Letters To Andre

April 18, 2007

Final Paper

So who wants to proof a final paper for me?

So far it's about Death and Tyrants in Antigone, The Second Shepherds' Pagent, A Doll House, The Importance of Being Earnest, and How I Learned to Drive.

Fun no?

What I have so far I'm putting under the More. If for no other reason then its another back up.

Assignment: Write a detailed discussion comparing the 5 plays. Choose your own thesis statement and back it up with an analysis of no less than three Elements of Theatre (thoughts and themes, plot, character, spectacle, language, performance, music)

Antigone, The Second Shepherds' Pageant, A Doll House, The Importance of Being Earnest, and How I Learned To Drive

Launching Sentence: In Sophocles's Antigone the play thinks about several topics including death, suicide, tyranny, and family relationships.

Death is highly present in Antigone and provides the basis of the play for the inciting event is the battle between Antigone's two brothers, and the thought of death is The Second Shepherd's Pageant, and How I Learned to Drive. If the idea of death is further expanded beyond the physical shut down of a human body and to include abstract concepts such as identity and relationships death is present in The Importance of Being Earnest and A Doll's House as well. The Second Shepherds' Pageant does not exhibit any physical death but the threat of death for Mak's thievery is punishable by death and it is only through the kindness of the three shepherds that Mak is spared. Because the shepherds spared Mak they were allowed to visit the Christ child which will save their souls and allow them to go to heaven after their own deaths. The shepherdsare concerned with their afterlife in a passing way until the start of the second plotline starts, but before that they are more concerned with living. Antigone herself is concerned with her afterlife and how it will be effected if she does not bury her brother which contrasts with Creon who is concerned with the mortal happenings around him and securing his power base. Creon is forced to confront death when his entire family excepting Ismene is dead, and like Mak has to learn a lesson, though Creon's lesson had a higher toll. In A Doll House death is not a physical presence, though the death of Nora's father is an important antecedent event that allows Krogstag to catch Nora's forgery but the actual death is of Nora and Torvald's marriage when Nora leaves in order to make a new life for herself and become a more than a doll. The final sound of the door slamming closed as Nora leaves Torvald is a highly effective sound effect that looses its effectiveness in reading because in performance theh sound of a door slam could sound very similar to a coffin slamming shut. The Importance of Being Earnest has a similar death as A Doll House for Jack's identity as Jack Worthing is "killed" at the end of the play in order for him to become Earnest Moncrieff, Jr. Vogel's How I Learned to Drive thinks about the death of the relationship between Uncle Peck and Li'l Bit as well as Peck's physical death from falling down a flight of steps, cause being his return to alcoholism after Li'l Bit kills their relationship. Like in A Doll House the death of the relationship is very real and almost physical for Li'l Bit was Uncle Peck's main motivation for staying away from alcohol, and Nora leaving has widespread ramifications for both of them because Torvald's social reputation will be severely damaged and Nora will be outcast from most polite society.

Tyranny is evident in each of the five plays and the tyrant is a family member and usually causes death. In Antigone the tyrant is King Creon who decides that the state is more important than his family. Creon also decides to ignore the orders of the Gods that all dead should be buried, and it is a very sensible and silly to ignore Godly decree because it keeps all sorts of horrid deceases and plagues from spreading. Creon's insistence of the State being first and his inability to bend his principals even when they are wrong and cause the death of three of his family members. Creon's tyranny is similar to Torvald's from A Doll House because Torvald's oppressive control on Nora forces her to leave him. Torvald is a worse tyrant than Creon because Creon was at least concerned about the state and the people as a whole, even if he disregarded his own family members until it was too late, Torvald is a tyrant for his own purposes and his own power. Furthermore Torvald is a petty tyrant in that he is willing to punish people for small infractions such as Krogstage calling him by his Christian name - for that Krogstag looses his job to a woman. Krogstag loosing his job to a woman in the Victorian Era (1836-1860, with the Late Victorian era spanning approximately the years 1860-1900) is possibly one of the worst things that could happen to a man in this era, and its made worse because Krogstag never learns the real reason within the confines of the play and it is such a petty reason to begin with. Torvald's absolute control over Nora and his selfish concern for only himself is what leads Nora to kill their relationship. The tyrant of The Second Shepherds' Pageant is Mak over his wife Gill, though he is a friendly tyrant to her and he only is able to keep control over her because that was the social norm of the time. In some aspects of their relationship Gill is more dominate for she is able to essentially call him silly and stupid with out any reprisal. The tyrant in the second plotline of The Second Shepherds Pageant is not physically present, but the Christ child will lead to the creation of a tyrannical organization that for centuries after will be the power behind the thrones of Europe and at times will be both a gentle and horrific tyrant as they try to convert the entire war to Christianity and thus increase their power base and tolerate no deviation from what they declare (ie. Spanish Inquisition). In The Importance of Being Earnest we get the humorous tyrant Lady Bracknell whom is insistent that her daughter Gwendolen can only marry an appropriate person of rank and status and that Jack is not appropriate even though he was adopted by an aristocrat an has become a Justice of Peace. Lady Bracknell's tyranny cause no ultimate harm though her refusal to let Gwendolen marry Jack does lead to Gwendolen visiting Jack at the Manor house, where Lady Bracknell follows and confronts Miss Prism and allows Jack to assume his real name of Earnest Moncrieff. How I Learned to Drive's tyrant is Uncle Peck who controls Li'l Bit through his careful manipulation of her and his asking that she constantly keeps the secret. He also has the ability to control her and keep their relationship going because he is the only family member that Li'l Bit feels she can talk to or that can understand her. Li'l Bit's ostracization from her peers due to her large bosomalso gives Peck more power because she really has no one else she can turn to for friendship or comfort, no matter how twisted it may be. Nearly everyone has at least one sexual-kink that is probably not fit for polite company, and it is unfortunate that Peck's is harmful to the other party involved and that he allows himself to act on it; Peck's own sexual abuse as a child was unfortanate, and it was just as unfortunate that he lacked the personal will power to withstand carrying on the poor tradition.

Posted by: Mookie at 09:30 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 1312 words, total size 9 kb.

Interesting paper.....My main suggestion for improvement would be to go through and proofread because some of your sentences are rather lengthy and could be split up. Also, some of them repeat themselves. i.e. but the threat of death for Mak's thievery is punishable by death...other than that though it's a good paper.

Posted by: Jacqueline at April 18, 2007 10:55 PM (AKaK/)

2 lol,
Thats cause this is just my roughest of roughest draft...
Hell, its missing three paragraphs.