Alazon

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Dramatic Monologue: a conversation a speaker has with themselves or which is directed at a listener or reader who does not respond. Baron Munchausen from Baron Munchausen’s Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia by Rudolf Erich Raspe His usual function is to impede the love of the hero and heroine, and his power to do so stems from his greater social position and his increased control of cash. In the New Comedy, he was often the father of the hero and so his rival. More frequently since, he has been the father of the heroine who insists on her union with the bad fiancé; as such, he appears in both A Midsummer Night's Dream, where he fails and so the play is a comedy, and Romeo and Juliet, where his acts are successful enough to render the play a tragedy. In the PC game The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, there is a non-playable character named Miles Gloriosus, willing to brag about his accomplishments as soldier.

Alazons are usually used as a type of comic relief. These characters are clearly outrageous and admit to absurd deeds the reader, and the other characters, aren’t meant to take as fact. Depending on the character, they may be more or less likable. Someone like Falstaff is incredibly likable, while Pistol may be less so. Some travellers are apt to advance more than is perhaps strictly true; if any of the company entertain a doubt of my veracity, I shall only say to such, I pity their want of faith, and must request they will take leave before I begin the second part of my adventures, which are as strictly founded in fact as those I have already related. Examples of Alazons Ancient Pistol in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Henry V, and Henry IV, Part II by William Shakespeare Shakespeare uses the type most notably with the bombastic and self-glorifying ensign Ancient Pistol in Henry IV, Part 2, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry V. [4] Other examples are "fashion's own knight", the Spaniard Armardo, in Love's Labour's Lost, the worthless Captain Parolles in All's Well That Ends Well, and Falstaff in Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Sir Tophas of John Lyly's Endymion also fits the mold. Captain Parolles is a deceitful character who brags about his triumphs in war but actually turns out to be a coward. This is one of the central features of characters known as alazons. He’s abandoned by Bertram in this play, the only person who was willing to trust him. This was despite the fact that other characters had encouraged Bertram not to trust him to begin with.

Tragedy: refers to a type of drama that explores serious, sometimes dark, and depressing subject matter.

Aside: a dramatic device that is used within plays to help characters express their inner thoughts. Carlson, Marvin. 1993. Theories of the Theatre: A Historical and Critical Survey from the Greeks to the Present. Expanded. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-8154-3. The senex iratus or heavy father figure is a comic archetype character who belongs to the alazon or impostor group in theater, manifesting himself through his rages and threats, his obsessions and his gullibility. Here, readers can get a glimpse of Tophas’ style of speech and how comedic his conversations can be.

No, but love hath, as it were, milked my thoughts and drained from my heart the very substance of my accustomed courage. It worketh in my head like new wine, so as I must hoop my sconce with iron lest my head break, and so I bewray my brains; but I pray thee, first discover me in all parts, that I may be like a lover, and then will I sigh and die. Take my gun, and give me a gown. One might say: “The alazon in this story is particularly funny.” Or, “Did you hear what he said? He’s like a modern-day alazon.” Frye, Northrop. 1957. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. London: Penguin, 1990. ISBN 0-14-012480-2.