Shakespeare and Film Noir; Sexuality, Post #2

Let's talk about sex. Let's talk about Luciana and Antipholus of Syracuse. Let's talk about Katherina and Petruchio. Both of these comedies use the multifarious sexualities of the characters for an assortment of reasons and plot devises—most overtly, for the amusement of the audience. There are moments in both of these plays where a lot of legwork is asked of the audience in order to keep certain lascivious views in flux.

On of these moments comes in The Comedy of Errors (Act III, Scene 2), when Antipholus of Syracuse shamelessly hits on Luciana, the sister of his alleged wife. The scene is charged with a lot of romantic language and coy refutations; however sweet these verses may be, Luciana still believes that she is speaking to the husband of her sister. Though it is true that from Antipholus of Syracuse's point of view he is only flirting with a single mistress, the breath of adultery and sordid desire still obfuscate the scene. The audience is simultaneously being affronted with AoS's sexuality as well as Luciana's contemptible response to AoS's advances.

Luc: It is a fault that springeth from your eye.
AoS: For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.

Well, at least she said no that time. 

Luc: Gaze where you should, and that will clear your sight.
AoS: As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night.
Luc: Why call you me “love”? Call my sister so.
AoS: Thy sister's sister. 
Luc: That's my sister. 
AoS: No, it is thyself, mine own self’s better part,
Mine eye’s clear eye, my dear heart’s dearer heart,
My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope’s aim,
My sole earth’s heaven, and my heaven’s claim...
Luc: O soft, sir! Hold you still.
I’ll fetch my sister to get her goodwill. 
(III. 2. 55-64, 69-70.) 

Alas, Luciana does spurn AoS's advances. That's good, right? She couldn't possibly hope to score her brother-in-law right after giving a speech about how wives should be obedient; one can only assume not facilitating cheating is something that is expected from a potential good-wife. However, this scene also reveals to the audience that AoS is attracted to Luciana, and would court her if not for the ubiquitous, eponymous errors running amok. Shakespeare keeps playing with the sexualities of his contemporary audience: at this point in the play, the spectators would have wanted—gasp!—Luciana to return his advances. They know that she is right in following what her sexuality is telling her (namely, that she is attracted to this flirtatious Antipholus), and yet it is expected that she turn him down. Luckily, all of these libidinous desires get properly aligned as the play enters its denouement.

The Taming of the Shrew also puts its audience on a roller coaster of sexuality—this time through witty word play. One of the more famously salacious scenes in Shrew is, like the aforementioned scene in The Comedy of Errors, a courting scene. When Petruchio begins to court Katherina, she acts as expected: shrewish. Spurring even the most basic of his advances, Petruchio calls her waspish, to which Katherina famously replies:

"If I be waspish, best beware my sting." (II. i. 208.) 

Oh-ho-ho! Petruchio follows up on this suggestive warning, spurning the following dialogue:

 

P: My remedy is then to pluck it out.
K: Ay, if the fool could find where it lies.
P: Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail.
K: In his tongue.
P: Whose tongue?
K: Yours, if you talk of tales, and so farewell.
P: What, with my tongue in your tail? (II. i. 209-214.) 

The "tail" being referred to is believed to be an overt reference to Katherina's genitalia. Petruchio appeals to Katherina's sexuality directly in an attempt to deflect and undermine her shrewish defenses. 

To juxtapose these sexually charged dialogues with one from our quasi-contemporary culture, below is one of the most famous "patter-dialogues" of the film noir genre, coming from Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity:

Here is a dialogue where sexuality and its repression are being volleyed verbally. This dialogue from the 1944 "pragmatic film noir" is incredibly similar in form to Luciana and Antipholus of Syracuse's banter, though centuries separate the two. Katherina and Petruchio's dialogue is surprisingly more salacious than the other two combined; Luciana and AoS's dialogue, as well as the dialogue from Double Indemnity, both deal with sexually charged suggestion but any reference to sexuality is clouded with the threat of adultery. 

 Most interestingly, it is how those two dialogues get un-clouded that reveal the most about how sexuality was treated in these two eras: in The Comedy of Errors, Luciana and Antipholus end up together happily. Despite Luciana's initial rejection of her sexuality, it ends up that after all, it was pointing it in the right direction. Conversely, in Double Indemnity, Walter Neff listens to his sexuality and begins an affair with Phyllis soon after this scene. However, this leads him down a road of broken promises, murder, and death.

  Now, in which era was sexuality more repressed?

Desire Can Be Funny

Desire finds itself wound up in The Comedy of Errors in ways just as confusing to the characters themselves. Desire is derived in several forms: material, sexual, romantic, and the longing for family. These forms ultimately can be divided between two categories:  superficial and emotional. Furthermore, this duality can be transferred to the play as a whole. The Comedy of Errors in fact thrives in this contrast. The play is both a light-hearted comedy on the surface look, but within it is entangled with topics of slavery, execution, hierarchy, marriage/gender issues, and societal issues as well as roles. Shakespeare dances along the line between the two rendering him the ability to capture life’s complexity and uncertainty. The dueling desires ultimately reveal that a person must choose only one, between the superficial or emotional at a time. As, Antipholus of Syracuse says to Dromio:
 "You would all this time have proved, there is no time for all things." 2.1.100. 

Types of Desires in The Comedy of Errors

·      Romantic: This would fall under the OED’s “longing, craving; a particular instance of this feeling, a wish” (the definition alone is a bit romantic). Adriana is endowed with her husband despite his ‘misbehavior.’ She bails him out of jail even though she questions his fidelity after he has pleaded his love to her sister. Adriana desires nothing more than for her husband to be returned by her side.  

Adriana - “and therefore let me have him home with me”

Abbess: “be patient, for I will not let him stir.” (5.1.101-102)

·      Sexual: “physical or sensual appetite; lust.” While Antipholus of Syracuse is lusting over Luciana, contrastingly, the absent of desire is shown. Dromio of Syracuse and Antipholus of Syracuse mock Dromio of E’s wife, aka his “fat marriage.” He begins saying “I could find countries in her” and continues on to describe all of the different locations of them on her “globe-shaped” body.

·      Family: The topic of family fits with the OED definition of “longing for something lost or missed.” Egeon, Antipholus of Syracuse, and Emilia are all desperately seeking to be reunited with their family (the lost/missed). Egeon’s desire to be together with his family is so strong that even the possibility of his own death will not sway him. This desire is so strong

o   Antipholus describes this longing to find his twin as such:

“I to the world am like a drop of water

that in the ocean seeks another drop

who falling there to find his fellow forth,

unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself 1.2. 35-36.

·      Materialistic: “that feeling or emotion which is directed to the attainment or possession of some object from which pleasure or satisfaction is expected.” The gold chain is used in the play as a gift to please Adriana, but furthermore symbolizing the possessiveness in material assets. This occurs mainly as a negative aspect in the story – causing confusion amongst the characters and sending an innocent Antipholus and Angelo to jail. The power of this object over the people themselves is so strong it is enough to pardon Egeon of death. Money arises also in Egeon’s death based on his 1000 mark ransom from the Duke, who is bound himself by the ‘law’ or superficial restrictions despite having sympathy for Egeon.

While these desires for materialistic, sexual, family, and romantic are still longed for today, one important aspect that reoccurs in conversation throughout the story is the importance of having patience. This plays a large component to the attainment of desire within the play. In the modern world, we celebrate (even strive for) an immediate fix to our desires and longing (see McDonalds, IPhones, etc). Everything must be immediate gratification.

In The Comedy of Errors the characters are unconcerned with the restrictions of this time or immediacy that seems so ever bound to us today. To them, one’s desire, even if it has been searching for a long time, day seems limitless and has the power to transform all of their lives.

Examples of Patience:

Adriana To Luciana about Antipholus of Ephesus’s return:

“patience unmoved! No marvel though she pause;

they can be meek that have no other cause.”

“With urging helpless patience would relieve me,

But if thou live to see like right bereft,

This fool-begged patience in thee will be left.” (2.1.32-41)

Each character's wants become entangled with one another, both causing and relieving problems. Adriana wants her husband home for dinner with no exceptions; this results with the wrong Antipholus to go along with her unyielding desire he does not know how to counteract. When the confusion of paying for the gold chain arises, no one cares about whom it should belong to, only that it is paid for. When Antipholus is offered such goods, he doesn’t question the right or wrong of the matter, but accepts it without thinking of consequences. Money and superficiality tromps truth.

The play concurs with everything in its place, showing the necessity of all of these entwined desires.

Leaving the final line:

“we came into the world like brother and brother;

And now let’s go hand in hand, not one before another.”