Essays on End Of The Play

“Los Vendidos” written by Luiz Valdes is a one-act play that depicts and ridicules the stereotypes of Mexicans in California. It is a satiric play that shows the social inequality in the American society in the 1960-ies. So much has been said about the discrimination of the Afro-Americans, but I even could not imagine Latinos and Mexicans facing a similar situation. This play attracts attention to the social issues that have not been solved even after 40 years. Although it is full of ridiculous and rather witty moments, the message of the play is serious and profound. The author ...

Prospero has a change of heart. Initially, he was bitter since his brother Antonio with the help of the King of Naples Aloso had deposed him from his rightful throne and confined him in an Island. At the end of the play, instead of Prospero punishing his brother Antonio and the King of Naples Alonso, he forgives them but retakes his throne. Describe Caliban’s relationship to both Prospero and Miranda. How does he see them? How does each of them view Caliban? Caliban’s relationship to Prospero and Miranda is that of resentment. He views Prospero as a ...

Reflection Paper

In all honesty, this play would be the very first time I would be attending a theater performance. I was extremely excited to be a part of the audience and experience how the creators of the play could create an organized and professional performance. In order to retain each and every detail, I was sure to bring my notebook and pencil with me to record all the important aspects of the play that would be pertinent to my analysis. A particular advantage of participating in the audience was to see how the stage, costumes, lighting, and sound were designed ...

Beth Helen's crime of the heart narrates the story of three Magrath girls, Babe, Meg, and Lenny. The story is surrounded by a sad aura, which forces the sisters to depict their complicated relationship of love and resentment. The plot is based on the sisters showing love, conflict, and reconciliation with each other given the circumstances each of them finds themselves. At the beginning of the play, Meg has just shot her husband, and Lenny celebrates her thirtieth birthday alone in the kitchen with a candle and a cookie. Meg is also seen making many wishes about her aspiration ...

William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is best characterized by his ambition, which leads him to commit heinous murders and eventually causes him to become insane. In “Macbeth”, one of the greatest tragedies ever written, the protagonist transforms from a valiant nobleman to an insane and violent tyrant, whose downfall comes as a relief by the end of the play. The tragedy is a literary genre which tackles a serious or somber topic, and in which the protagonist has an unhappy fate, usually brought about by a major flaw in his character. In the play, Macbeth first kills Duncan to take ...

In Coriolanus, the titular character’s mother tells him “You are too absolute” (Shakespeare). Volumnia, in this case, is trying to convince her son to approach the common plebeians for their votes to the Senate. Coriolanus is a proud man and an excellent soldier, but he struggles throughout the text with problems associated with his pride and his unwillingness to engage in political maneuvering. His mother, who ostensibly wants to see her son elected and placed in power, tries her hardest to convince him that he should participate in the process of trying to woo the people (Shakespeare). By “ ...

Introduction

Antigone is a dreadful tragedy written around 441 BC by the Sophocles. It was the last of the Theban plays but chronologically written first. The other pieces of Sophocles have attracted more controversy and nothing has inspired people more than Antigone (Lewis, p. 35). It is an outline of achievements of man, modern in its tone deceptively, has impressed many, and most probably, it is said if it is attached with, choral odes would turn to this poem. It was written at a time of a national intensity or fervor. When the play was performed, Sophocles was known to ...

At the beginning of the play, Hamlet, the son of Hamlet, the king or in other words, Hamlet, the prince, is introduced to the reader as being a university student who had been studying at Wittenberg. He has had to leave his studies to go and attend to the death of his father in Denmark. Although he was very loyal and loved his father so much, he gets disappointed when he gets home and finds that his uncle Claudio, has married his mother, Gertrude. His love for his father comes out when even Claudio realizes that Hamlet was sad, ...

Oedipus the King is an ancient drama set in Athens and written by Sophocles. The drama explores the events that take place in a kingdom called Thebes. The major character in this book is King Oedipus, who succeed King Laius. When a plague strikes Thebes, the people of Thebes ask King Oedipus to save them from them from the sufferings brought by the plague. At this time, Creon, who was the brother-in-law to King Oedipus, returns after visiting the oracle of Apollo and says that the plague that was experienced was a punishment for the death of King Laius ...

The master craftsman, William Shakespeare, in his Othello and The Winter’s Tale portrays some curious facets of femininity, maybe deliberately or not. Desdemona in Othello is a Venetian beauty with astute and resolute individuality, while Hermione in The Winter’s Tale is mysterious and majestic. When we take the reality aspect, the former is more realistic and true to life, which has implications even in this modern present. The latter is to an extent unreal, and somewhat fantasy. Character is everything in Shakespeare’s plays; the works have no existence apart from the characters. In Shakespeare’s plays, ...

- COMEDIES OF FORGIVENESS - humanum genus: The 'oppressor,' one who requires forgiveness by the end of the play - inherent evil of humanity/possibility for good a constant presence in these plays - Originates from medieval dramas, pre-Shakespearean plays and desire for forgiveness in drama - Christians seek forgiveness from God; Shakespeare extends that to receiving forgiveness from family/loved ones/humanity - Shakespeare's comedies of forgiveness underline the inherent evil of humanity as well as their need for forgiveness; as man will always sin, they will always need to be forgiven

- SIX COMEDIES ...

Oedipus Rex, written by the Greek playwright Sophocles, tells the story of the titular King Oedipus, who reaches the status of King of Thebes only to become embroiled in an investigation into the murder of the previous king, Laius. Over the course of the play, he is informed of a prophecy in which he is said to kill his father and marry his mother; despite the inevitable nature of this prophecy, Oedipus refuses to believe it. However, once he is told that he was the one who killed King Laius unknowingly in a raid some time ago, he learns that he ...

Sophocles was one of the most prescient and well-regarded playwrights of Greek drama, whose tragedies have established many literary and theatrical conventions that are still alive today. While Sophocles’ work is indicative of the culture in which it was created, it is also a trenchant critique of human nature as well. This comes across especially clearly in his Theban plays – Antigone, Oedipus the King, and Oedipus at Colonus – in which he uses his stories and characters to reflect flaws and issues he sees with the human condition and its relationship with the gods. Exploring these critical aspects of Sophocles’ Theban ...

Literature gives a reflection of the society we live in, authors are able to get their ideas from the issue that face the society and organize these ideas to come up with plays, novels, poems and even songs. Once one can connect what an author presents to the contemporary society, it is very easy to understand the themes and the ideas that the author reflects. 1. Compare and contrast the depiction of female characters in Oedipus Rex, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Glass Menagerie. What does each author suggest about the role of women in his society ...

In George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, Eliza Doolittle is initially nothing but a poor girl selling flowers on the street. Due to her incidental presence of Higgins and his bravado in discussing his abilities with Colonel Pickering, Eliza is swept up into a world that she would have been unable to touch without the help of Henry Higgins. Eliza speaks with a Cockney accent, making her incapable of breaking into the more refined world that she dreams of; Higgins takes her in and transforms her into a completely different woman. The transformation is that Eliza goes through not on the adoption of refined ...

- Introduction When literature is translated onto a stage, it becomes a play; it takes on a facet of reality that merely reading the words does not bring to the reader. Not every story translates perfectly into the medium of the play; plays have to have a lot of interaction between characters and environments to translate properly into theatre. Although there are certainly plays where not much happens, these plays are few and far between; most plays focus on the relationships between characters and their environments-- including the other characters that are present in the play. In theatre, the actors are ...

Introduction

Trying to Find Chinatown is a one-act play position on New York City streets. The play has only two characters, Ronnie and Benjamin. Chinatown seems to be racial or ethnic identity. The central of conflict observed in the play is about the definition of ethnic identity. While Naked Lunch is a narrative that is hard to describe in terms of plot this is because, the book commences with the adventure of a Mr. William Lee, his journey begins with him running from the police in the US. Finally he moves to Mexico where he his directed to Dr. Benway not knowing what ...

{Student’s Name} {} {Course Name} {Date}

King Lear is one of Shakespeare’s most revered tragic plays of all time and even deemed by many critics as the most tragic. The play’s tragic end was so harshly condemned by the audiences that other writers wrote alternative “happier” endings that were even played on stage for quite some time. However, the play’s true essence lies in the original end and this was realized by critics and audiences alike and since then has been performed worldwide in its original form (Shakespeare and Halio). ...

Shakespeare writes his play in an era where males are not accepting of women in power and authority. While the Elizabethan Age had Queen Elizabeth at the throne, many critics did not accept women in these positions readily. As a result, Shakespeare’s works reveal women in both negative and positive ways. Males controlled aspects of the society such as power and authority while women were expected to be submissive or weak and follow the orders as stipulated by these males. This submission was important to their survival in the society and within their families. During the Renaissance period, the ...

Compare and contrast the characters of Claudius and Macbeth

Introduction William Shakespeare is well known for his plays, from comedies to tragedies to love stories. His plays are popular for their invention of the most powerful characters who give life to these plays. Claudius and Macbeth are characters from two different plays, yet so similar, and still so different in qualities. These characters are very powerful in their respective plays. Macbeth and Claudius are both hungry for power, irresponsible an insane. The author uses these two characters similarly and differently to depict the different leadership qualities of authoritative kings as well as the characteristics of their kingdoms. ...

The memory play, Glass Menagerie, is based on the narrator’s memories, Tom Wingfield. The play was set in 1937 in St. Louis and Tom is the protagonist. Tom Wingfield was an aspiring poet and toiled and moiled so that he could support his Mother and Sister. Tom Wingfield is an aspiring poet and he works as a shoemaker in a warehouse. He is the one who narrates the story in the play, Glass Menagerie, and all the events are determined by the memories in his mind. Despite that he loved his Mum and sister; he feels that he cannot continue ...

Antigone, by Greek author Sophocles, is one of the most famous and important plays of all time. It has gone through numerous reincarnations in many different time periods, and has been studied by such famous philosophers as Hegel and Goethe. This may be because it includes issues that have been problematic throughout Western civilization: the difference between right and wrong, between just and unjust laws, the importance of family, the place of deity, etc. Nevertheless, contrary to what its name suggests, the tragedy is not Antigone’s, but Creon’s, as this is the character whose downfall through a character ...

Hansberry’s famous play “A Raisin in the Sun” premiered to an enthusiastic crowd on Broadway in 1959. The play was timely, as it premiered amidst the growing tension regarding the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, and it dealt extensively with many of the issues that black families faced in the United States at that time. However, race is not the only important thematic idea that Hansberry’s famous play dealt with; inequality between genders, classes, and even generations is examined extensively throughout the play. Within “A Raisin in the Sun,” the issues of gender and racial ...

Rossum’s Universal Robots, or R.U.R., is a play written by the Czech playwright Karel Capek. Capek, as a playwright, made a distinct attempt to create a new type of world on the stage, a world in which he could utilize the thought experiment of Robots, or synthetic humans, to examine the very fabric of humanity. Because of the tumultuous historical time in which Capek lived, his work was focused directly upon the the inability of the human race to break free from the cycle of repeating historical mistakes over and over again. Capek was particularly concerned with the cyclical nature of the past ...

Hamlet, written by the legendary William Shakespeare, is a play which tells of the tragedy of the Prince of Denmark. In the play, the Prince attempts to exact revenge on Claudius, his uncle, for murdering his father, King Hamlet. Set in the Danish Kingdom, the play explores the themes of incest, moral corruption and revenge. As odd as it may appear, it is quite ironical that Claudius decides to kill his own brother, King Hamlet, and take his wife, Queen Gertrude. When the Prince realizes the real cause of his father’s death, he is overcome with seething rage, and ...

August Wilson’s use of rhetoric devices

Most plays all over the world feature the work of August Wilson, a great play writer in the late twentieth century, who presented outstanding skills of utilizing literary devices appropriately. He received two Pulitzer drama prizes in two different decades to affirm his position as one of the greatest literacy minds (Gamerman 31). Having identified his career early, Wilson had to confront his family to allow him be a writer and not a lawyer as favoured by his mother and other family members. However, his zeal and commitment in writing make his material admirable whenever they come into use at any place. ...

"The Piano Lesson" By August Wilson

Set in Pittsburg in 1936, the play “The Piano Lesson” revolves around the contradictory standpoints of two siblings, Willie and Bernice as they fight over one of their family’s most prized possession, the piano (Wilson 23). Boy Willie is so determined to sell the piano and use the proceeds from the piano sale to purchase a piece of land from the Sutters, a white family who had murdered Boy Willie’s father. Bernice refuses to listen to the proposition to sell the Piano. She reminds her brother Willie that money what the piano costs is impossible to be bought with ...

Othello is introduced, at the beginning of the plays, as a black man who lives in Venice, Italy. He is known for his noble soul. Although he is black in skin, he had a white heart. In addition, he was brave and he became a leader in the Italian Army for he won many battles. However, by the end of the play, all these qualities, initially attributed to him, are put into question. Throughout the play, Othello becomes more and more addicted to the venomous and bestial language of Iago .He swings crazily between the desire for blissful ignorance and the ...

The play, Wit, by Margaret Edson, tells the story of Professor Vivian Bearing. The play opens with a monologue by Vivian in which she shares with the audience that she has been diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer, and that she will be dead by the end of the play. The following scenes explore Vivian’s past as well as her present. She offers commentary throughout the play, as she becomes the narrator of her own life, and ultimately, her own death. Through this commentary, we as an audience are allowed to witness Vivian’s personality. We learn what she ...

In Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare uses irony in different ways. Sometimes it is used for humorous purposes, and sometimes for dramatic purposes. It works because the audience hears the character saying one thing, and yet the audience knows that the literal meaning is not true, and in fact the opposite is true. By using irony in both humorous and dramatic scenes, Shakespeare allows the audience to enjoy the experience of sometimes knowing more than another character does about what is really happening. In contrast, the irony in Trifles is not so much a play on words as it is ...

King Lear follows the story of the titular character Lear, an elderly king who wishes to give up his power, and attempts to divide his lands among his three daughters. However, a series of unfortunate and capricious events, brought on primarily by Lear's own vanity and anger, lead him to slowly descend into madness, pushing away his three daughters. The show turns into a bloodbath, with all three daughters and Lear dead at the end of it, with many deaths stemming from jealousy, capriciousness and futile competition among military leaders. The play, however, demonstrates Lear's journey as the end result of ...

In the previous chapter we have shown how the alienation pervades both of the plays thematically. The present chapter concerns with the stylistic devices which are used by Arthur Miller and Samuel Beckett to support the thematic preoccupation. Since we are concerned with the study of drama, we judge important to include an examination of the stagecraft; that is to say the technical aspects of the two plays. The most important point to insist on is that Death of a Salesman and Waiting for Godot belong to two different, if not opposed, theatrical movements - Realism and Absurdism, respectively. As a ...

Tennessee Williams’ play Orpheus Descending is a modern retelling of the well known Greek legend of Orpheus, who goes deep into the Underworld for his beloved Eurydice, to save her from the clutches of death. In the same manner, Williams portrays characters in a conventional Southern community, marred by issues such as conformity to traditionalism, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge and respect those who are different. Thus, these outcasts who are of an unacceptable sexual, religious or racial affiliation are treated as lepers, not even knowing why they are unworthy of basic human rights. All of this forces them to create social ...

The central character of Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman, is a washed-up, depressed, pessimistic man who always wanted to be bigger than he was. Completely miserable with his work, and disappointed with his family and himself, Willy projects his expectations for his family onto his son Biff. This has disastrous consequences for both his family and himself. Willy Loman kills himself in order to give something back to his son, Biff, because of the disastrous relationship that they had as a result of Willy's own failed sense of success.

Willy Loman, at the end of the play, commits suicide by crashing ...

In Joan Ackermann's short play "Quiet Torrential Sound," two sisters, Claire and Monica, sit down for a lunch while on vacation, after having seen an outdoor performance of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. Monica talks her sister's ear off while criticizing her, while Claire finally opens up about a sex workshop she took some time ago, in which she began to experience the thrill of orgasm. Throughout the scene, the power relationship between the two sisters changes and shifts, all the while tackling issues of sibling rivalry and sexual liberation.

In the opening conversation, Monica clearly dominates the scene - Claire merely responds ...

Was Nora right to leave at the end of the play?

Firstly, she was right to leave because Torvald treats her in a completely stereotypical way – like a doll, as the title of the page suggests. All the names he calls her as endearments have the effect of stressing her weakness and dependence on him. They make her sound like a child, a doll, Torvald’s personal plaything: “little songbird”, “squirrel”, “lark”, “little featherhead”, “little skylark”, “little person”, little woman.” It could be argued that these are harmless and loving endearments, but they clearly show the balance of power in the Helmers’ marriage. If Nora acts at times in a flirtatious and childish way, it ...

INTRODUCTION

Sight is a very prevalent theme in a great variety of fiction; it can often be a symbol for understanding, comprehension, and enlightenment. Hindsight and foresight are often rewarded as virtues, or at least play heavily into the plot of a story. A blind person is often thought to ‘see’, or comprehend, more than the normal person, and sometimes people are not aware of a shocking truth, despite it looking them straight in the face. These two scenarios are found in the stories of Oedipus Rex by Sophocles and Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral.” In this essay, the use of sight in these ...

I chose Death of a Salesman because it is such a well-known play and I felt I ought to know more about it. I read the play and also watched the film version in which Dustin Hoffman played the central character, Willy Loman. I found the play and the film extremely moving, so I was interested to know how audiences had reacted to it when it first opened in 1949. Because of my reaction I was also interested in the tragic elements of the play. I thought the presentation of the female characters in the play was slightly weak – they are ...

A Raisin in the Sun – Lorraine Hansberry Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun was first performed in 1959 and was an immediate critical and commercial success. It is justly celebrated for these reasons. Ray and Kundu (31) describe it as ...a milestone in women’s drama. It was the first play to be written by a black woman to be produced on Broadway, and the first play by a black woman to win the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. The play is based on Hansberry’s own experience as Adams (9) makes clear: “She ...

Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House explores the dilemma of being a woman in late 19th century Norway. At the start of the play it is arguable that the Helmers appear to have a perfect marriage. However, this is only because Nora appears to conform to male patriarchal stereotypes about the role of women. As the play proceeds secrets from the past are revealed as are the other characters’ perceptions of Nora and this culminates in the final scene of the play in which Nora experiences an epiphany which reveals to herself her true identity, and the lies and misconceptions ...

Abstract

This paper reveals my response to the three main characters in the play and then examines three stage techniques that Williams uses to convey his message to the audience.

Key words: sympathy, delusion, dysfunctional, absent fathers, projections, symbolism

I found myself sympathizing withall three member of the Wingfield family when I read the play. The play is set in the 1930s and the family are trying to cope with the economic effects of the Great depression. All three characters are deeply unhappy and unfulfilled, and there is a lot of tension in the Wingfield home. Amanda Wingfield, the mother, ...

Write a comparison of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Show how each character views the prophecies and subsequent murders. Describe their reactions and evaluate how each character behaves at the play’s end.

In Act One, scene 3, Macbeth and Banquo meet some witches who make predictions about their future: they tell Macbeth he will be Thane of Cawdor And then King; they tell Banquo that he will be father to a line of kings. In my essay I will argue that the reactions of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to the prophecies and deaths are diametrically opposed throughout the play, so that ...

Hamlet by William Shakespeare, A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen and Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller are separated by time, language and culture. All three are still widely performed all over the world. What is their appeal? Throughout the ages, theatre has evolved through many genres, styles and forms. However, many people would agree that all drama needs some sort of conflict in order to succeed. In my essay, I will discuss the three plays mentioned above in order to demonstrate that they all contain a mixture of conflict in the main character’s private life together with a ...

In recent decades feminist critics have attempted to appropriate A Doll’s House as a feminist text, but they have been met with a barrage of criticism from some critics who prefer to stress other aspects of the play. In one sense to call it a feminist play is, of course, an anachronism, since the feminist movement did not begin until the late 1960s and early 70s, but, nonetheless, Nora’s abandonment of Torvald and her children at the end of the play can still be seen as a rebellion against the prevailing patriarchal values of European society.

In this research paper on ...

In this research paper on Ibsen’s A Doll’s House I will examine the play’s plot, central characters and themes and then provide an analysis of its production history and reception. It is a play that continues, through new productions, to engage audiences all over the world and the social dynamic between theater productions and social values is one that is full of interest and not without controversy. The very first production aroused controversy: Jaeger (p. 259) claims that “The close of A Doll’s House gave rise to dissentient criticism”. But even one of the first reviews ...