Comedy:
We
use the words 'comedy' and comic to describe something that is funny in our
everyday lives. These include a joke or a fantastic story that is full of
nonsense, or an absurd appearance that makes us giggle, smile or laugh. Comedy
is not inherent in things or people but the way things/people are perceived.
Comedy is a deliberate presentation of events/experiences drawn from real life
but not the same with real life. We should therefore not expect dramatic comedy
to be the same as real life. Generally, the plays have good endings or
resolutions, so when a play ends happily, we refer to it as comedy. In most
comedies, the principal characters begin in a state of opposition either to one
another or to their world or both. By the end of the play their opposition .is
replaced by harmony. Aristotle in-.his “Poetics” insisted that in tragedy men
are shown “better than they are”, while in comedy “worse than they are”.
For
him it is an artistic imitation of men of inferior moral bent, not in every way
but only in so far their shortcomings are ludicrous. These short comings cause
no pain. Jn. the classical period there was no mixture of genres Horace
maintains that tragic characters must be noble, while comic characters are
ignoble and of lower birth and foolish. Moliere believed that his audience
could learn from the dramatization of ridiculous and universal types. Comedy
therefore teaches through laughter, sees it as an imitation of common errors of
life which is presented in the most ridiculous and scornful manner so that the
spectator is anxious to avoid such errors himself. It should aim at being
delightful though not necessarily by provoking laughter.
We
recognize comedy through its style, characterization, diction and other
elements of style. The purpose of comedy is to delight, to teach and to
entertain the audience through the presentation of characters, situations and
ideas in a ridiculous manner. This helps to keep man close to sanity, balance
and to remind him of human frailties. It helps to keep him humble and mindful
of what he is rather than what he might wish himself to be. Modem scholars
believe that the purpose of comedy is to correct vices therefore should not
exclude any class. Satire is an important instrument in comedy because nothing
reforms majority of men like the portrayal of their faults. It is easy for
people to endure being made fun of. Many people may have no objection to being
considered wicked but are not willing to be considered ridiculous. The audience
is thus expected to learn from the stupidity of the characters and try to avoid
such pitfalls because nobody likes to be made an object of ridicule. Generally
speaking, comedy adopts a different approach from that of serious drama. It
presents the incongruity in people and situations. In doing this, the
playwright suspends the natural laws; for instance, a man falls flat m the
floor but does not really hurt himself. Comedy is usually presented as a moral
satire used to attack vices like greed, hypocrisy, lust, laziness, or
ignorance. The aim is to correct social ills, social injustice or to ridicule a
particular human fault or social imbalance. It thrives on exaggeration of
situation and character to show mankind worse than it really is. Since drama is
a conscious and deliberate presentation of events/experience based mostly on
real life but not the same with real life, one should, therefore, not expect
comedy to be the same with real life.
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