Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to “Explorations of Powerplay”, an exhibition sponsored by Paramount and Bandai, that represents the complex interplay between people and power in various works. Our first and main part of the exhibition is William Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. The tragedy explores how relationships between people can affect their relationships with power. Antony and Cleopatra is a perfect piece to explore powerplay, as it represents sexual powerplay, military powerplay and political powerplay. The sexual powerplay is between Antony and Cleopatra.
At the beginning of the play, we get an introduction which fulfills the audience's previous views of Cleopatra. Philo explains, "Nay but this dotage of our general's o'er flows the measure," and "to cool a gipsy's lust" lull the audience into a false sense of security before severely disrupting it and playing with their ability to make judgments. The juxtaposition of scenes contributes a significant amount to the complexity of Cleopatra's character. Also the combination of love and war is tightly knitted together to form an interesting contrast. The dramatic form reflects the chief thematic concerns of the play.
Her poise is an illusion set up to shield herself from reality, yet she still attempts to make herself attractive to new male suitors. Themes: Violence and cruelty appear as a theme in this play. Violence is often fraught with sexual passion. For instance, Stella explains her love for Stanley despite his brutality to Blanche. There is the unnerving suggestion that violence is more willingly accepted by women in a marriage than one would like to believe.
Practice Essay Question – Othello How do composers use archetypes to achieve their purpose? Use your related text as well. Archetypes allow composers to reveal characteristics inherent in all individuals and augment our understanding of the text. William Shakespeare’s Othello and Mary Harron’s American Psycho both utilise the villainous archetype to represent our universal potential for evil, as both archetypal characters live a life driven by self-interest and jealousy. They create opaque facades to deceive and manipulate others to claim self-superiority.
The concepts in The Symposium, speech of Aristophance showed the birth of desire, and dialogue between Diotima and Socrates showed that what is love and same-sex love, and Michel Foucault idea, showed that what true sex is. Love desire is the force to fulfilling lack but we can’t just remain in this level. We need to seek for good such as wisdom to become immortal. We should not get trapped in our stereotype, male and female. This kind of stereotyping just created by our society, by our culture.
The men are supposed to be sick with love, vehement about it, and so sweet a woman would have to accept his advances. The woman’s role is very much a broad, sweeping statement. This allows for the notion that women are property to be claimed to run as the undercurrent to the courtly love system. This is evident in the way that Arcite and Palamon, Theseus, and even the Gods force Emelye into a marriage she wants no part in. The Knight tries his best to maintain a noble and romantic air to his story but the tale itself contradicts that.
Print. Kenrick, John. “History of The Musical Stage 1920s: Part V Three Landmarks.” www.musicals101.com. N.p. 2003.
However one could also argue that Larkin seems to justify violence against women by suggesting that access to women is something men have been unfairly deprived of. This becomes evident in the first stanza where Larkin presents the girl in ‘white satin’ suggesting her purity and virginity. One could disagree with this statement and interpret the de-feminizing of women differently. It could be suggested that Larkin combines masculinity and femininity together, ‘moustached lips’, to show his view that men and women should be viewed more equally in society. However I disagree with this alternative interpretation as I feel Larkin tries to portray the attacks ‘snaggle-toothed’ and boss-eyed’ are sadistic and grotesque but he does not disagree with
Analysis of Leda and the Swan´William Butler Yeats poem ³Leda and the Swan´, and its depiction of the rape of QueenLeda of Sparta can be viewed in many different lights. Some view it as a simple depiction of amyth, an example of Yeats¶ fascination with the mystic. Others claim its main theme representsthe ability of one event, no matter how strange or insignificant, can change the course of history.One interpretation even describes the poem as an expression of Yeats¶ own fantasies for MaudGonne.Appropriately for this latter theory, which claims Leda represents Maud Gonne and theSwan is Yeats himself, the poem is in Petrarchan form, a style that often focus on the theme of unattainable love. Yeats mostly adheres to the Petrarchan form of iambic pentameter in anoctave followed by a sestet, with alternating stressed and unstressed syllables. He doesnt,however, limit himself to these restrictions, yet sometimes takes liberties in places where anextra syllable or imperfect rhyme is acceptable or superior.
Within this frame, heterosexuality is viewed as the natural emotional and sexual inclination for women, and those who go against this are seen as deviant, pathological or as emotionally and sensually deprived (Lorde 1984; Pharr and Raymond 1997). This script is commonly associated with women who appear to be a self-determined with a strong locus of control. No matter what her true sexual orientation is, she confronts men when disrespected or threatened. Clearly, the tensions around this script are about the strength that these women are able project without incorporating the sexual desires of men. Gangster Bitches are associated with women who live in the same squalid, poverty-stricken, drug-infested, violent environments that have traditionally focused on the ‘‘endangered African American male’’ in popular imagination for the past decade (Hampton 2000).