Role of Comic Relief, and Comic Relief in Macbeth

After an action scene in a play, or a critical moment in a story, there is a huge amount of tension in the air, and the audience or readers are riled up. In order to calm the audience down, the author of the play or story has to use “comic relief”. This involves using comedy and humor, which can be in the forms of a humorous scenario, a character having funny lines, or puns (words that have more than one meaning). Comic relief is used in a genre of literature that is not “comedy”, and it is done in order to “relieve” the audience or readers of the dramatic tension that the scene in the piece of literature caused. Although the tension is relieved, the contrast in the genre of the scene with high tension and the moment with the comic relief strengthens the audience’s emotions about the critical scene.

In all of Shakespeare’s tragedy plays, comic relief is used in order to bring out the full effect of the unfortunate events that occur, mainly through contrast. In Macbeth, comic relief is shown through the Porter, who makes his entrance right after the dramatic scene, high in tension, where the king of Scotland, Duncan, is murdered. At the beginning of the play, the three witches appeared and prophesized that Macbeth would be king. From this moment up until the scene where Macbeth actually kills the king, tension is being built up because the audience knows that Macbeth is about to take action based on the prophecy of the witches. In this scene, the tension explodes, and the scene serves as a sort of “miniature climax”. This tension is relieved after the Porter scene, but the comedy brought from it contrasts with the scene with the murder, showing the difference between pure evil and innocent comedy. Thus, stronger emotions to the murder scene are brought out from the audience, effectively captivating their attention to the play.

Back in Shakespeare’s time, the audience had no trouble understanding the meaning of the words used in his plays. However, nowadays, the English language has changed up a little, and the message Shakespeare attempts to convey through his characters’ lines are not as clear as it was to the audiences back then. Therefore, the Porter’s lines, meant to convey comic relief, may not be noticed by novice Shakespeare readers.

First of all, the Porter begins by comparing himself to the guard of the gates of hell. “Here’s a knocking indeed!/ If a man were porter of hell-gate, he should have old turning the key.” When the Porter mentions Beelzebub (“Knock, knock, knock! Who’s there, i’ th’ name of Beelzebub?”), there is the common lack of information on who or what Beelzebub is. Beelzebub is referred to as Satan in the New Testament of the Bible, but since not many people study the bible in this era, not many people know what Beelzebub is. He then proceeds to pretend that the person knocking is a sinner knocking on the gates of hell.

First, the Porter pretends that the knocker is a farmer who committed suicide for expecting too much. Then he welcomes an “equivocator”, which is someone who twists around his words so that he never has to tell the truth directly. In other words, the second sinner is a liar. The third is a selfish tailor, and in the end, the Porter stops pretending to be the gatekeeper because he jokingly says that he was going to “let every profession into hell”, stating that everyone is a sinner.

Finally the Porter lets Macduff in, asking why the Porter took a while to answer the door which the latter replies that he was too busy drinking the previous night. The Porter then goes on to describe three things that drinking alcohol causes: “nose-painting, sleep, and urine”, or in other words, it makes one’s nose red, knocks them out, and causes them to have the need to use the facility. When the Porter goes on to say, “much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery”, he means that when someone is drunk, the alcohol tricks his sexual desire, by giving it to him but then taking it away. This is shown in the lines “it makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him, and disheartens him”.

However, after this small humorous scene, the section of comic relief is over and when Macduff asks for Macbeth (“Is thy master stirring?”), the audience is back to the realization that this is not the time for jokes or humor. The audience was distracted by the comical dialogue between the Porter and Macduff, and almost forgets that the king, Duncan, had just been murdered. The high contrast of emotion between death and humor brings out the feelings of the audience towards the murder of Duncan even more. All in all, the role of comic relief is to not only dispel the tension, but to heighten the feelings that the audience gets in response to an important, critical, and usually in Shakespeare’s tragedy plays, dark scene.

by Aaron Huang