Compare the ways in which Stoppard and Bront use multiple timeframes to create effect in the scenarios which occur in Arcadia and Wuthering Heights.

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Compare the ways in which Stoppard and Bronté use multiple timeframes to create effect in the scenarios which occur in Arcadia and Wuthering Heights.

Both Bronté and Stoppard use multiple timeframes as a technique for creating effect in their stories. By looking at the various ways in which they do this we can see the range of effects that this can create. Every aspect of how these effects are generated makes a huge difference to how the literature is read. The style of the authors and the thoughts provoked from their respective pieces are partially down to how they have executed this technique. For example Stoppard’s trademark mysteries would not work at all without the use of a variety of perspectives from different periods.

The use of timeframes is far more obvious in Stoppard’s Arcadia than in Bronté’s Wuthering Heights. The central theme of the play revolves around using two periods of time to create various mysteries that we as an audience already know the answer to, while the characters are left in the dark due to their view of only one of the time periods. The effect that this creates is both farcical and satirical. Farcical because we watch the characters poking at threads and working themselves up over matters that only we know is leading them nowhere; and satirical as it demonstrates how the overconfidence of journalists and researchers in their own theories can lead them to the completely wrong conclusions. An example of this is Bernard’s complete faith in his theory of Chater’s death while we know that this cannot possibly be true due to previous events seen in the regency period scenes prior to this.

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Bronté’s more subtle approach to timeframes in her structure means that, although mysteries are created, they are less obvious and we as an audience are in a reversed position to when we looked at Arcadia – the characters are up to date but we are in the dark. En example of this is the names scratched into the paint in the room where Lockwood originally stays. The multiple surnames preceding the repeated forename, “Catherine”, causes us to wander how she has ended up with three different names attached to her own. This mystery however is revealed over the course ...

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