Shakespeare assumes a particularly witty, farcical style in The Comedy of Errors, filling each scene with a medley of inventive wordplay that demonstrates the full breadth of his comedic talents. As Shakespeare’s shortest play, The Comedy of Errors is generally regarded to be one of his less serious dramatic works, lacking much of the psychological realism and emotional depth of his better known plays. Still, what it might lack in meditative soliloquies it makes up for in humor.
Much of the play’s comedic strength lies in a combination of elements most often associated with farce, a style of comedy that tends to be short and frivolous. These elements include highly improbable coincidences, crude characterization, slapstick antics, and, above all else, wordplay. The two Dromios, for example, speak almost entirely in puns, sometimes at the cost of being understood by others. When Antipholus of Syracuse mistakes Dromio of Ephesus for his own servant, and asks him where he has stored the “thousand marks” entrusted to him earlier, Dromio of Ephesus responds with a series of puns that only contribute to the confusion of the scene.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS
I have some marks of yours upon my pate,
Some of my mistress’ marks upon my shoulders,
But not a thousand marks between you both.
If I should pay your Worship those again,
Perchance you will not bear them patiently.
He picks up on Antipholus’s use of the word “marks,” a form of currency, and then uses it in a completely different way to signify the “marks” left on his skin after a beating. While he has received such “marks” from both his master and his mistress, he estimates that they don’t quite add up to a thousand. Then, revealing that he has known that Antipholus was talking about money all along, he states that if he were to truly “pay” Antipholus back for all the “marks” he has given Dromio, Antipholus would not be happy with the beating he receives. Flippant and sly even when at risk of physical violence, Dromio’s farcical spirit represents the style of the play as a whole.
