The Comedy of Errors story
The Comedy of Errors is one of William Shakespeare's early plays. It is his shortest and one of his most farcical comedies, with a major part of the humour coming from slapstick and mistaken identity, in addition to puns and word play. The Comedy of Errors is, along with The Tempest, one of only two Shakespearean plays to observe the Aristotelian principle of unity of time—that is, that the events of a play should occur over 24 hours. It has been adapted for opera, stage, screen and musical theatre numerous times worldwide. In the centuries following its premiere, the play's title has entered the popular English lexicon as an idiom for "an event or series of events made ridiculous by the number of errors that were made throughout".
5 total · 3 major · 2 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| extramarital affair | major | Antipholus of Ephesus had a mistress, Adriana, and his wife almost unwittingly became an adulteress with Antipholus of Syracuse |
| husband and wife | major | Antipholus of Ephesus and Adriana |
| master and servant | major | The two Antipholus' and their respective Dromio's |
| sister and sister | minor | Adriana and Luciana |
| twin and twin | minor | The two identical twin couples eventually met their counterparts in the end. |