While reading Slapstick, I noticed two distinct ideas that were displayed throughout the text, the human need for a community and family, but also, on the same token, a need for individuality. The main flashback story revolves around the dysfunctional family of Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain and his deformed sister, Eliza. In their youth, the mutated children went about their simple and blissful lives in the mansion of their parents, who believed that they were Neanderthals. This nuclear family eventually fell apart when the intelligence of the two was revealed on Wilbur’s fifteenth birthday. While the family was far from exemplary, Wilbur wrote later in his life that he had seen, though only for a short time, his mother as just that, a mother.
Edmond Rostand’s comedic play Cyrano de Bergerac recounts the tragic heartbreak of an unsightly French poet as he aids his handsome but dull cohort Christian in capturing the heart of the beautiful Roxane. Cyrano de Bergerac, a colossal-nosed man with a masterful talent for wielding both words and sword, battles self-doubt and insecurity as he contends with his own feelings of love for Roxane. Throughout the play, Rostand reveals a stark polarity between Cyrano and Christian, illuminating the gaping disparity between the characters’ appearance and intellect while portraying the men as foils for each other. From the play’s beginning, Rostand’s audience becomes keenly aware of the divergence between Cyrano’s intellectual substance and Christian’s physical attributes. While Cuigy pronounces Christian “a charming head,” the character describes himself as “...far from bright” (Rostand 1.4-5).
One of the men is an English officer that has been captured . The other, the protagonist of the story is Elisha, a freedom fighter who had been assigned the
The satire shown at the end of the play had the tone of intimacy that indicates that the characters were realizing the error in their personality. Bill and Betty begin to deepen the conversation that the two were having by asking more questions about each other. The first intimate satirical reference happened after Betty stated “Absolutely. I’ll bet you’re a Scorpio” (Ives 15). The snide comment about Bill was the last reference of satire in the play.
These dramas varied significantly from various - isms; that is from Realism to Naturalism, Expressionism, Symbolism, Marxism, Psychoanalysis, Surrealism and towards the Epic Theatre of Brecht and Absurdist Drama of
I will first discuss how the Indigenous value of humor is used in the play as both an expression of care in relationships, and as a coping mechanism
After eight years of marriage, what allows Nora to see that she must break free from the “Doll’s House”? “A Doll’s House” is a play written by Henrik Ibsen, set in late nineteenth century where women were expected to uphold social norms of being a submissive wife and a caring mother. In the beginning of the play, Nora is initially portrayed as a naive and obedient “doll” trapped inside of a “Doll’s House”, but towards the end of the play, Nora is able to come to the realisation that she was never happy during her eight years of marriage with Torvald, leading to her leaving Torvald and breaking free from the “Doll’s House”. This essay will explore the different factors which allows Nora to see why she must break free.
Through this satirical writing, Wilde uses comparison of beauty and industrialism and juxtaposition between compliments and criticism to paint American social values as backwards and unappealing in order to dispel the glamour of a romantic American culture.
Oscar Wilde’s satirical play The Importance of Being Earnest, set in the late Victorian era, London, is a portrayal of British upper class society and its conventions surrounded by a strict code of conduct. In 1890’s class society, earnestness was desired; to follow the moral code and social obligations in order to keep up one’s appearance. Besides, there was a huge gender disparity between men and women. In the play, Wilde criticizes the social inequality and Victorian upper class standards. He characterizes Victorian personae making fun of their qualities; hypocrisy, arrogance and absurdism, ultimately the very vital state and lifeline of not being earnest at all in Victorian society.
All of this violence is demonstrative of the theme of savagery. The play presents the idea that peace is an artificial state, suggesting that war is the natural way of being. This explains the setting of Rome, an empire which was at war for the vast majority of its history. The play depicts the Roman conversion from civility to barbarism, and poses
One of the most valuable aspects of personality is humor – we value one’s sense of humor and make friends often based on finding certain things funny. But how and why do we consider things to be funny at all? Human beings have strived to uncover fundamental truths about human nature for centuries – even millennia – but humor itself is still yet to be pinpointed. Henri Bergson is only one of many who has attempted this feat, and his essay Laughter: an essay on the meaning of the comic from 1911 breaks down comedy into what he believes to be its essential forms and origins. While Bergson makes many valid points, Charlie Chaplin’s film Modern Times that was brought to screens only twenty years later seems to contradict many of Bergson’s theories, while Bergson seems to contradict even himself over the course of his essay.
The Importance of Being Earnest written by Oscar Wilde is an excellent play which has many underlying themes and suggestions especially with regards to the Victorian era, during which this was written. Many themes within the play are reflective of Wilde and his life, including his secrecy and supposed “double life,” his interest in aestheticism, his life pertaining the mannerisms and social etiquette during his lifetime. Today, Oscar Wilde is often remembered in part due to his well known homosexuality trial of 1895 (Linderd, 1), but his “second life” per se had been speculated on for years prior to it, in fact many of his plays contain subtle yet effective implications towards a possible piece of his life kept hidden from the public eye. The Importance of Being Earnest mirrored this double life through the utilization of Jack and Algernon's “Bunburying,” and their motives for lying to the ones whom they love.
This essay illustrates how Wilde reinforce his criticism of the upper class at a satirical tone with his writing style at three levels: inter-scene, intra-scene, and within a word. Satire at the inter-scene level The use of fake identities is one of the motifs of the play. The use of motif is important to
Holden Caulfield is one messed up dude. He has so much going on in his life and nothing at all at the same time. He dramatizes the little problems and blatantly disregards his large and prominent issues. The boy has a drinking and a smoking problem at sixteen. He has social anxiety, he's clueless about women, he's a terrible student, and he's on a wild ride on a depressive roller coaster.
“Life is a mixing of all kind of things: comedy and tragedy going together” (Alejandro Jodorowsky). Comedy and tragedy have been two popular forms of entertainment for people throughout the ages. From Greek performances to contemporary plays, the art of theatre is well and thriving. While the styles of playwrights and the way theatre is experienced changes through time, the messages these plays gaves have more or less stayed the same. Drama can, for the most part, be classified as either tragedy or comedy.
