Sarcasm in Shakespeare

In Shakespeare, as I said in the last blogpost, the majority of the humor seems to be sarcasm. Very lewd and witty, the sarcasm used in the majority of his comedic plays, and As You Like It especially. Three of the characters, Celia, Jaques and Touchstone, who play the comedic relief in the play are the characters that use the majority of sarcasm. They use it both attack other characters, and to make themselves seem more intelligent than the other characters. They also use it to advance the plot, and to build their relationships with other characters. By using sarcasm. the characters are able to show how they feel for the other characters, and are able to be rude without actually being rude, further making their characters improve and deepen.

Sarcasm is a motif that is seen it a large amount of Shakespear's plays, including his tragedies. While not as prevalent as lewdness, he uses sarcasm to show intelligent characters, and characters that arn't scared of what people think of them. This is another example of why Touchstone is very sarcastic. He's very intelligent, and doesn't want people to miss that, and so uses sarcasm to both upset them, and to lord his intelligence over them. This helps to show his character a little more, and also to make him feel like a more developed character. Celia uses sarcasm in a similar manner, where it is used to show that she is a strong woman, who doesn't depend on anybody, and uses wit and sarcasm to show how she feels about herself.