1 / 9

Act 3, Scene 3

Act 3, Scene 3. Objectives: Understand how Dogberry and the Watch are presented in this scene. Understand the comic effect of malapropisms. Dogberry and the Watchmen. Dogberry and the watch are introduced to relieve and screw up the tension on the eve before the wedding.

quincy
Download Presentation

Act 3, Scene 3

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Act 3, Scene 3 Objectives: Understand how Dogberry and the Watch are presented in this scene. Understand the comic effect of malapropisms

  2. Dogberry and the Watchmen • Dogberry and the watch are introduced to relieve and screw up the tension on the eve before the wedding. • They broaden the picture of Messina society. • Their lack of education and simplicity contrast with the sophistication and deviousness of the aristocracy. • Their buffoonery lightens the atmosphere and hints at a happy ending. • The Watch were the policemen of the Elizabethan times and their incompetence was a standing joke • Shakespeare’s watchmen are very English with English names and attitudes and spectacularly inept.

  3. Act 3, Scene 3 • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmFu42uvomg

  4. Malapropism • Dogberry and his companions provide gregarious humor in Much Ado About Nothing. By turning the watch into bumbling fools, Shakespeare pokes fun at the law. • Dogberry often uses Malapropisms – the ludicrous misuse of words especially through confusion caused by resemblance in sound

  5. Malapropisms • The term derives from MrsMalaprop, a character from Sheridan’s late eighteenth-century play, ‘The Rivals’, who misapplied words very much like Dogberry. • There is a significant difference, however. While MrsMalaprop confuses simpilar sounding words (‘He is the very pineapple of politeness’) Dogberry often confuses similar sounding words antithetically (i.e with words of opposite meaning)

  6. This inversion of meanings very much reflects Dogberry’s general approach to life, law enforcement and criminals. • He believes sleeping on duty is good because it helps keep the streets peaceful and advises decent virtuous men like the Watch to have as little to do as possible with vagrants, rowdy drunks or thieves. • Dogberry’s antithetical malapropisms also illustrate once again the play’s concern with distinguishing reality from appearance. • Where others in the play deliberately use language to distort and deceive, Dogberry baffles by unwittingly ‘reserving’ language.

  7. Dogberry not only uses Malapropisms, he uses whole phrases incorrectly. • Identify the phrases he uses incorrectly

  8. Questions How would you distinguish the witty language of Beatrice and Benedick from the comedy created by Dogberry’s language? Some critics have complained that the farcical comedy of Dogberry and the Watch is an irrelevance and distraction from the serious issues of love and fidelity in the play. What are your views?

More Related