“Naked Lunch” is a play written by Michael Hollinger in 2003. This play is one of the groups of written sixteen plays by several playwrights for Trepidation Nation: A Phobic Anthology, that was produced at the Humana Festival by the Actor Theatre of Louisville in 2002 to 2003. This is a one-act play that is around ten-minute long. It consists of only two actors: one man and one woman with a setting on a small dining area. This one act play is solely about two people who used to be in a relationship, namely Vernon and Lucy. Vernon invited Lucy for a lunch at his place and prepared steak as their meal. The reason Vernon invited Lucy was because his hope for reconciliation and fulfillment for his sexual desires as a man. The scene begins …show more content…
It has been specified in the play that the setting must have a “small vase with too many flowers in it or a large vase with too few” on top of the small dining table where Vernon and Lucy eats. Considering that the scene presumably happened at Vernon’s place, it was assumed that he was the one who prepared the vase for their lunch. Accordingly, the “small vase with too many flowers in it, or a large vase with too few” represents Vernon in the play. (Hollinger 1385; act 1) A vase that is pleasing to the eye is arranged perfectly having a number of flowers matching the size of the vase. But in the play, the vase intendedly does not correspond to the amount of flowers in it. As a man, he would not care too much about the small details of the presentation, for what matters for him was his hope to be reconciled with his ex-partner and have a sexual intercourse between them. The vase symbolizes Vernon as the one being in control of the relationship. Considering that man was not expected to usually do house chores, the way Vernon did the flower arrangement implies masculinity. Aside from that, it also indicates that it is up to Vernon whether he would take too much effort on a work that is usually done by a woman. The imperfect flower arrangement in the vase represents Vernon’s character denoting manhood, being the manipulative and superior particularly in a
the play. It looks at the person he is and the person he becomes. It
...s did not have a lot of options. The two women in the end of the play are shown to be almost puppet like, and controlled by the will of the men around, and do not have a say in the outcome at all. The debate of love over friendship is placed back in a balance when Valentine says that they will all marry on the same day and live in the same place "Our day of marriage shall be yours, one feast, one house, one mutual happiness."
Romeo and Juliet is the tragic story of two young, “star-crossed” lovers from feuding families, destined for disaster. The Capulets and the Montagues have an ancient grudge on one another that has been passed down over generations. Unfortunately, Romeo and Juliet end up victims of their families’ vicious loathing. Romeo and Juliet’s story has several intertwining themes such as the aforementioned hatred between the Capulets and Montagues and the revenge Romeo strives for after his friend Mercutio’s death. Also, the love and passion between Romeo and Juliet and the loyalty of Romeo and his friends. Honour and revenge also feature frquently throughout the play including Juliet’s pressure to honour her family, and the revenge Romeo sees as his duty when Tybalt kills Mercutio.
project of the play, of which is touched upon in Act One. It is this
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.
When the man and the women start arguing about the baby, they both “knocked down a flowerpot.” (Caver 124). Flowerpots are usually broken into pieces when knocked from large heights, flower pots usually contain flowers and are kept to show beauty. The flowerpot symbolizes the couples relationship with one another: the couple was trying to put an effort to keep their relationship beautiful, but the relationship ended up falling apart. Using symbolism, Caver implies that one has a tendency to ruin the beauty that one has created oneself. He continues on showing the outcome of the couple’s fight using
The audience sees through staging and conversation between the two main characters that the communication of modern relationships
...ed at a happy ending? In order to become part of a happy couple both Betty and Bill had to give up a part of who they were as individuals in order to find love. This relates to the dramatic element of the stage being a metaphor for life. Betty and Bill are taking on characters that are only mirror images of who they really are, fooling the other completely.
As the poem progresses, the flower blooms underneath the touch of the man, representing that their passion for each other allows her spirit to bloom just as a flower does. Philip Jason notes the effectiveness of Williams’ metaphor to Queen Anne’s lace, writing, “…it is mainly through metaphor that he transforms his observation, his still life, into a dynamic field of action that reveals the life and energy hidden.” Just as Jason proves, the metaph...
The speaker personifies the flower by describing how the moon-lily sings: “…it is singing—very far/ but very clear and sweet” (10-11). The voice of the flower is the voice of the woman. The flower is calling out to the man. The fact that the flower has to call out to the man implies that he does not accept the love of the woman. The speaker also describes the distance between the two people. He states, “The voice is always in some other room” (12). Once again the speaker is describing distance, but the man does not try to close the distance. The reason the man does not try to close the distance is because he does not love the woman. The lily represents the female and their love. In the poem, the speaker talks about a “garden” which is a metaphor for the female’s life (13). In the garden the speaker describes the flower as “in bloom” and that the flower “stands full and/ proud” (13,14-15). This section of the poem tells the reader that the woman’s love is strong and unwavering. The speaker compares the woman’s love to a lily because the love is pure of heart and beautiful. The relationship that the poem depicts is unhealthy for the female. The woman is putting too much effort into a nonexistent
How Two Shakespearean Couples Resolve Conflict in Their Relationships in A Midsummer Night's Dream and As You Like It
In her work “Notes from the Orifice: Language and the Body in William Burroughs”, Robin Lydenberg suggests that Naked Lunch is a “history of voice and body, of language and materiality” (56). Lydenberg discusses the use of language in which she looks closer at binaries, metonymy, and metaphors. The focus on her paper lies in relationships between the literary devices and binary oppositions. In which she reveals concepts of dehumanization and dismemberment.
about act 1 scene 5. I am going to consider the dramatic events of the
In this play, the men and women characters are separated even from their first entrance onto the stage. To the intuitive reader (or playgoer), the gender differences are immediately apparent when the men walk confidently into the room and over to the heater while the women timidly creep only through the door and stand huddled together. This separation between genders becomes more apparent when the characters proceed in investigating the murder. The men focus on means while the women focus on motive: action vs. emotion. While the men...