Midterm 1 Study Guide

Setting up tensions

• Structurally
• Visually
• Aurally
• What's left out?
  

• Art as a mirror to life
• Difficulty of reflecting, difficulty of understanding
• Power and danger of reflection
  
• Distance and disconnection
  

Static-
Music was blaring from a radio and since it was Sabbas she was not allowed to turn off electronics so she saw a young black boy in the neighborhood and tried to convince him to turn it off without actually asking him to do it since she couldn't do that either.

Mirrors and Distortions-
Describes what mirrors are like. Stating that when a person looks inside a mirror they in some ways see themselves on the inside. All of the refraction of lights gather together and focus on one specific point within the mirror

Me and James Thing-
Al Sharpton wears his hair like James Brown because James Brown was like a father figure to him.
Rain-
"Blacks do not have equal protection under the law and the media is used to castigate us. That merely asked for justice rather than castigate those that would hit a kid and walk away like he had just stepped on a roach."

Near Enough to Reach-
"Only Jews listen, only Jews take blacks seriously, only Jews view blacks as full human beings that you should address in their rage and, um, people don't seem to notice that. But blacks, it's like a little child kicking Arnold Schwarzenagger when they have anything to say about the dominant culture nobody listens! Nobody reacts! To get a headline, to get on the evening news you have to attack a Jew."
Isaac-
States how the Holocaust was worse then slavery.

Seven Verses-
Talks of slavery and how it is a crime of tremendous proportion and how the Holocaust did not even equal it.

Wa Wa Wa-
States that the Jewish police only took care of their "kind" and got the driver who hit Gavin Cato out of the car and didn't do so much as to see if the boy was alright. Screamed over and over that the driver was drunk.

Rope-
A woman anchored in his community. She would help out anyone who lived in her community because it was right. It was not a "race woman" in that she would not just vote for someone because they shared the same skin color.

My Brother's Blood-
His brother Yankel Rosenbaum was killed in the streets of Crown Heights for no reason other than the fact that he was a Jew.
Sixteen Hours Difference-
It never even crossed his mind that his brother could become a victim. Never imagined that he could be stabbed and killed.

The Coup-
"JEWISH PEOPLE DO NOT DRIVE VANS INTO SEVEN-YEAR OLD BOYS. YOU WANT TO KNOW SOMETHING? BLACK PEOPLE DO NOT DRIVE VANS INTO SEVEN-YEAR OLD BOYS............AVERAGE CITIZENS DO NO GO OUT AND TRY TO KILL."

Lingering-
Father of Gavin Cato who as killed in Crown Heights. "I was born different. I'm a man born by my foot........I'm the one that's special. There's no way they can overpower me. No there's nothing to hide, you can repeat every word I say."

101 Dalmations-
"That I was extraordinary because I was black. But I am-not-going-to place myself in relation to your whiteness....... My blackness does not exist in relation to your whiteness"

1949- By Arthur Miller

Tragedy of Time-

• Willy's unstable opinion about his life
• Willy's unstable relationship to time
• Dreams become reminders of failure
• The Cruel immutability of the past
  

Freedom in the United States includes the promise of prosperity and success. Willy Loman wishes to achieve the American Dream by being a Salesman.

The present

• Frank's Chop House

• Howard's Office
• Charley's Office
• The Kitchen

The past (~15 years ago)

• Scenes with Uncle Ben
• The Yard and the Garden
• Dialogue about Willy's family
  

Main character. Play takes places during his last 24 hours. Willy is an unsuccessful salesman who only sees his failures in life and has trouble depicting what is happening in the present and in the past. In the past he had more opportunity and could have been successful.

Willy's wife. May or may not notice Willy's inability to depict time and place but clearly notices her husband acting strange and talking to himself.

Willy's oldest son. He wishes to not end up a failure like his father and wants to venture out and create his own life and search for his own version of the American Dream

Willy's youngest son. He wishes to follow in his father's footsteps to prove that being a salesman wasn't a waste of his father's life.

Friend of a young Biff during his childhood. He wishes to ensure that Biff doesn't flunk out of school or throw his life away.

Willy's brother. Willy talks to Ben as though he were still alive and reminisces about the good times and fortune they could have had together if Willy had gone along with Ben's plan.
Scenes with Uncle Ben take place in the past.

Willy's Boss and offers him a job but Willy is not accepting of handouts and wants to accomplish things himself.

431 BCE by Euripides

• 30,000 citizens (adult, male, & free)

• 300,000 inhabitants (children, women, slaves)

• Gender-divided society (homosocial)

• Competition = life

• Importance of speech

• Participatory democracy

• Civic religion

• “Performance culture”

• The City Dionysia - religious festival in honor of the God Dionysus

• Late March/early April, 4-5 days
• Procession of phalli, military tribute, sacrifice
• 18000 in attendance (largest public gathering)
• Publicly funded, subsidized tickets

• Theatron: “seeing place”
  
• Skene: booth, building, or platform

• Orchestra: “dancing-space” - choral area

• Ekkeklema: “rolling out” - cart for revelation of bodies

• Mechane: “machine” - crane for flying gods and heroes

Agon/agonia (contest/suffering)

• Plots surround horrific acts/mistakes that may lead to greater suffering

• Agon between characters, and between characters and chorus, over which action to take

• Hubris - “pride,” and/or hamartia - “mistake”

Restrictions/challenges

• No onstage violence
• Daylight/no curtain
• Mostly old stories
• Only 3 actors (max) •Protagonist •Antagonist
• “4th wall” remains intact

Segregated culture

• Speech as power
• Gender segregation (homosociality) •Two categories: male/not male •Men vs. Women, Slaves, Foreigners, Young Men, Homosexuals

Significant conflicts in tragedy

• Clever speech vs. gullibility

• Masculinity vs. femininity (or non-masculinity)

• Greekness vs. foreignness

• Home vs. public space

Scenes between actors

Choral songs between each episode

Choral Entrance

Choral Exit

Debate

Possibly interpreted as the conscience of Medea, telling her to not do the horrible deeds she plans on.

Witnesses Medea's torment as Jason has left her and stays by her side throughout all of Medea's evil deeds.

Asian "witch" from a foreign land who leaves her home and marries Jason, a Greek. After Jason betrays her she sets out to destroy him in any way possible. i.e killing his bride, his brides father and her own children.

King of Corinth. Allows Medea to stay one day longer in which she can insure that her children will be safe once she has been exiled. He however soon regrets this when he becomes witness to her evil plans.

King of Athens. Offers Medea sanctuary and safety after she is exiled and promises to allows protect her.

Medea's husband. Leaves Medea and marries another woman in order to advance himself in society. Soon regrets this as Medea unleashes her wrath upon him and everyone around him.

Tells Medea that the king and his daughter have been killed by the gifts that Medea had her sons give to them. Medea then reels in the success of her plan.

"Tragedy, then, is a process of imitating an action which has serious implications, is complete, and possesses magnitude; . . . Through a course of pity and fear completing the purification of tragic acts…”

1. Plot
2. Characters
3. Thought
4. Verbal Expression
5. Song Composition
6. Visual Adornment
   

• “The heart and soul” of tragedy

• Complete:  beginning,  middle, and end
• Unified: nothing extraneous
• Probable
• Simple or complex:  change of fortune, preferably with anagnorasis, peripety, and pathos, possibly with sparagmos

• Good: moral quality, better than average
• Appropriate:  characteristics in relation to class or category
• Similar to human nature
• Consistent
• The ideal tragic hero:  “a man who is neither a paragon of virtue and justice nor undergoes the change to misfortune through any real badness or wickedness but because of some mistake”

• Linked to the arts of rhetoric and politics
• Characters trying to prove a point OR
• Characters stating a general principle

The conveyance of thought through language

The strongest appeal of emotions

Visual effects such as costumes, masks scenic effects, decorative elements

• The Three Unities—Time, Place, and Action
• Verisimilitude–the appearance of being true or real
• Decorum—appropriate behavior

Great Chain of Being (r)–

• Hierarchy of creatures, from God to Man to Stones-

• Justification for monarchy and empire

Emerging science and rationality:

• Francis Bacon
• Galileo & astronomy/ cosmology

-Built from the remnants of the Burbages’ “Theatre”

-Open-air amphitheatre

-Multiple levels

-Thatched roof (fire hazard!)

-20-sided “circular” shape

-Standing room for 1000 ‘groundlings’

-Tiered covered seating for other patrons (more expensive)

-Decorated pillars and “heavens”

-Machine room and “tiring” house

“Private,” in-town theatres

• Small, Indoors

• Elite

• Expensive - up to 26 pennies

Public, out-of-town theatres -Bankside

• Large, Open-air
• Cheap - 1-5 pennies
• Nearby activities in the district:
  

Courtly masques and command performances

c. 1603 by William Shakespeare. First performed in 1604

• Structural analysis: the progression of deceit
• Linguistic/poetic analysis: the failure of reason
• Cultural analysis: the failure of society

• Act I: Problem established
• Act II: Plan of attack
• Act III: Struggle
• Act IV: Turning point
• Act V: Outcome

-Environment where stories/appearances matter
-Gradual stripping away of truthful counselors

Playing with blank verse:

• Moments of rhyme and comedy
• Loss of control, loss of rhythm

Iago’s control over speech

• 1000+ lines vs. 800+

Is Venetian society to blame?

• Yes: Iago is Venetian
• Yes: Racism in the play’s language
• No: Tragedy occurs in Cyprus
• No: 1st act = tragedy averted

Does this play reflect flaws in English society?

The Moor.

• Betrayed by Iago into thinking his wife is cheating on him with Cassio.
• Smothers his wife Desdemona
  
• Commits suicide after he realizes what he's done
  

[Daughter to Brabantio and] wife to Othello

• Betrays her father and secretly marries Othello.

• Accused of cheating on Othello and is smothered by her husband

[Othello's Ancient] a villain

• Convinces Othello that Desdemona is cheating on him with Cassio by planting various false facts into Othello's mind, ex. the handkerchief

An honorable lieutenant to Othello

• Unknowingly apart of Iago's plot to destroy Othello.
• Wounded in battle by Iago
  

[a senator] father of Desdemona

• Betrayed by his daughter who marries the Moor.

• Later dies of a broken heart.

A gulled gentlemen

• In love with Desdemona and thinks Iago's plan is to help him win her heart
• Murdered by Cassio
  

Wife to Iago

• Unknowingly helps in Iago's plan to destroy Othello by giving Desdemona's handkerchief (a gift from Othello) to Iago.
• Stabbed by Othello
  

A courtesan [and mistress to Cassio]

• Given Desdemona's handkerchief by Cassio (As seen to her as a gift)
• This sight only helps to rectify Othello's accusations against Desdemona and Cassio
  

Governor of Cyprus