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Douglas Green (essay date 1995)

SOURCE: Green, Douglas. “Mother's Word and The Comedy of Errors: Notes Toward a Shakespearean Constitution of Patriarchy.” Upstart Crow 15 (1995): 17-25.

[In the following essay, Green analyzes the representation of the mother figure within the patriarchal social system of The Comedy of Errors.]

I. MOMMY'S DEAREST

To begin with, we live in a situation in which the consecrated (religious or secular) representation of femininity is subsumed under maternity. Under close examination, however, this maternity turns out to be an adult (male and female) fantasy of a lost continent: what is involved, moreover, is not so much an idealized primitive mother as an idealization of the—unlocalizable—relationship between her and us, an idealization of primary narcissism.¹

In Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, Antipholus of Syracuse expresses the...

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1. Introduction
2. Criticism: Overviews And General Studies
   1. Robert S. Miola (essay date 1997)
   2. Charles Whitworth (essay date 2002)
3. Criticism: Character Studies
   1. Charles Brooks (essay date summer 1960)
   2. Wolfgang Riehle (essay date 1990)
4. Criticism: Production Reviews
   1. D. J. R. Bruckner (review date 14 July 2000)
   2. Michael Phillips (review date 26 March 2001)
   3. Don Shirley (review date 9 July 2001)
   4. Don Shirley (review date 9 July 2001)
   5. Douglas E. Green (review date spring/summer 2003)
5. Criticism: Themes
   1. Douglas Green (essay date 1995)
   2. Martine Van Elk (essay date 2003)
6. Further Reading
7. Copyright