I'm trying to write about how people are treated, what it means to be brutalised, what it means to live without hope, and how theatre can be a humanising force'. How helpful is this statement to your understanding of the play?

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                                                                        Nilkanth Patel

        Critical Essay

        ‘ I’m trying to write about how people are treated, what it means to be brutalised, what it means to live without hope, and how theatre can be a humanising force’.

        How helpful is this statement to your understanding of the play?

                                                                                           

        ‘I want to rule over responsible human beings, not tyrannise over a group of animals… help me, Ralph’. This quote is taken from Captain Arthur Phillip’s words and portrays how some of the characters can be errant and so are treated accordingly, or vice versa. Phillip makes a request ‘I want’, and being the kind hearted, noble and forgiving gentleman he is, it is sure enough expected he gets what he wants. Throughout the course of the play we, the audience, can see his wish being fulfilled in spite of some of the other officers’ pessimism. It is their pessimistic and military nature that causes them to inhibit the production of the play ‘The Recruiting Officer’.

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        The characters’ attitudes and treatment of others is very hierarchical, with the exception of Phillip and Second Lieutenant Ralph Clark. The characters in particular, that portray this hierarchical tendency, are Major Robbie Ross and Captain Watkin Tench. Tench is more concerned with teaching the convicts practical skills about life ‘teach them to work’, rather than the theoretical option, through a play- as the famous quote says: ‘give a man a fish and he can feed his family for a day. Give the man a net and he can feed his family for a lifetime’. Another opposing force, one that carries ...

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