William Shakespeare s Volpone And Twelfth Night - 2004 Words

In Volpone and Twelfth Night both Shakespeare and Jonson use disguise to make the audience laugh, but also to explore more serious themes. Such as gender issues within Shakespeare and Jonson with exploring greed and how it can destroy you. The playwrights make the audience laugh by using a range of different methods such as interaction with the audience throughout the plays. The writers’ purposes right at the beginning are to explore the theme of greed through humour, and explore the roles people hide behind. As Francois de La Rochefoucauld says; ‘We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves’ this suggests that mankind are so practised in disguise that the blur between reality and falsehood becomes invisible even to themselves. The audience’s expectation of the plays is to be engaged with them and for them to feel superior to the characters within the play; thus if the characters make fools of themsel ves they will laugh. Disguise is also something the audience wants to see. What the audience also wants is a sense of dramatic irony. This is used throughout - thus making the audience to feel as if they have the upper hand, they know more than the actual characters themselves. In Twelfth Night Shakespeare uses gender roles and cross dressing to create disguise. This creates a sense of gender ambiguity and this is what makes the audience laugh - but although it creates a sense of fun and liveliness it also examines