The Flick versus “Digging” and “The Red Wheelbarrow”: Time and Reflections
To talk about drama and poetry is to talk about a longer work and a shorter work, respectively. These types of genres differ in many ways but they are similar in some. In the dramatic story, The Flick, Anne Baker portraits the story of Sam, Avery, and Rose as in reality. Even though the story takes place at a movie theater in Worcester County, MA. As readers, we learn a lot about their personalities. Moreover, as the story progresses, we are able to get into their minds and learn about their view of the world. We understand their values, goals, dreams, and ambitious. On the other hand, in the poem “Digging,” Seamus Heaney digs into the past and recognizes the elders
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Time is not a barrier to demonstrate the beliefs and values of each character. Sam finds himself in a difficult situation when Avery was blamed for the Dinner Money. Sam avoids confronting this issue by assuring to Avery that he was going to leave the job since they no longer operate a projector. Furthermore, Avery copes with his mental disturbances with the help of his therapist; the assimilation of his dream allows him to see his identity. Heaney and Carlos take a brief moment to either honor family or value a thing. This is a blinking of the eye to see that life can be valuable even in its simplest form. The characters do not need weeks, days or hours to express feelings or beliefs but it only takes a few moments. In real life, human respond to dramatic experiences this way. A human experience of any form such an encounter with a person or a thing awakens a past or a new experience that forces anyone to respond in any way, either positively or negatively. These are special moments in which we either accept or reject an idea. These are crucial points for any of the character since these are the true moments. The masks are taken off and the true personality are uncovered. The authors manage to place a value or a belief that makes the character human beings. They come to live as if we, as readers, were around the situations
The play, “Riley Valentine and the Occupation of Fort Svalbard”, by Julia- Rose Lewis is an exploration of the resilience of teenagers. The play is heavily symbolic and supports the dramatic meaning of the show. Throughout the Queensland Theatre Company’s interpretation of this play, the director, Travis Dowley, expresses forms of dramatic elements to articulate three types of manipulations. These manipulations include the manipulation of body and voice, space and the creation and manipulation of dramatic mood. Through these types of manipulations, it portrays the dramatic meaning towards the performance. Although, the use of space throughout Travis’s performance allows the audience to identify this dramatic meaning.
Literary theorist, Kenneth Burke, defined dramatistic explaination by the prescence of five key elements. This list of elements, now popularly known as Burke’s Pentad, can be used to asses human behavior as well as dicipher literary themes and motives. The five elements; agent, purpose, scene, act, and agency, have been found highly useful by performance study practitioners in translating texts into aesthetics. When systematically applying Burke’s Pentad to “Burn Your Maps,” a short story by Robyn Joy Leff published January 2002 of the Atlantic Monthly, the analyzer can realistically grasp the emotional and logical motivations and tones of the text. By doing so, the performer becomes an enlightened vessel for the message Leff wants to communicate. The Pentad can be described with simple questions like: Who? What? When? Where? How?, but asking the small questions should always lead to more in depth analysis of the element, and it should overall, explain the deeper question: Why?
Short stories are temporary portals to another world; there is a plethora of knowledge to learn from the scenario, and lies on top of that knowledge are simple morals. Langston Hughes writes in “Thank You Ma’m” the timeline of a single night in a slum neighborhood of an anonymous city. This “timeline” tells of the unfolding generosities that begin when a teenage boy fails an attempted robbery of Mrs. Jones. An annoyed bachelor on a British train listens to three children their aunt converse rather obnoxiously in Saki’s tale, “The Storyteller”. After a failed story attempt, the bachelor tries his hand at storytelling and gives a wonderfully satisfying, inappropriate story. These stories are laden with humor, but have, like all other stories, an underlying theme. Both themes of these stories are “implied,” and provide an excellent stage to compare and contrast a story on.
Alan Bennett presents his characters in Talking Heads by writing the plays in the form of monologue. By employing this technique he has managed to create a rich and detailed World in which his stories unfold but, he only allows us to see it through the eyes of a single narrator. When reading a play that is presented in this manner it is possible to lose sight of the fact that you are only getting one person’s version of events and you may start to believe that you are having conversations reported to you verbatim. This is a clever mechanism because the narrators can often be unreliable and lead the reader to form opinions and draw conclusions that quite often turn out to be unfounded and false. The term “Talking heads is a synonym in television for boredom” (Bennett, 2007, p, 10) yet, these talking heads are certainly not boring, the settings may be drab and ordinary, the characters are not exciting or inspiring yet, the gossipy way in which the stories are told hooks the reader in. Fitting neatly into the genre of tragicomedy it is perhaps fitting that the ‘tragic’ comes before the ‘comedy’, certainly the dramatist infuses the plays with a rich dose of humour but the melancholy subject matter and the often quite sad and lonely characters always counter balances the laughs with a tinge of sadness.
Kennedy, X J., and Dana Gioia. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Sixth ed. New York: Harper Collins College Publishers, 1995. Print.
Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia. Literature: an Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. New York: Pearson Longman, 2007. Print.
Kennedy, X. J., & Gioia, D. (2013). Literature: An introduction to fiction, poetry, drama, and
DiYanni, , Robert . Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and the Essay. 4th. New York: McGraw Hill, 1998. 408-413. Print.
Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” Robert DiYanni, ed. Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 6th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2007.
Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia. Literature: an introduction to fiction, poetry, drama, and writing. 7th compact ed. /Interactive ed. Boston, Mass.: Pearson, 2012.
Some of the characteristics of Modernism are: a desire to break conventions and established traditions, reject history, experiment, remove relativity, remove any literal meaning, and create an identity that is fluid. The rejection of history sought to provide a narrative that could be completely up for interpretation. Any literal meaning no longer existed nor was it easily given; essence became synonymous. Narrative was transformed. Epic stories, like “Hills Like White Elephants”, could occur in the sequence of a day. Stories became pushed by a flow of thoughts. The narrative became skeptical of linear plots, preferring to function in fragments. These fragments often led to open unresolved inconclusive endings. This echoes in the short story’s format. The short story functions in fragmented dialogue. Focusing on subjectivity rather than objectivity. Creating characters with unfixed, mixed views to challenge readers.
1. Ibsen, Henrik. Hedda Gabler. The Bedford Introduction to Drama. Ed. Lee A. Jacobus. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford Books, 1996. 672-709.
Eileen Baldeshwiler’s “The Lyric Short Story” discusses the two different branches of short story—the “epical” and the “lyrical” (231). Baldeshwiler highlights the separate functions of the forms by focusing on their stylistic differences. The epical short story, according to Baldeshwiler, relies heavily on “external action” that is “fabricated mainly to forward plot, culminating in a decisive ending that sometimes affords a universal insight” (231). Further, the plot and characters are “expressed in the serviceably inconspicuous language of prose realism” (Baldeshwiler 231). In other words, the characters, plot, and overall tone of the piece adhere to reality. In opposition to this style, Baldeshwiler explains that the lyrical short story “concentrates o...
Poetry unlike fiction is solely based on the author’s personal take on a certain subject. The tone, diction, syntax, and mood of a poem are all determined by the author of the poem. For some readers, to interpret a poem or explain the plot can be a difficult task. Other forms of literature such, as fiction is much easier to understand and discuss.
Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia. Literature: an Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. New York: Pearson Longman, 2007. Print.