Comic Relief
Definition
Comic relief is an amusing scene, incident, or speech introduced into serious or tragic elements, as in a play, in order to provide temporary relief from tension, or to intensify the dramatic action.
Example- from Macbeth
Act Two, scenes 3-4
A porter stumbles through the hallway to answer knocking, grumbling about the noise and mocking whoever is at the door. He compares himself to a porter at the gates of hell and asks “Who’s there, i’ th’ name of Beelzebub?”. Macduff and Lennox enter, and Macduff complains about the porter’s slow response to his knock. The porter continues to say that he was up late and rambles on humorously about the effects of alcohol, which he says provokes red noses, sleepiness, and urination.
Function
After the bloody imagery and dark tones of the previous two scenes, the porter’s comedy comes as a refreshing sense of relief. His good-natured joking with Macduff breaks up the tension of the play and creates a break in the dramatic murder scene.
Another Example-Romeo and Juliet
Nurse
“Lord, how my head aches! what a head have I! It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces. My back o’ t’ other side,-- O, my back, my back! Beshrew your heart for sending me about, to catch my death with jaunting up and down!” (lines 51-55).
Nurse's unexpected reply serves to draw tension away from Romeo’s reply and onto the interaction between Juliet and her caretaker. The Nurse highlights how tired she feels, which lightens the mood on stage.
Non-original mnemonic
Original mnemonic
To relieve someone from feeling sad, one would use comical jokes to make them laugh.
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