e.g., 1.5, 2.2, 3.1.76ff). Is Antonio
"masculine" or "feminine?" (Antonio and Sebastian, 2.1, 3.3, 5.1.66ff, 201ff.; Sebastian
and Viola, 3.4.315ff) Are such polarities, terms adequate to define what is represented or
suggested? See Valerie Traub (130ff) who explores the homoerotic and homosocial (even
homophobic?) configurations and effects of these relationships. Here are Traub's
comments:
i. "The homoerotic energies of Viola, Olivia, and Orsino are displaced onto
Antonio, whose relation to Sebastian is finally sacrificed for the
maintenance of institutionalized heterosexuality and generational
continuity. In other words, Twelfth Night closes down the possibility of
homoerotic play initiated by the material presence of the transvestized boy
actors. The fear expressed, however, is not of homoeroticism per se;
homoerotic pleasure is explored and sustained until it collapses into fear of
erotic exclusivity and its corollary: non-reproductive sexuality. The result
is a more rigid dedication to the ideology of binarism, wherein gender and
status inequalities are all the more forcefully reinscribed" (Desire and
Anxiety: Circulations of Sexuality in Shakespearean drama p.123).
Catherine Belsey observes that "If the speech acts in 1.5 are gendered, the gender in
question fluctuates from moment to moment in a tantalizing display of discontinuity and
deferral. This is not consistently either a straight or a drag act" (Why Shakespeare? 139).
Bruce Smith sums up the play’s erotic confusions in this way: “Desire of male for female
(Orsino for Olivia, Sebastian for Olivia), of female for male (Olivia for ‘Cesario,’ Viola
for Orsino), of male for male (Antonio for Sebastian, Orsino for ‘Cesario’), of female for
female (Olivia for Viola), of male for either, of female for either, of either for either: the
love plots in Twelfth Night truly offer ‘what you will’” (Twelfth Night: Texts and
Contexts 15).
7. Though Viola’s act of disguising herself as Cesario, is outwardly transgressive/radical,
she seems rather passive in her refusal to shape her destiny or others (2.2.38-39). Why? Is
she passive? active? What does she want?
1
William Carroll notes that "All the characters who are in love suffer from some kind of disease. . . The character
most notoriously afflicted by a deforming vision and figurative sickness is Malvolio.").

4. 8. In his introduction to the play, Greenblatt states that the "transforming power of costume
unsettles fixed categories of gender and social class and allows characters to explore
emotional territory that a culture officially hostile to same-sex desire and cross-class
marriage would ordinarily have ruled out of bounds" (446 or 1762), which may lead to
something "irreducibly strange about the marriages with which Twelfth Night ends" (449
or 1764). Explore such issues of disguise, displacement, and deferral.
9. By Act 5, the festive tones of intrigue and carnival acquire overtones of violence, death,
betrayal, and revenge. What do these scenes and motifs contribute? Can they be
integrated with or reconciled to the previous action and to the play's "comic" form? What
are the effects, for instance, of Orsino's declarations (5.1113-27) or Antonio's final lines
and situation (5.1.215) or Malvolio's treatment and perspective (5.1.320-365)?
10. What role does Malvolio have in Twelfth Night? Is his fate fair or unfair? Does it fit
the romantic theme of the rest? If not, why would Shakespeare have included it?
11. What function do the comic roles of Sir Andrew, Sir Toby, Feste, and Maria play?
How are each different from the rest?
12. How does Shakespeare use the fate of Antonio and Malvolio to bring some ambiguous
touches to an otherwise happy ending?
13. Compare and contrast the use of mistaken identity as a comic device in William
Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors and Twelfth Night. Consider both how the device is
used and how it contributes to the plots and themes of the two plays.
Richard III
1. Richard admits to Lady Anne that he killed Henry VI, and he offers a political reason for
doing so: Henry VI (the last Lancastrian King) was considered a disaster as an
administrator, too intent on piety and prayers to attend to the business of the realm.
During his reign factions grew into civil wars (the Wars of the Roses), France was lost,
and the king suffered from bouts of mental illness. Did Richard have some political
justification for helping to depose and kill him? Similarly, Edward IV proved a less-than-
effective king. His lust for women and high living was proverbial; his death was
attributed to too much sex, food, and drink, the classic vices of intemperance1.1.140-41).
He had illegitimate children, which made it easy to call in question proper blood
succession; Richard even implies Edward himself may not have been his father's son
(3.5.84-90). Would not Richard be a better king than either of them? But what does the
play suggest his motives are?
2. Language is a potent weapon in Richard III, particularly as a source of retribution.
Prophecies and curses are delivered and fulfilled. Oaths that are made but later broken
cause disaster. Curses, prophecies, and false or imprudent oaths indeed occur so
frequently and are so powerful in Richard IIIthat they profoundly affect the play's
outcome. Discuss any or all of them and explain how they affect the outcome.

5. 3. A persistent thread of comedy runs through Richard III. Since the play is mostly about
treachery and vengeance the comedy it contains is appropriately dark, consisting of
dramatic irony as well as parody. Some of the humor comes from Richard's self-ridicule,
but much of it comes when he mocks the confidence that others mistakenly place in him.
Discuss this dark comedy and explain why Shakespeare uses it. What does it achieve?
4. Richard displays his fullest command of deceit and guile in the scene where he woos
Lady Anne, drawing her away from duty, loyalty, and virtue while binding her to him.
Analyze his arguments and his ability to mask evil under the guise of piety. Compare this
“seduction” scene to the later scene where the citizens of London are drawn in by similar
stratagems. Analyze Richard’s strategies.
5. Richard can so well perform the affections of love (1.2) and repentance (1.2.204-208)
that he convinces Lady Anne to begin to think well of him, even to marry him. Is he
almost convinced by his own performance (1.2.239)? Can he play the lover, the plotter,
the pious courtier, the villain, even the king so well that he loses track of who he is (see
5.5.131-157)? Does his manipulation of other's desires finally subvert his own?
6. Richard pretends to believe in nothing, but uses other's beliefs to set his traps and plots.
He uses superstitious beliefs to imprison Clarence, and to mock the women; he uses
psychology to woo Lady Anne; he uses Hasting's bland confidence in bloodlines and
divine ordination to trip him up. He appears through much of the play to prove the
effectiveness of utterly cynical self-promotion, playing upon others' oversimple faith to
use them to his ends. Does the play run any risk of endorsing such a cynical machiavel?
Are we invited to admire Richard's stunning successes? Does he fall victim to his own
cynicism, or does he just prove unable to keep track of so many different selves?
7. Consider curses, oaths, and providential retribution and design. Queen Margaret's curses
all appear to come true, but does the play invite us to see her as a special prophet of God's
revenge? Look again at 1.3 and how ridiculously overdone Margaret's cursing frenzy
appears. Also consider the farcical tone of the cursing scene in 4.4 where Margaret,
Elizabeth, and the Duchess of York spell out the logic of cursing and divine(?)
retribution. They imagine a God who follows such eye-for-an-eye logic, but what about
the God who says "Vengeance is mine" (Deuteronomy 32:35) or who teaches "turn the
other cheek" (Matthew 5:39)? Which sort of Divine Providence does the play endorse?
Which sort of attitude towards Divine Providence does it endorse?
8. Explore the female characters in Richard III. Do they have agency, or are they absolutely
powerless? What affect do they have on the play? On other characters in the play?
Compare Richard’s language with the elaborate language of the women in the play. The
triad—all queens—clearly see Richard’s evil intentions, and that vision brings them
together in scenes of grief and madness. What do their insights tell us about them? About
women? What does their grief tell us? What do their fates say?