Through Nowra’s play the ideas contrasting delusions and realisms are explored in a way to keep the audience in limbo. Theatrical devices have been put in place to ensure the viewers look beyond the stereotypes the mentally ill have been given in society. The play within a play adds complexity to these “normal people who have done extraordinary things, thought extraordinary thoughts.” Also the use of darkness and the burnt out theatre are important devices in distinguishing between illusion and reality. The play within a play is a device used to remind the audience that they are watching a play. The reality that the audience are watching characters rehearse the opera ‘Cosi Fan Tutte’ causes the audience to reflect, upon their own ideas about love, fidelity and whether being loyal to a political idea is more important than being loyal to a person.
However this sense of wickedness contributed an exciting role to society and the values of the characters as well. An excellent example of the characters’ values shows when Lord Darlington informs the Duchess of Berwick that people say many things behind his back all through his life, and this also shows how the Duchess concerns herself with the faults of everyone else, and judges those persons accordingly. Lord Darlington throughout this except of Lady Windermere’s Fan stood as a view of a “wicked” person, because of his personality. The Duchess of Berwick and the lord himself look upon the lord as a “complete failure” and “dreadful” allowing readers to see his insincere actions towards society and basically symbolizing someone of nothingness. The Duchess of Berwick, along with Lady Windermere, also critic other by their judgment of drinking of tea; depending on whoever supplied the tea, the ladies attend that party.
The poet uses language and technical devices to convey dominance in the poem ‘The cats song’ The cat’s song by Marge Piercy is a poem, which focuses on the relationship between a cat, and it’s owner. The author writes this poem through the perspective of a cat and portrays what cats may be thinking of their owners. Although this may sound contradictory, the poet expresses the dominance of the cat over it’s owner by using language and technical devices. The poems opening sentence already starts to show a sense of dominance through the repetition of ‘My’ and ‘I will’, this portrays a sense of ownership by the cat as he is claiming the owner as his. Another way the cat shows dominance over the owner is through the use of ‘greed’ and ‘fear’ in line 19, this contrasts showing a dominant and submissive side, the cat show’s a submissive side to maintain it’s relationship with the owner but initially still knows he is the more dominant one.
Ambition is what drives both of them and finally they are corrupted by greed; this is seen through all of Macbeth’s killings as he is never satisfied and wants more. This essay will analyse Lady Macbeth in Act 1 scene 5 and 7, Act 2 scene 2 and Act 5 scene 1, it will examine how she regresses throughout these scenes. The play itself was performed in the Globe theatre with the working class standing in the pit and the upper class sitting in the stalls. As it was in the Elizabethan era the running and mannerism’s of the audience were very different. The audiences were very vocal and would often shout to the actors or throw rotten vegetables at them.
To what extent does Lady Windermere’s Fan offer serious criticism of contemporary social and sexual conventions? In Lady Windermere’s Fan, Oscar Wilde bitingly satirizes and ridicules the morals of Victorian London High Society and focuses particularly on the aspects of marriage. The play is a juxtaposition both comical and serious subject matters. Wilde examines sexual morality and gender politics throughout the play, especially through both of the characters of Cecil Graham, a typical caricature of the upper class and Mrs Erlynne, a lost character who is no longer accepted into society due to her reputation. Wilde criticizes the society he lives in during the time he wrote the play and uses characters to emphasize the inequalities of double standards mainly between the gender roles and how London High Society during that particular era was hard to get in to but easy to become an outcast.
During Oscar Wilde’s literary career, he has been accredited for his notorious use of satire within his writings. Satire ridicules flaws in society in order to bring about change. His use of satire in the play, The Importance of Being Earnest, is reflected in how the characters live double lives. His play is a demonstration of how Victorian society accepts appalling behavior as long as it is concealed to the public. Oscar Wilde is credited for being a provocateur for change in nineteenth century England.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Edward Albee’s play entitled “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” revolves around one central theme: the idealization of marriage in modern society. George and Martha are a disturbing couple who communicate through insults. Indeed, they provoke each other as if to animate they marital life; they put on a show in front of their guests, Nick and Honey. Throughout the play, Nick and Honey appear as the younger version of George and Martha, only more naive.
The director shows this by the sounds and angles of the camera during scenes and by the way many people talk at once shows the differences of life between the city and the peacefulness of Samuels home. The close up on Samuel’s face during the murder with the expression of terrified face with a wide open eyes and the tension of the music shows us the corruption of his innocence and the conflict with the world around him there is also another evidence when he tells Eli that he would only kill the bad man. Schaefer, McFee and Fergie go to the Amish world looking for john book they are faced with many obstacles. When thewy first enter arrive at the farm, the soundtrack and the close up view on the guns are there to remind us the violence and show us that that is the only way they could keep their corruption. The gun fires between John Book and McFee are there to represent the violence and even earlier in the film at the parking area, the guns are used as a symbol of thriller and crime.
Malvolio is used in Twelfth Night to personify the notion of Lent and order in the text and is the butt of the comedy in the sub-plot. The conspirators Sir Toby, Mary, Sir Andrew, Feste, and to an extent Fabien, are the characters who are the creators of the gulling of Malvolio. Whether or not the joke is thought to go too far is, in my opinion, dependent on the audience. For example, an Elizabethan audience could potentially find the play more humorous than a modern 21st Century audience. In the late 1600s, individuals to be considered 'mad' were thought to have been possessed by the devil or some other evil spirit, and so were mocked and considered dangerous and unapproachable (as suggested by Sir Toby in Act 3 Scene 4 “defy the devil”).
The play satirized the hypocrisies the Victorian society and the people who lived in it. With his magnificent witty dialogues, Wilde criticizes a class-based society and their obsession with the surface of the people. Thus, it could be deduced that with this masterpiece Wilde says that we should look beneath the surface, try and find the real personalities hiding beneath the social norms. There are some conventions of Comedy of Manners which can also be seen in this play. For example, “[c]onstancy in love, especially in marriage is thought to be boring” (Conventions that governed Restoration/Comedy