Comedy and Identity in Cooper's "Mistaken Identity"
This paper analyzes Sharon E. Cooper's one-act comedy "Mistaken Identity," focusing on how the playwright uses character misconceptions, dialogue, and punctuation to generate humor while exploring themes of identity, sexual preference, and traditional American values. The paper traces the central misunderstanding between Steve, who represents conventional American ideals, and Kali, a Hindu lesbian, arguing that Cooper treats the contrast between these two worldviews in a way that is simultaneously funny, tasteful, and socially insightful. The analysis highlights how Cooper's use of exclamatory dialogue and symbolism underscores the comedy while offering a critique of mainstream American attitudes toward counterculture.
- Introduction: Comedy Built on Misunderstanding: Cooper's play uses misunderstanding to drive comedy
- The Two Protagonists and Their Contrasting Identities: Steve and Kali's contrasting identities fuel the plot
- Dialogue and Punctuation as Comic Devices: Exclamatory dialogue creates and emphasizes humor
- Social Commentary and Cultural Taboo: Cooper navigates lesbianism and American conventionalism tastefully
- Conclusion: Cooper's Comedic Success: Play succeeds in comedy and social insight
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper advances a clear, arguable thesis: that Cooper uses character misconceptions as both a source of comedy and a vehicle for social commentary on identity and American values.
- Direct quotations from the play are integrated to support each analytical point, showing rather than merely asserting how the comedy works.
- The analysis moves beyond plot summary to examine craft elements — punctuation, symbolism, and dialogue — connecting technique to meaning.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates textual analysis of dramatic literature by grounding interpretive claims in specific quoted passages and then explaining how language features (exclamation marks, word choice) produce the intended comedic and thematic effects. This close-reading approach is the core skill in literary analysis essays.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with a thesis identifying misunderstanding as the play's central mechanism. It then introduces the two characters and the nature of their misconceptions before analyzing how dialogue and punctuation generate comedy. A separate section addresses Cooper's handling of socially sensitive subject matter. The conclusion evaluates the play's overall success. The argument builds logically from plot identification to craft analysis to thematic assessment.
Introduction: Comedy Built on Misunderstanding
Sharon E. Cooper's play Mistaken Identity is unabashedly a comedy. The play is built upon a number of situations emblematic of modern life, which Cooper primarily uses to poke fun at social conventions prevalent in contemporary society. As the title implies, the fundamental concept fueling most of the plot is misunderstanding, which manifests in two distinct forms intrinsically related to the two principal characters, Steve and Kali. Cooper utilizes the fact that each character holds a misconception about who the other is — and what that person wants — as a means of providing both comedy and insight into notions of identity in contemporary society.
The Two Protagonists and Their Contrasting Identities
The principal misunderstanding between Steve and Kali is that Kali is a Hindu lesbian (Boslaugh, 2007) who is solely interested in romantic relationships with women. Steve, on the other hand, is the stereotypical American prototype looking to marry and begin a traditional family life. Throughout the play, Cooper uses Steve to symbolize traditional American values. Kali, however, mistakenly believes that Steve has sought out her company simply because he wants to be her friend.
The two characters have only met because Kali's brother Rashid — who is aware of each other's true identities and desires — arranged their introduction. Steve believes he can overcome Kali's lesbianism, or even use it to his advantage in his pursuit of marriage. Kali's response to this assumption makes the dynamic plain: "Being lesbian isn't negotiable. And don't even get started on how sexy it is to be with me or to watch me with another woman!" (Cooper). This quotation demonstrates the comical nature of Steve's attempt to negotiate around Kali's identity, which underscores his own ignorance and the broader ignorance embedded in traditional American attitudes toward sexual preference.
Dialogue and Punctuation as Comic Devices
The comedy in this drama truly ignites once Steve and Kali discover each other's real identities and intentions, and it is driven principally by dialogue — as befits a stage play. Cooper uses the conversation between the two characters as the primary engine of comedy relating to their misunderstanding. This is evident in Kali's exasperated realization that Rashid "got so desperate that he set her up with a cowboy!" (Cooper).
In both this quotation and the one preceding it, punctuation plays an integral role in the humor. Because most of the plot is delivered through dialogue, the reader must rely on exclamation marks — which typify many of the play's comedic passages — to convey the humorous outrage both characters feel about the identity misconception at the heart of the play. This use of punctuation to accentuate the comedic thrust of the dialogue is a notably effective dramatic technique within the work.
Conclusion: Cooper's Comedic Success
The usage of punctuation to accentuate the comedic elements of dialogue in Mistaken Identity is fairly effective in this dramatic work. The subject of lesbianism, contrasted with the traditional elements of American conventionalism that Steve represents, is handled by Cooper in a way that is tasteful, funny, and socially illuminating. To that end, Cooper's play is highly successful.
References
Boslaugh, S. (2007). "Book Reviews." Talkingbroadway.com. Retrieved from
Cooper, S. E. (2007). "Mistaken Identity." In Laugh Lines: Short Comic Plays. Ed. Lane, E. and Shengold, N. New York: Vintage Books.
Murthy, S. (2009). "Mistaken, a totally mistaken identity!" Psychicsizzler. Retrieved from http://psychicsizzler.wordpress.com/2009/11/07/mistaken-a-totally-mistaken-identity/
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