"His nature is not remorseless, but to escape from a trap he has to act without pity." Consider Tennessee Williams' presentation of Tom in the light of this statement

"His nature is not remorseless, but to escape from a trap he has to act without pity." Consider Tennessee Williams' presentation of Tom in the light of this statement The character of Tom in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie is perhaps the most interesting in the play, in that he is in some ways the most real character, even more so than Jim, in a world of memories. The main reason for this is that Tom is Williams' autobiographical character, which is especially evident in the narrative aspect. The early life of Williams was very much like that of Tom, with the same sort of domestic problems occurring, and so through Tom we have a window into Williams' life. Therefore Tom is going to be shown in a generally flattering life, as he is a reflection of Williams, and thus we see a character who is quiet, artistic, caring, tender and deeply regretful of having to abandon his mother and sister to their fate. Tom's actions throughout the play cement his quiet, caring nature, except for the odd argument, although even when he loses his temper completely he never strikes anyone, but does have some quite cutting things to say. However, at the end, he does the unexpected, leaving his mother and sister to fend for themselves. I do not believe this makes him remorseless, as he is within his rights to leave, and Laura isn't completely helpless - only in her mind (Jim's analysis

  • Word count: 939
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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"Lady Windermere's Fan is a moral play about immoral people". Explore Wilde's presentation of attitudes in Act One.

"Lady Windermere's Fan is a moral play about immoral people". Explore Wilde's presentation of attitudes in Act One. Oscar Wilde wrote Lady Windermere's Fan, it was first performed in 1892 for a Victorian audience. As it is a comedy of manners, his portrayal of different characters is satirical. When he wrote this play, his ideals were to criticize the attitudes that the upper social class attached to morality through the presentation of different characters within the play. Members of Victorian society could relate to at least one of the characters, which would allow them to self-reflect and maybe change their ways. Ian Gregor states the play is concerned with "the hazards of precipitate and inflexible moral judgement. The subtitle of the play; "A play about a good woman" immediately shows us that the play shall revolve itself around the theme of morality. This is evident in Act One where attitudes are being explored through Lady Windermere's conversations with Lord Darlington, the Duchess of Berwick and Lord Windermere each in turn. Wilde presents different interpretations to morality through these characters's varying social position and their particular social mores. He is challenging the principles that distinguish between right and wrong held by this social milieu. In Act One, Wilde exposes different issues concerning morality and how different characters view

  • Word count: 1389
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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"Linda: I don't say he's a great man... He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being... Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person.

"Linda: I don't say he's a great man... He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being... Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person. Using two or three critical views as a starting point, write an analytical response to the character of Willy Loman in the play. Towards the end of act one, Linda says that Willy is 'just' a common man, but that he still deserves sympathy when something terrible occurs in his life. Simultaneously Arthur Miller speaks through this character to persuade his audience that Willy's fate is vitally important, in spite of his humble status. The implication that Miller is making is that if a person doesn't receive the human dignity they deserve, they can be viewed as fundamentally tragic. Critics have asserted a range of interpretation's of Willy's character, from Gassner's positive assessment that Willy's "battle for self-respect... [,his] refusal to surrender... [and his] agony... gives him tragic status", to the more negative views of, say, Driver, who believes "It is in the lack of penetration that Miller fails us... we must settle for no more enlightenment... than pathetic Willy has." Miller clearly wanted the audience to feel sympathetic towards Willy. To achieve this he advances three main criteria for tragedy: That Willy is a common man, that he loses dignity and that society is to blame for his

  • Word count: 2486
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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"Long Day's Journey Into Night" a play by Eugene O'Neill portrays the actions of a dysfunctional family.

"Long Day's Journey Into Night" a play by Eugene O'Neill portrays the actions of a dysfunctional family and brings us on a reflective journey from when the fledgling family had started, devoted to one another with high hopes for the future, to what it is today, a family engulfed in turmoil. Each character caught up in their own cycle of self-destruction and method of escaping their reality that they do not realize that they are making their present situation that much worse. Mary, Tyrone, Jamie and Edmund have all mastered the art of denial, but have failed to understand the concept of responsibility and forgiveness. Throughout the play, O'Neill's theme is one of a disclosure into the life of a seemingly normal family on the outside yet convoluted with bitterness on the inside, bringing O'Neill's premise of illusion and truth into the whole story. Mary Tyrone, a once beautiful girl who dreamed about becoming a nun or perhaps a pianist, has become terribly unsatisfied with the turn of events of her life and the person she has become, tries to flee the self proclaimed world of evils she is living in mainly through her morphine use. She blames her addiction to morphine on the stinginess of her husband, who hired a slip-shod doctor to prescribe her pain killers for the pain giving birth had caused her. Though she blames her husband it is Mary's own anguish and guilt that caused

  • Word count: 1100
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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"The British are bad news to the Irish" - "Explore critical views and explain your own viewpoint as to whether this is the point Brian Friel is making in his play Translations."

"Translations" By Brian Friel "The British are bad news to the Irish" "Explore critical views and explain your own viewpoint as to whether this is the point Brian Friel is making in his play Translations." The quote "The British are bad news to the Irish" is taken from the article "What's On in London" and it was the writer Kenneth Hurren who wrote the column. Kenneth Hurren also wrote in this column, "With Translations it transpires that Friel is not at all foolish and has shrewdly cottoned on to where he was making this mistake in pressing for the withdrawal of Britain and her troops from his country. Fundamentally he is still making the same points, he is still saying that the British are bad news to the Irish; but he is saying it subtly and persuasively in terms of a marvellously eloquent and ostensibly fair - minded play, full of humour and humanity, instinct with grace and understanding." Brian Friel was born in 1929 and has had a successful career as a play-writer he is known for his famous plays "Philadelphia here I come", "Lovers", "Freedom of the city", "Faith Healer" and many more excellent plays. All of Friel's work has had something to do with Ireland and Irish themes. Brian Friel's "Translations" is a play, which is an interpretation of Ireland in the 1830s and the play shows a great change in the society at that time. At the time "Translations" was

  • Word count: 3430
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Long Days Journey into Night: Character Analysis

Long Days Journey into Night: Character Analysis In this essay I shall be examining two characters and their actions and roles in the book I shall also be comparing the two characters and examining their relationship with one another. I have chosen to examine Jamie and Edmund. Jamie is considered a failure by our standards; he was neglected as a child by his parents and never loved. He has become an alcoholic, like his father, and has no prospects for the future. He is often described as a 'whoremonger' as he resorts to brothels to make up for the lack of love he receives at home. He is blamed for killing his brother Eugene who died as a baby from illness. Edmund has been ill since he was born and this is often blamed on Jamie. He is the child born after Eugene and is mollycoddled by his mother, Mary who is afraid to let him go. He is beginning to become an alcoholic through his brother's bad influence. He is Eugene O'Neill's double in the play, and has sailed around the world but is now sick with consumption, even though he has no more lines than anyone else the play tends to revolve around him with it climaxing at the forgiveness of his father and brother for all the bad things he has done to him. Both Jamie and Edmund are deeply aware of their mother's drug problem. The first point I am addressing with Jamie is his role as a 'failure'. During the book Jamie is always

  • Word count: 1219
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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A Detailed Analysis of the Dramatic Qualities of the Duologue between Krogstad and Nora and the End of Act One

A Detailed Analysis of the Dramatic Qualities of the Duologue between Krogstad and Nora and the End of Act One The very start of the duologue, when Krogstad silently enters the Helmer household, disturbing Nora's innocent game with the children strongly draws on themes from Victorian melodrama, that is to say the 'villain' coming in to disturb the 'perfect family'. This theme of the family being threatened by some external force at first encourages the audience to sympathise with Nora, however as the duologue goes on and more information is revealed, smudging the boundary between the 'evil villain Krogstad' and 'innocent heroin Nora', Ibsen challenges the conventions of Victorian melodrama by allowing the characters to develop, hence reaching a level of complexity where they can no longer be categorised as simply good or bad. Nora greets Krogstad with great hostility, feeling authoritative in the given situation as he has entered her ground, and taking on a rather rude tenor with her first words to Krogstad being: 'Oh! What do you want?' Nora clearly registers surprise at Krogstad's unexpected appearance shown by her exclamation 'Oh!', and doesn't feel she has to hide her disappointment in seeing him as she doesn't believe that Krogstad poses a threat to her. Nora's extensive use of interrogative sentences such as 'You want to speak to me' further proves that she feels

  • Word count: 1531
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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"A Reader privy to Miller's Commentary would view 'The Crucible'very differently to a Theatregoer".

"A Reader privy to Miller's Commentary would view 'The Crucible' very differently to a Theatregoer" In 'The Crucible' by Arthur Miller the commentary and stage directions are very important and they tell the reader a lot of information that they would not know if they had only seen a production of the play at the theatre. This fact, however, does not stop people from going to see the play and also does not stop people producing new versions of it. 'The Crucible' was first performed in America in 1953, then in England in 1954 and since then there have been countless productions of it in theatres worldwide as well as at least two films made of it. One possible explanation as to why the play is so popular is because it is such a powerful and timeless depiction of how intolerance and hysteria can tear a whole community apart, and people can still relate to this. At the beginning of Act 1 there is a very long commentary followed by some stage directions. These portions of text give us a full introduction to the play itself and the setting, and through them the reader learns that Salem is a relatively newly established town (even though the book tells us also that by today's standards the town would "hardly be called a village"). It was also very sombre place with a strict Puritan society and religion played a major part in their lives. Also in the commentary there is a

  • Word count: 1432
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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"A Streetcar Named Desire" written in 1944 by Thomas Lanier Williams.

Marco Wu Class 10° ENGLISH ESSAY Throughout the play "A Streetcar Named Desire" written in 1944 by Thomas Lanier Williams, better known as Tennessee Williams; we can meet various social issues such as homosexuality, loneliness, psychiatric illness and the contrast between the New and the Old America. This are all social issues presented during the life of the author. The protagonist of the play have the characteristics of Tennessee Williams' family, Stanley is like his father, the one who decides everything, as a "KING". Meanwhile Blanche is a mix between his sisters Rose who was mentally ill and his mother who had hysterical attacks, and as we know the author of the play was homosexual who consumed his 1rst experience at age of 28 and declaring it openly during an interview, this connects directly to Blanches' husband who was Homo and killed himself. Once William said "Symbols are nothing but the natural speech of drama...the purest language of plays". In the whole play there is hidden meaning; we know that the initial title of the play was "the moth" which represents Blanche a fragile being, in literature the moth is the soul, therefore the entire play is a big allegory that talks about the way to heaven (Elysian Fields) of the soul. So the

  • Word count: 1372
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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"And do we blame superstition for what has come to pass? Or is it what we, the English, have come to know as class?"

"And do we blame superstition for what has come to pass? Or is it what we, the English, have come to know as class?" 'Blood Brothers' is a musical based on superstition and class, and Willy Russell has used various techniques to make a point to the audience that social class makes a difference in our society. This is why he asks the question above. In this play some things occur because of superstition, but most are due to the social class of the characters. The first few lines have great significance to the rest of the play, as they create suspense and confusion towards the audience. First of all, Russell creates dramatic irony with the audience, as he explains the whole story in the form of a short poem. This is then repeated at the end of the play, just before the question above is asked. The quote "How one was kept and one given away" is very significant, as this is the main story of the play. The audience now know what is going to happen - "An' did never you hear how the Johnstones died," and they see "a re-enactment of the final moments of the play- the deaths of MICKEY and EDWARD", but they do not know how it happened. This leaves the audience in suspense, and confused as to why the twins died, "Never knowing that they shared one name". The first line the narrator speaks is "So did y' hear the story of the Johnstone twins?" and this rhetorical question is directed at

  • Word count: 3203
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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