The Country Wife begins with Mr. Horner, a wealthy single man, talking to his doctor whom he asked to spread a rumor that he has had a eunuch. Sir Jasper Fidget heard the rumors and entrusts his wife, Lady Fidget, to Mr. Horner as a chaperone. The couple leaves. Shortly after Mr. Pinchwife, a jealous newlywed husband, enters and the men begin discussing his bride. During the discussion, it is revealed that Mr. Horner saw Mrs. Pinchwife, the attractive young “Country Wife,” at the theater the night before. Mr. Pinchwife is concerned that he will become a cuckold so he departs.
The second act takes place in the Pinchwife’s home. Mrs. Pinchwife, and her sister-in-law, Alithea, are discussing the controlling nature of Mr. Pinchwife and the theater. Mr. Pinchwife walks in and remains firm that Mrs. Pinchwife will not be allowed to leave the home. He says that someone at the theater fell in love with her. She was ecstatic. Alithea was engaged to Sparkish. Sparkish wants to show off his fiancé, so he brought his friend Harcourt with him. Harcourt continuously tried to court Al...
The story begins in “Catfish Row” a small coastal town based on the real town of Cabbage Row in Charleston, South Carolina during the 1920’s. The main protagonist of the story and leading man is Porgy, a disabled beggar man who is known for riding his goat cart around Charleston. Bess is the leading lady of the opera and is in an unhealthy relationship with Crown, a powerful, violent, alcoholic, short-tempered stevedore (dockworker). Act I starts with a lullaby being sang to a small baby by a young mother named Clara, as she sings the men of Catfish Row prepare for a crap game, prior to the game, Crown purchases whisky and Cocaine from the Sportin’ Life, the local drug dealer of the town, during the crap game, Crown who is very drunk kills a local man named Robbins, Crown flees Catfish Row and leaves Bess to fend for herself. Sportin’ Life who is attracted to Bess, he gives her cocaine and asks her to join him in New York, Bess refuses and is now alone, she has no where to go, she is rejected by all of the Catfish Row resident, all except for Porgy who takes her in. A funeral takes place for Robbins, Serena, Robbins’ wife acts very coldly towards Bess when she offers her donation to help pay for Robbins’s funeral cost until Bess explains that she is no longer with Crown, and now lives with Porgy. Soon after, a detective enters and tells Serena that if...
One of the goals in the play is to raise awareness about domestic violence. This is done effectively through the events that are played out in the
Act I opens with the celebration of Frederic’s coming of age. He is planning to leave the pirates and devote his life to the eradication of piracy. Now that Frederic has come of age, Ruth wishes to become his spouse and he reluctantly agrees, believing that she is as beautiful as she says. Soon after he agrees to marry Ruth, Major-General Stanley’s many daughters stumble upon the island. After Frederic sees their beauty, especially that of Mabel’s, he renounces Ruth and pursues Mabel. The other girls are seized by the pirates and threatened with marriage. When the Major-General shows up he too is captured by the pirates. The Major-General eludes the pirates by telling them a lie about being an orphan. Having been orphans themselves and having a place in their hearts for them, the pirates let the Major-General and his daughters go. Over the next few days, the Major-General’s conscience gets the best of him and he confides to Frederic ...
The story is center around a small cast. In it Mrs. Hopewell and her daughter Joy, who had her name changed to Hulga, live on a farm with their tenants Mrs. Freeman’s and her two daughters- Glynese and Carramae. Interestingly, Mrs. Hopewell calls the Freeman Girls, Glycerin and Caramel while refusing to call her own daughter anything but Joy. “Good County People”, is told through the interactions of this dysfunctional gaggle of ladies, and their chance encounter with the Bible selling con-artist Manley Pointer. It is a story of a few not so, “Good Country People.”
The statement, “She had telephoned the man whose name they had given as a reference and he had told her that Mr. Freeman was a good farmer but that his wife was the noisiest woman ever to walk the earth” suggests, when the term farmer is used, that this story takes place in a farm town. Also the way Mom describes herself can lead the reader to think that she works on a farm herself. She says, “I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man” (744). From the way she describes her working hands to explaining how she slaughtered a cow, the reader understands that she has a farm that they live on and is an extremely hard worker. The setting in these stories are used in a way that impact the theme tremendously because the individuals who go to college are both from small rural communities where opportunities like this do not happen very often especially during this time, which is probably around the mid to late 1950s and 1960s. While, in the story “Good Country People”, a comment is made about the make of a car when the author notes that, “She said he owned a ’55 Mercury but that Glynese said she would rather marry a man with only a ’36 Plymouth who would be married by a preacher” (195). This statement can indicate that the time frame that ”Good Country People” happens in is around 1955 because the way it is talked about the older
At the start the playwright creates slight allusions that produce tension; Sheila wondered ‘half seriously what had happened to Gerald previous summer when Gerald never went near Sheila’. Lady Croft and Sir George have not come to the engagement feast and Eric is behaving quite anxiously. Eric’s strange behaviour on the cheerful occasion creates trepidation and foreshadows a rather surprising event which interests the audience.
opinions in Act 1, Scene 2. The aim of this is to build the suspense
The play is set in the 1920s when women started to receive clerical jobs and were expected to complete certain milestones in life. For example, in the scene labeled “at home” young woman – the main character – tells her mom that she is going to get married, because everybody does it, but then says she will not because she does not love Mr. Jones (Machinal). Ultimately her choice was to not get married, but in the end she does because her mom needs and wants her to get married for financial stability and the young woman feels that her destiny was to care for her mother. However, in the scene titled “prohibited”, the young woman starts deciding her destiny and chooses to cheat on her husband, Mr. Jones (Machinal). This is the moment when she realizes she can control her own destiny. That she does not have to be the happy housewife that society says her fate has to be. But there was still one problem, society still appeared to be in control of her destiny because she hasn’t decided on what her exact destiny would
Now that the play, “Post-its (Notes on a Marriage),” could make the audience react to feel distanced and questionable of the actions of the characters, how can that relate to everyday life? traits of the play Post-its (Notes on a Marriage) through staging and conversation,
and second acts, three years pass. Then between the second and third acts, another nine years pass. In addition, the omniscient Stage Manager has repeated flashbacks to the past and flash-forwards to the future, further negating a unity of time. The play also has many locations. Although the entire play takes place in or around Grover's Corners, each act has a different and distinct key setting. In Act I, most of the action takes place in the homes of the Webb’s and the Gibbs; often the activity in both homes is seen on stage at once, in order to emphasize the sameness of things in this small town. The second act is set largely at the church, where Emily and George are married.
After spending more than half of the play looking down on her employee, the madam decides that she wants to switch places with her maid as part of a game. It is rather ironic how much the play follows the story line of the princes and the pauper. Where two women of different social standing switches places with each other, in order to experiences how their other side lives. It is arguable comedic that the women are able to assume their roles without much effort. The madam really acts the role of the maid, she acts how she believes the stereotypical maid should be, she sits behind her employer and begins to pay more attention to her son. Whereas the maid, clearly states to her employer that it’s not her job to pay attention because she is a “lady”. She puts her the tanning lotion, sunglasses and begins to
Without Act 2 Scene 2 the whole play makes no sense. This is the scene
The play’s major conflict is the loneliness experienced by the two elderly sisters, after outliving most of their relatives. The minor conflict is the sisters setting up a tea party for the newspaper boy who is supposed to collect his pay, but instead skips over their house. The sisters also have another minor conflict about the name of a ship from their father’s voyage. Because both sisters are elderly, they cannot exactly remember the ships name or exact details, and both sisters believe their version of the story is the right one. Although it is a short drama narration, Betty Keller depicts the two sisters in great detail, introduces a few conflicts, and with the use of dialogue,
In terms of structure, marriage serves as a prime force of motivation in terms of driving the plot. In conforming to the traditional aspect of dramatic comedy of an end denouement of marriage, Wilde creates adjacent desires for Jack and Algernon whether this is to marry Gwendolyn or Cecily. Thereby the vast majority of events which coalesce to form the play are in relation to this shared desire and therefore the plot is more easily driven. For example, Jack maintains the false persona of ‘Earnest’ in order to marry Gwendolyn which creates humour for the audience as it serves as a reoccurring pun. The resulting comical disorder of this and the impact it has in terms of climaxes, for example; when it becomes apparent that neither Jack nor Algernon are called ‘Earnest’, makes the structural device of marriage even more significant in terms of the play’s effect on the audience. In this, the structure of the play provides greater humour for the audience and emphasises the comic effect of the continuous ‘Earnest’ pun. In Act 1 of the play during the bout of witty repartee between the characters Jack and Algernon, Wilde includes an inversion of the cliché that ‘marriages are made in h...
To give a little background on the play, the pursuit of marriage is the driving force behind the play. “I now pronounce you, man and wife.” This traditional saying, commonly used to announce a newlywed couple during a wedding ceremony, marks the happily ever after that many dream of today. In today’s society, marriage is an expression of love between two individuals. Marriage has not, however, always been an act of love.