Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim, in my opinion, is one of the most gifted lyricist and songwriters of all time. He uses many witty comparisons, beautiful allusions, and variations of tempo to give each song a uniqueness and identity of its own. This identity is also created for each individual character through the songs, and tactfully conveys their inner feelings. The song Maybe They're Magic is one small example of these classic Sondheim characteristics. Sung by the baker and his wife, the song is about their struggle to achieve what they want: to have a child. Discretely, though, each character's sense of self, and inner thoughts are communicated by the movement of the song; the way the characters bicker exhibits the gravity of the matter, and the audience can actually hear the thoughts in their minds. This matter of not being able to bear children is not a simply answered problem, and although this problem is very specific, the language used is very open-ended. This makes it easier for the audience to relate this story to obstacles in their own lives, and keeps them interested.
Throughout the song the wife's dialogue is stressing that one must do whatever is needed to survive, and whatever it takes to get what one wants. She quotes, "Everyone tells tiny lies, what's important, really, is the size." This song shows the realistic attitude, and stubbornness of the wife's character. She is also a character that is very persistent; her husband is pleading with her to go home, and trying to take her mind off the matter at hand, and she continues with her words. Finally, the baker's wife wins at her strategy to get her husband to cheat just a little bit to reach their goal, and so they're off to tackle the obstacle.
A lot is also revealed about the baker in the song Maybe They're Magic; he does not say much during the song, but his few words show how he is struggling inside with the beliefs that his wife's opinion is wrong, and that he doesn't want to consider her opinion. This draws him out to demonstrate the era, as well, because he thinks that the woman's place is in the home, struggles with listening to his wife's opinion, and holds the position that he can do everything himself.
He is explaining how a wife’s life is that of her husband. No matter what condition or temperament her husband comes home in, she must tend to his every need no questions asked. This is a very unfair way for women to live their lives seeing as she has hardly anything in her life that is her own.
Stephen Sondheim - Biography Stephen Sondheim was born on 22 March 1930, the son of a wealthy New York dress manufacturer. But, when his parents divorced, his mother moved to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and young Stephen found himself in the right place at the right time. A neighbor of his mother's, Oscar Hammerstein II, was working on a new musical called Oklahoma! and it didn't take long for the adolescent boy to realise that he, too, was intrigued by musical theatre. Although he subsequently studied composition with Milton Babbitt, he chose to apply what he learned all-or-nothing about Broadway's commercial hothouse.
John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California on February 27th, 1902. His mother, Olive Steinbeck, was a teacher and also was a major influence on John's writing. His father, John Steinbeck Sr., was a county treasurer. When Steinbeck was a child, during his summers off from school, he worked on a farm, which was a good experience for later writing. In the beginning of 1919, Steinbeck was accepted to the University of Stanford. Later, in 1925, he left without a degree. He wrote lots of short stories and articles for the College's newspaper. Steinbeck moved to New York to write, but had to support himself by being a construction worker. He started writing for the New York American, but didn't make enough, so had to keep his construction job. In 1929, Steinbeck returned to Salinas to write Cup of Gold. He had to work as a caretaker for a summer home in Lake Tahoe. In 1930, he meets Edward Ricketts, who gets him interested in marine biology. Steinbeck also married his first wife, Carol Henning. He publishes more novels such as the Pastures of Heaven, and To a God Unknown; but of all those, Tortilla Flat was his first selling novel. This was published in 1935. In 1936, he also published In Dubious Battle and in 1937, Of Mice and Men. Then, possibly one of Steinbeck's best selling/ greatest works, the Grapes of Wrath, was published. This publication won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book award in 1939. He told stories of families that were poor during the depression and of their powerless efforts against the government and society that has put them down. Steinbeck then traveled to Mexico to shoot the film Forgotten Village (documentary). When he returned to the United States, he became a war correspondent and wrote about the Second World War. He moved back to New York City and married Gywn Conger, in 1943. Then they had two sons, Tom, in 1944 and another son in 1946, named John IV. By 1948, Steinbeck divorced his wife, went to Russia three times, and lost his good friend, Edward Ricketts in a car crash. Then he quickly married Elaine Anderson Scott in 1950. By 1959, Steinbeck published several screenplays and served as a correspondent for the Vietnam War. In 1960, he toured the US with his poodle and recorded his travels and titling it Travels With Charlie.
"The Faithful Wife" by Barbara L. Greenberg is a fascinating, satirical account of what the speaker would do if she were unfaithful to her husband. Upon the first reading of this poem, I thought the woman in this poem was saying that her husband was irreplaceable and because of that she would never be unfaithful. Also I thought that if she did betray him, she would choose someone totally different from him, which somehow wouldn't dishonor this great man. However, with repeated reading, my opinion changed. Greenberg did an incredible job of revealing the truth of the situation. She used verbal irony to explain how the wife in the poem is actually revealing the relationship she does have with her husband and describing the type of relationship she would like to have.
At the start of the play, all of the characters enter the abandoned farmhouse of John Wright, who was recently hanged by an unknown killer. The Sheriff and County Attorney start scanning the house for clues as to who killed Mr. Wright, but make a major error when they search the kitchen poorly, claiming that there is nothing there ?but kitchen things.? This illustrates the men?s incorrect belief that a kitchen is a place of trivial matters, a place where nothing of any importance may be found. Mrs. Peters then notices that Mrs. Wright?s fruit froze in the cold weather, and the men mock her and reveal their stereotype of females by saying ?women are used to worrying over trifles.? The men then venture to the upstairs of the house to look for clues, while the women remain downstairs in the kitchen where they discuss the frozen fruit and the Wrights. Mrs. Hale explains that Mrs. Wright, whose maiden name was Minnie Foster, used to be a lively woman who sang in the choir. She suggests that the reason Mrs. Wright stopped being cheerful and active because of her irritable husband.
Immediately, the narrator stereotypes the couple by saying “they looked unmistakably married” (1). The couple symbolizes a relationship. Because marriage is the deepest human relationship, Brush chose a married couple to underscore her message and strengthen the story. The husband’s words weaken their relationship. When the man rejects his wife’s gift with “punishing…quick, curt, and unkind” (19) words, he is being selfish. Selfishness is a matter of taking, just as love is a matter of giving. He has taken her emotional energy, and she is left “crying quietly and heartbrokenly” (21). Using unkind words, the husband drains his wife of emotional strength and damages their relationship.
She does this by overlooking hard details that validate the level of destruction their marriage possess. Sarah feels trapped, whereas Jay (her husband) is oblivious to the reality of the situation, causing their mentality and actions to become repetitive, trapping them in the marriage: “She put a hand out to stop him, ‘Jay’ she said. ‘I'm sorry sweets I can't see a movie tonight.’ ‘why not?’ ‘It's to predictable’ she said. ‘aren't you tired of movies?’ ‘all we've done all winter long is go to movies’” (Ferris 5). In this Sarah expresses that these repetitive actions are reflective of the state of her marriage, which is destroying her inside. However, her obligation to her husband is apparent when she says, “i'm sorry sweets” allowing him to remain innocent and forcing her stay in a humdrum marriage. In this short story, Sarah demonstrates that her husband's obliviousness about their marriage, clouds her decision making because she feels responsible for his feelings. The reason that Sarah cannot tell Jay she is through with the marriage is because of the difficult concept of broken love and their marriage ending. Therefore, repetitiveness is used by her as a means of survival to ignore the underlying
As one of North America’s leading playwrights, Neil Simon has definitely been instrumental to the world of theater. He has experienced a somewhat shaky personal life, but he has found that this only adds to the texture of his work. He began his career working on radio and television, and found that writing for stage was significantly different than his previous experiences writing. His first attempts at theater were rough, but it didn’t take him long to achieve excellence. He has also achieved great success with his work in the film industry. He is very fastidious when writing his work, and also quite critical of both the final written product, as well as its resulting production. However, no matter how uncertain he is of his work, it is apparent that audiences worldwide appreciate his writings, and he has been awarded numerous times to prove it. It is quite clear Neil Simon holds a place of importance in the world of dramatic arts.
It is as though the speaker is putting in his last words to sell away this ‘woman’. “It works, there is nothing wrong with it. You have a hole, it’s a poultice. You have an eye, it’s an image. My boy, it’s your last resort. Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.” The repetition at the end of this stanza gives the effect that the phrase is important and possibly meant for the reader to understand that the speaker is in fact talking about a woman and not an object he/she is trying to sell, because humans tend to marry humans not objects. “You have a hole, it’s a poultice. You have an eye, it’s an image” represents the expectations of married women, and how they are there to serve their husbands. Here we have finally concluded that the speaker is for sure talking to a male, and usually men are married to a woman. This assumption is clarified by giving the “it” womanly characteristics like, “stop crying”, saying that it knows how to cook and sew and talks a lot and asks in the beginning about having rubber breasts. Although the speaker still refers to what we assume as a woman, as an “it”, metaphorically objectifying women as not even
Now that we have a little background on the author, we can take a closer look at the actual work and its characters. The two main characters of the story a narrator and her husband, John, and the story takes place in the 19th century. Life for the two is like most other marriages in this time frame, only the narrator is not like most other wives. She has this inner desire to be free from the societal roles that confine her and to focus on her writing, while John in content with his life and thinks that his wife overreacts to everything. Traditionally, in this era, the man was responsible for taking care of the woman both financially and emotionally, while the woman was solely responsible for remaining at home. This w...
During this time, the man was the one to make all the orders and if he didn 't want to do something, he didn 't have to. The woman, however, had to submit herself to her husband and obey his commands. It was ok for the man to go somewhere and not tell his wife any details like, where he is going, how long he was going to be gone, or who he would be with. The woman, well, she had to stay home and take care of the home and children. We can see where Mr. Pontellier (the husband) is like one of those husbands in the line, "Coming back to dinner?" his wife called after him. He halted a moment and shrugged his shoulders. He felt in his vest pocket; there was a ten-dollar bill there. He did not know; perhaps he would return for the early dinner and perhaps he would not. It all depended upon the company which he found over at Klein 's and the size of the game" (Chopin 1255). As the book progresses, Mrs. Pontellier begins to grow very tired of his behavior and disobey his commands. She makes her own decisions about how she wants to spend time. By the end of the book, she is so confused about the whole marriage thing that she doesn 't even want to marry the man she really
A sonnet is a lyric poem of fourteen lines, following one of several set of rhyme-schemes. Critics of the sonnet have recognized varying classifications, but the two characteristic sonnet types are the Italian type (Petrarchan) and the English type (Shakespearean). Shakespeare is still nowadays seen as in idol in English literature. No one can read one of his works and be left indifferent. His way of writing is truly fascinating. His sonnets, which are his most popular work, reflect several strong themes. Several arguments attempt to find the full content of those themes.
This verse also shows a conflict between John and his wife. She thinks that she isn’t as perfect as John tells her. She doesn’t believe it when he is complimenting her. I think this woman should feel very happy because there is a man who accepts her for who her is and loves every piece of hers with all of his heart. No matter how bad she feels about herself, no matter what she is going through, this man will only be there for her always. In his eyes, she is beautiful in every single way. “The world is beating you down, I’m around through every mood / You’re my downfall, you’re my muse / My worst distraction, my rhythm and blues / I can’t stop singing, it’s ringing, in my head for you.” She brings him down but also inspires him at the same time. He can’t stop thinking about her. She means everything to him. Whatever the best and the worst, and that’s a truly balanced
The wife always wants to please the husband and listen to his word as though it was law. She never wants to displease her husband or go against any of his advice. This is apparent when the wife quits writing, which calms her down, just because her husband feels that it would be better for her. The wife takes the man’s advice in this situation, because that is what society has trained her to do. In her mind she is not her own person, she is only John’s wife.
In the song Nutshell, Layne Stanley starts the song by expressing his idea that all people are presented with some type of temptation sometime in their lives. By saying that people chase misprinted lies, I think he is referring to all of the things in the world that supposedly make people happy and somewhat describes what people will do to achieve that happiness. When people give into these temptations, it becomes a battle within themselves t...