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MonkeyNotes-The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
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Themes
The main theme of The Comedy of Errors is the issue of
appearance versus reality, revolving around the situation of
mistaken identities. While Shakespeare's work is too rich and
complex to be reduced to any single idea, most of the action in this
play results from the idea of mistaken identity. Shakespeare is
certainly issuing caution about quick judgments based upon
appearance alone. If any of the characters had made the effort to
find the reality underneath the appearance, the confusion and
disorder of the play would have been prevented.
In Shakespeare's time, the idea of 'man' was one that saw him as
contiguous (unified) with nature, but at the highest development.
Man's innate superiority was validated on the basis of several
arguments, including him being the chief of God's creations, the
only animal with the ability to think, and the only form of being
with a moral sense. Man's identity, therefore, was assumed to be
fixed. It is this notion that The Comedy of Errors challenges.
Shakespeare shows how identity is almost entirely socially
determined and based on context. When taken out of context, the
Antipholus twins are like fish out of water. They display anxiety,
frustration, and anger when the other characters refuse to believe
their identity or reach mistaken conclusions about them. But the
reality is that their identity is not fixed, and people assume their
identity by how they appear.
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