"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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"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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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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Equus Performance Commentary. On paper, Peter Shaffers Equus is extraordinarily vivid piece of literature. Onstage, it is a visually engaging masterpiece

On paper, Peter Shaffer's Equus is extraordinarily vivid piece of literature. Onstage, it is a visually engaging masterpiece, where the complexity of breathing life into characters and settings by the perfected interplay between actors and the stage is an enthralling and emotional experience for all those involved. Like all theatric successes, Equus has endured various convoluted productions of the magnificent original, sometimes succeeding, and sometimes failing, to poke and prod the audience into thinking-questioning- imagining. A handful of directors have fallen prey to the vicious desire present within all of us: to turn a play into real life; to make it relatable to surroundings we are so familiar with. Those who do- fail; fail to understand the concepts that Equus strives to imbibe in its readers. Equus is not a pretty fairy tale dressed in the tattered rags of disillusionment, Equus is macabre and bare, miserly in its pity for a naïve audience that likes to think itself jaded. In Shaffer's words, "Upstage, forming a backdrop to the whole, are tiers of seats in the fashion of a dissecting theatre... [In these] sit the audience". If one allows their imagination to roam as it will (and definitely as Shaffer wished it to be) the audience will form a rather imposing backdrop, hundreds of eyes that look down upon the tormented actors and silently, quietly, judge. Eyes are

  • Word count: 1314
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Assess the relevance of Pages 58 - 63 in the History Boys to the rest of the play

Assess the relevance of Pages 58 -63 in the History Boys to the rest of the play. When we meet Irwin again at the beginning of Act two he is a man now well into his forties and has moved on from teaching history in a school to filming a television history programme on location. We learn that he is five years older and yet there is a certain irony in the fact that he still recites the same mantra that he used with the 'history boys' when called in to prepare them for Oxbridge entry If you want to learn about Stalin study Henry VIII. If you want to learn about Mrs Thatcher study Henry VIII If you want to know about Hollywood study Henry VIII' It was all history. It seems that although older and now in a wheelchair his basic attitude and approach have changed little. He is now a 'personality' presenting a programme upon Rievaulx Abbey and life in monastic orders which he brings down to the level of 'toilet arrangements' stating that he believes this to be the way to bring history to life and the Director reflects upon how he sounds a 'tad schoolmasterly'. Irwin, for all his changed position, having been transported from a life in the classroom to in front of a television camera, is still focussed upon viewing things from an unusual perspective and using language to effect as when he reflects upon the different materials being used in place of toilet paper, in effect saying

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Equus Essay. Although it is obvious that Shaffer intended both Frank and Dora to seem like normal, average people and good parents, his portrayal of Dora leads the audience to believe the contrary. She is one of the least likable characters in Equus and t

Q: Comment closely on scene 11, paying particular attention to the light it sheds on Dora's character and her role in Alan's crime Although it is obvious that Shaffer intended both Frank and Dora to seem like normal, average people and good parents, his portrayal of Dora leads the audience to believe the contrary. She is one of the least likable characters in Equus and thus the easiest to blame for Alan's crime. Though other factors do contribute to Alan's blinding of six horses, it seems instinctual and thus wholly acceptable to blame Dora for Alan's pain. There would be absolutely no reason for Dora to behave the way she does with Dysart if she truly believed in her own innocence: Shaffer mentions in the stage directions that she is "uncomfortable" and punctuates her last few lines in the scene with an "uncomfortable pause". Afraid that Dysart will find the majority of the magnetizing moments in Alan's "chain of shackles" as her work, Dora makes up excuses to mask this combination of guilt and fear she feels. Mixed in with these feelings is her resentment of Alan, resentment that his actions have cast shadows of doubt on her capability as a parent in front of the whole society and society's mascot: Dysart. She therefore masks the truth (that she explicitly came to see Dysart) with a nervously administered excuse: "I've been shopping in the neighbourhood. I thought I

  • Word count: 1930
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Whose Life is it anyway?,The play may seem that it is simply a vehicle for exploring the issues surrounding an ill persons right to take his (or her) life but I think that this comment pays the play an injustice

The plot and action are static, and the characters are undeveloped - presented as either sympathetic or unsympathetic to Ken's situation - while Ken himself is nothing more than a case study of a patient, and not a credible human being." Is this a fair comment on the play? Ken became paralysed from the neck down in an accident and when he had been stabilised he decided over time that he had no reason to live and so wanted to end his life. The play may seem that it is '...simply a vehicle for exploring the issues surrounding an ill person's right to take his (or her) life...' but I think that this comment pays the play an injustice. In this essay I will explore the reasons why this play is more than what this comment suggests using insights gained from watching this play on stage and using themes to support my points. The main theme of the play is the ethical issue of whether an ill person has the right to take his (or her) life or not, this much is true, but it also has surrounding themes which make it much more than what this comment suggests. There are also all the surrounding characters apart from Ken who have there own lives to lead in the play and not everything involves Ken, making it work dramatically and helps to emphasize Ken's position. For example, one of the main themes is love and loyalty like when Nurse Sadler and John start a relationship that builds up in

  • Word count: 1120
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Mrs Lintott - The History Boys

Mrs Lintott is an interesting character within The History Boys, presenting the only female influence and yet another type of teacher which Bennett tried to explore throughout the play. In her conversation with Hector we are able to first determine her character set aside from her job and the audience are able to distinguish her personality in a lot more detail. Mrs Lintott portrays her opinions about the view on women in History, in the social context, and the subject itself. "Mrs Lintott: The new man seems clever. Hector: He does. Depressingly so. Mrs Lintott: Men are, at history, of course." In these lines Mrs Lintott expresses that it is a normality, to her, that men are clever at History. When she says 'of course' there is tone of sarcasm in her voice, showing how sardonic and dry she is. By doing this the audience understand more in depth the way in which she converses outside of being a teacher, because she is having a conversation with Hector, so looses the restrictions that are intrinsic with her character and teacher persona. The sentence structure in this line is very short and simple, portraying the abruptness and often emotionless tone to her speech, contrasting with Hector who is vibrant and eccentric with words and language. There is a link here to later in the play, when Mrs Lintott vents her frustration about the passion of her subject being drained from

  • Word count: 796
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Discuss Hares use of Sir Peter as a criticism of societys legal system in Act 1 Scene 2 and in 'Murmuring Judges' as a whole.

Re-read Act 1 Scene 2 of Murmuring Judges (p3-9). Discuss Hare's use of Sir Peter as a criticism of society's legal system in this extract and in the play as a whole. In Act 1 Scene 2, and in the whole of Murmuring Judges, Sir Peter is used by Hare to represent the negative side of the legal system; namely, that lawyers are only concerned with upholding their own wellbeing and reputation. In this scene, Sir Peter's arrogant character conveys that lawyers at the top of the judiciary system have an impersonal, non-compassionate view towards the individuals they are supposed to be defending. For example, the fact that Sir Peter "smiles, unruffled" when challenged about losing a case reflects his lack of care for the suspect he poorly defended, therefore he is inconsiderate about how his failure has had a detrimental effect on the suspect. The audience perceives this due to his salient facial expression, therefore receiving Hare's intended message that the system at the time was self-absorbed and incapable of sympathy. A prominent event which incontrovertibly influenced Hare to raise awareness bout this notion was the wrongful imprisonment of the Birmingham Six. The fact that this group were framed for a crime they were not involved in exemplifies the problematic nature of the emotionally withdrawn lawyers, who lack diligence to persevere in cases due to deficiency of true

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Shaffer portrays Salieris response to Mozart and his music in a way that helps the audience understand and sympathize with his state of mind. Discuss this statement through a detail exploration of Shaffers use of authorial techniques at th

Shaffer portrays Salieri's response to Mozart and his music in a way that helps the audience understand and sympathize with his state of mind. Discuss this statement through a detail exploration of Shaffer's use of authorial techniques at the end of the library and the march scenes In the library and March of Welcome scenes, Salieri is put in very awkward situations, physically and emotionally. In both scenes, this is due to Mozart being himself, which is what Salieri despises the most, and makes this all the more tragic. The emotions he feels are at their peak at the end of the scenes, and the way the stage directions are written, and how Salieri is speaking allow the audience to capture his emotions and somehow sympathize with the man who also believes he struck a deal with a deity. We first encounter Salieri's emotions for Mozart at the end of the Library scene; the aria that is being played has a significant effect on him. Piercing me through till breath could hold it........the squeeze box groaned louder" brings the attention to pain Salieri is trying to cope with whilst at the hands of this merciless adversary Mozart. The word piercing brings to mind an idea of stabbing, murder, death which heavily influences a sense of concern for Salieri as he is having his hopes destroyed. However, the conflict runs deeper than that, he knows the music itself is beautiful, and he

  • Word count: 1104
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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