"I Weep What's Left Away" Adriana's Complaint and the Poetry of Loss in The Comedy of Errors

Abstract

The Comedy of Errors, like most Shakespeare plays, includes far more male characters than female ones. Only sixteen percent of Shakespeare’s 981 characters are female, and only thirteen percent of major roles (with more than 500 lines) are given to female characters.¹ This percentage is slightly higher in The Comedy of Errors, but still only five of eighteen named characters are women. Thus, the interaction between the male characters seems to largely drive the main events of the play. Egeon argues for his life and the two Antipholuses and Dromios continually misidentify each other until the Duke resolves the whole situation at the end. Though the low proportion of female characters might suggest that they play a less important role than their male counterparts, these five women not only add much of the psychological depth of the play, but they also introduce important topics related to gender and equality that Shakespeare will return to again and again in his subsequent plays.