The second means relevant to multiple unity has been the subject of this chapter, precisely the arrangement of scenes about the story line. Some of the scenes that a playwright chooses to dramatize are those primarily concerned with propelling the play, such as the play-within-the-play scene in Hamlet. Some scenes develop traits of a character, as in the scene of Portia’s plea to Brutus for confidence. But a central, repeating element within the rhythmic pattern of extension-contraction is the arrangement of scenes or incidents in a combination of contrasting and comparable circumstances. Whether the scenes used are central or peripheral to the story, they repeatedly gain illumination through mirroring similar situations. Hamlet unable to avenge his father is contrasted with Laertes too ready to avenge his father, Hamlet mad is contrasted with Ophelia mad, Rosalind’s mocking love-play is heightened by comparison with Phebe and Silvius as well as with the earthy affection of Touchstone and Audrey, while Touchstone’s professional mockery of the pastoral life casts light upon Jaques’ melancholy. One could go on endlessly pointing out the contrast of situation with situation. Frequently we encounter scenes whose only relationship to the story is to provide dramatic contrast. I have cited the scene in Fair Maid of Bristow in which the servants woo each other. The Porter’s scene in Macbeth, about which there has been “much throwing about of brains,” is an example. Another is the scene where Ventidius refuses to outshine Antony, another the lynching of Cinna the poet or the valor of Lucilius (Julius Caesar, V, iv). Great events produce many ripples. These ripples, which found expression in the Greek choral odes, the Elizabethans sought to dramatize.
Contrast in the Globe plays, it is essential to note, is a contrast of situations, not a contrast of characters. It is true that Hamlet is contrasted with Laertes as well as Fortinbras, but the character contrast is effected by the participation of each in distinct though related incidents. In Fair Maid of Bristow Challener’s conflict with Vallenger is contrasted with Harbart’s relationship to Sentloe. Vallenger’s asking the disguised Challener to murder Sentloe and Anabell parallels Florence’s attempt to seduce Blunt alias Harbart to murder Sentloe. Modern drama like classic drama, however, contrasts characters caught within a single situation. Antigone and Ismene face the same dramatic circumstance; so do Electra and Chrysothemis. Character contrast is achieved through the different ways in which each person reacts to the same crisis. Lövborg and Tesman are sharply differentiated: in their reactions to the same appointment, their manner of loving, the kinds of books they write. The same holds true for Stanley and Mitch in A Streetcar Named Desire, or even for Stella and Blanche. But in Shakespearean drama not only is light thrown on the comparison of situations, but at times the characters are aware of this inter-reflection. At the end of the last storm scene in Lear, Act III, scene vi, Edgar has a speech which appears only in the Quarto. After witnessing the sorrow of Lear, he soliloquizes:
When we our betters see bearing our woes,
We scarcely think our miseries our foes.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How light and portable my pain seems now,
When that which makes me bend makes the King bow,
He childed as I fathered!
[108-116]
Certainly the Elizabethans felt that one event mirrored another, and probably that together they mirrored the common meaning of both events. This interconnection of reflected incidents contributed metaphorically to a unified impression.